GENERATION Y

I'm way past trying to be cool for high school students. Maybe I could pull it off when I started full-time at 22, but bottom line, I'm just an old fart in their world today. I don't think I impress them much, and honestly, I don't spend too much time trying. I'm supposed to be an adult in their world who cares, not an adult who acts like one of their peers. They have peers and truth-be-told, they don't want me to act like one anyway. So, in order to relate and not be dismissed as irrelevant, I just try and genuinely care about what they care about.

This means that I'm ok with a lot of music styles and good with learning what they're listening to and why. I frequently ask to give whatever their ipod has on it a listen. I'm good with hearing about their hobbies and understanding the things they like to do are not the same things I like or liked to do. I'm ok with sucking at texting or being a lousy musician or the fact that I can't dance or talking about tatoos or discussing why it is they like the rod they just stuck through their tongue or if they can pull the one out of their lip to shoot soda out of the hole it leaves behind... etc. I'm good with a lot of our differences I think.

However, one of the cultural trends I can't get my mind around and constantly hound students for is the sag that some of our guys have going on. (For the record, I'm kinda glad that most of the girls stopped wearing the low cut jeans and most of our guys stopped wearing their sisters pants too. Yep, that emo thing killed me.) Anyway, I'm ok with some droop in your drawers or a little freedom from a butt hugger wrangler jean trend, and I'm not sure we should outlaw the sag like some town in Georgia or Alabama or something I recently read about. But I will say, I don't get why anyone would be willing to wear a belt around their knees to keep their pants up or be so dedicated to the droopy drawer that they'll walk 4 steps, pull them up, and then walk 4 more steps. I'm ruthless about doggin' the students in my group who insist that plumber crack is cool and that I should be fully aware of the color of their boxers. Last week one student was sitting on a stool in our small groups and I kid you not, his boxers were so visible that when he sat down, his pants were not even touching the chair.

So tonight, when my dad sent me this pic. I laughed out loud. This cartoon kills me.