We live in The Age of Ophelia and of the sticky transom, and neither of those things are good, or worthy, when day is done. Ophelia is one of the most insipidly sad characters in all of Shakespeare’s greatest works — and in Hamlet, she not only dies a coward’s death — she also deeply burns disappointment into every reader of the play and observer of her character in performance.
Continue reading → The Age of Ophelia and the Sticky Transom
“Kill Your Parents” was a rallying cry of 1960’s America. We were embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam, the world was fighting to change with hope-through-force, and the liberal campus of Columbia University in the City of New York was embroiled in one of it’s worse moments in its history during the Spring of 1968.
When I was in grade school, I took a bus in the morning and had a morning routine — one of my grandmothers would walk me to the bus stop and make sure I safely got on before going home. I sometimes see parents in my building doing the same for their children, along with the occasional grandparent. One father decided he wanted to take what could be a loving task and make it ever so slightly Panopticonic and built a drone plane to follow him to the bus stop — all four hundred meters, that is.
I thought we were done with Helicopter Parents and Militia Mommies way back in August of 2006. But nay! Velcro Parenting still grabs! They’re all still hovering and floating and attaching and waiting to get their hook and eye boots on the ground as they drive their kids — and colleges! — crazy!
Continue reading → Velcro Parenting, Clinging Children and the Return of Helicopter Parents
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