Skip to main content

Connecting Generations...It's not about technology

By Stephen C. Schultz


“Mom!...Mom!...Mom!”,  she exclaimed as she burst in the room. Rough around the edges and worn from age, the door stuck for just a moment when she turned the knob and hit it with her shoulder at the same time. With an unbridled motion, she was through the door. The glass pane rattled and the faux wood blinds swayed back and forth as she caught the inside edge with a left handed back-swing and sent the door whistling to its closed position.



Past the old wood stove and into the kitchen, she kept yelling, “Mom!...Mom!”.  

 While I’m not her mom, but her dad, I finally said,

“What is it hon? What’s the matter?”

She turned and said with a heavy breath,

“It was so cool! We sang Over the Rainbow and Puff The Magic Dragon with them!”

With her heart rate still up and short rapid bursts of breathing, she continued,

“We even painted their nails! It was so fun…but so sad. They were so happy to see us. One lady even played the ukulele…she was so talented!”

Then my daughter Emma, all of 13 years old, thoughtfully said in a somber voice,

“It’s hard for me to think that we all end up like that…forgetting stuff, lying in bed watching TV all day.”

This was the second time that my daughter has gone to the local nursing home with her friend from across the street. They go as a part of a church youth group to sing and share time with the senior generation. 

As her father, it has been interesting to watch her demonstrate sincere compassion and empathy for those who have contributed so much in an earlier time. I find it ironic that our most “connected” generation of all time is conveniently “disconnected” from its heritage.

It did my heart good to see my daughter and her friend selflessly attending to the very subtle needs of an older generation. To her, it was a fun night singing songs and painting finger nails with “Old People”. She probably isn't aware of it, but I see the development of a caring, compassionate teen that recognizes there is value in life beyond the latest clothing styles and technology.


Here are a couple of other posts that include my daughter. One is when she decided to sneak out of the house and the other is about her interactions with a homeless man in San Diego, California. You can check them out here and here.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lessons I learned from a childhood experience with bullying

By Stephen C. Schultz The dew around the window was starting to bead up. In a classic case of chaos theory, the little beads of water gave way to gravity and randomly bounced and bumped their way to the window sill like a steal marble in a pinball game. There was a small pool of water in the cracked and peeling beige paint. I sat facing the window, staring at the small engraved stone nestled in the flower beds. There weren’t many flowers at this time of year. Mostly rhododendrons and Oregon grapes reaching skyward from the damp bark mulch that covered the planter area.   The month of January in Eugene Oregon was filled with days and days of mist and fog.   In fact, pretty much from October through June was filled with fog, rain, mist, showers, freezing rain and occasionally snow. The local weathermen didn’t bother with predictions about the chance of precipitation; they took pride in developing new adjectives to describe the type of precipitation and how much you can expect.
10 comments
Read more

"Sugar and Spice" - A Child's Kindness

By Stephen C. Schultz I recall a childhood rhyme that went something like this; “…sugar and spice and everything nice…that’s what little girls are made of!” As the father of three daughters and one son, there is no doubt about the truthfulness of that saying. I was in San Diego a couple of weeks ago with my family. We were down at Seaport Village right on the bay having lunch. It was a beautiful day, sun shining, light breeze and we were eating on an outside deck. We were engaged in a conversation about what we wanted to do later that day when I noticed my youngest daughter, a fifth grader, was focused on something else. So, I turned to see what she was gazing at. She was following the movements of a transient man who had walked up onto the deck and was systematically searching the garbage cans for food. He was looking in each receptacle and reaching in to move the contents around. At one can, his hand came out with a partially eaten sandwich of some kind. He reached back
9 comments
Read more

Perfectly Wicked - A new take on an old fairy tale!

Guest Blogger Amanda Schultz Age 15 There she was…hair as black as night, lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow. Standing by the window, washing dishes, whistling while she worked. Snow White. I shudder with disgust every time I hear her name. What kind of a name is that anyway? “Snow White”. Gahhh, it’s a name that practically begs to be made fun of. Yet, there she goes, frolicking around like she owns the Enchanted Forest. No. I’m the Queen. I’m in charge. My magic mirror was mistaken. I’m the Fairest of them all, not that sorry excuse for a princess. One bite from my poison apple and that air-head will be so ugly not even her mother could love her. And I will be the Fairest once again! I suppose that I should rewind a little bit. It wasn’t always a competition between Snow White and me. In fact, back in the day, we had a nice little system going on. I would rule the kingdom and practice my magic, while Snow did the dishes and tended the garden. She stayed out of my w
11 comments
Read more