Is It Too Late to Be a Brady?

 

            I just read an article http://www.tvguide.com/News/Brady-Bunch-Reunion-Kings-Island-1065862.aspx that three of the Brady kids  - Greg, Peter, and Cindy – recently returned to King’s Island Amusement Park for a reunion. Remember that episode? All the Brady's got to go along – even Alice! – on Mike’s all-expense paid business trip to an amusement park so he could try to sell them his architectural plans. And of course Jan almost ruined everything - as Jan always did - by mixing up her Yogi Bear poster with her dad’s sketches and then losing them. It was a classic, as they all were.

             If you don’t remember that episode, and every other gloriously corny episode from the Brady Bunch series, you can probably stop reading right now. But if you grew up with the Brady’s as I did, then you’ll understand the nostalgia the reunion brings. 

            Let's face it, we all wanted to be a Brady. Even though we were all living in the 1970’s at the same time, the Brady version of the 70’s was so much cooler. Their bell bottoms seemed wider, their lingo seemed hipper, and their house had TWO sliding glass doors! And what about that baby blue Plymouth convertible they had? Right on, man!

            The Brady’s had a lot in common with my family. The Brady family had six kids. We had six kids. The Brady mom drove a wood paneled station wagon. My mom drove a wood paneled station wagon. The Brady’s had a dog (until that darn Jan was allergic to it and almost ruined everything AGAIN). We had a dog. The Brady’s had a live-in housekeeper. Ok, that’s where the similarities end, but it was enough of a connection for me to think becoming a Brady wasn’t too much of a leap.

            It wasn’t like I was totally delusional; I didn’t think I could be any of the three Brady girls, I just wanted to be part of the Brady household. The only problem I saw was that it would upset the 3x3 grid during the opening song. Even at a tender age, I knew ten squares wouldn’t work. The craning of their necks was bad enough as it was. I planned to solve that dilemma by offering up a trade. Jan was never good at anything and she did ruin that anniversary portrait when she rammed her bike into it while not wearing her glasses. With a little coaxing, surely they would agree to swap Jan out for me. Goodness knows she’d be glad to get away from Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! After all, Marcia got to kiss Davy Jones and Desi Arnaz, Jr. The closest Jan got was George Glass, her pretend boyfriend.

            Assuming I could take Jan's place, I always thought Peter would be a hoot to have for a brother, with his goofy demeanor and his love for messy volcanoes. I would even put up with Bobby. But I had more than brotherly thoughts about Greg. You have to admit, he was kind of dreamy. I think I first realized I had a crush on him when it made me giddy that his Drive-In date ended up with a frog on her head.

            So maybe having Greg for a brother might've been complicated, but having Mr. Brady for a dad would’ve been pretty awesome. He was so level-headed and fair, with his advice handed out with a sincere pointing of the thumb, “You know, Bob…” he’d say when telling Bobby why he was as good as his brothers. This aptly demonstrated what a great dad he really was, because – let’s face it - Bobby wasn’t nearly as good as his brothers. I truly think President Bill Clinton picked up the sincere thumb point from Mike Brady.

            Mrs. Brady was nothing like my mother, probably because my mother didn’t have an Alice. When my mom was in the kitchen, she was actually cooking for her husband and brood of six. Carol Brady would sometimes hang out in the kitchen with Alice when Mike was due home, to feign helping with dinner or baking cookies, but that seemed the extent of it. I loved the episode when Carol told Alice that she shouldn’t be doing all the cleaning up after the kids, as she herself was performing the arduous task of deciding on a party costume. Subsequently, Carol’s earrings went missing (accidentally thrown in the laundry) and got ruined, which I think was housekeeping karma giving Carol a kick in the ass. But how else was she going to keep her bangs just so and wear those outta’ sight pantsuits, even to the amusement park.

            Even though we all knew the show needed to end when they jumped the shark and added (an undeserving) Oliver to their clan, I was still never ready to give up being a member of the Brady family. So reading about their reunion without me is bittersweet. Let’s get past the fact that it’s been (gulp) 40 years. And that the Brady kids are no longer kids. At least the current Greg still knows how to sport a groovy shirt. 

Cindy, Peter, & Greg at King's Island, 2013

            I console myself by recalling that sometimes it’s not so good to re-visit your childhood. I made the mistake of looking at H.R. Pufnstuf on You Tube as an adult and was as traumatized as I should’ve been seeing it as a kid. All I could think was, #1 – I must’ve had an extremely active imagination as a child, and #2 - Yes, every adult in the 70’s really was on drugs. My childhood memory of Pufnstuf exceeded its reality, which I'm sure would also be true of meeting the Brady kids all grown up.

            I mean, if I could’ve gone to their reunion, I suppose I would’ve had to call them by their real names, which would be a real bummer. And then I’d be disappointed if Peter’s voice had finished changing and Greg didn’t make a move on me. Already it was disconcerting that Cindy decided to do the reunion trip sans pigtails, although I believe she still has her lisp, which would be a little bit of a consolation. But without Jan at the reunion messing everything up and Marcia stealing the spotlight, I would surely be brought into the fold as a Brady sister. Heck, I’d take a football to the nose if I had to.

            Perhaps I should’ve traveled to that amusement park in Mason, Ohio to cross Being a Brady Kid off of my bucket list. Who knows, I could’ve had my very own Jerry McGuire moment: As I approached in my clogs and flashed the peace sign, we could’ve exchanged some 70’s lingo, which would’ve ended with the Brady kids saying, “Korina, you complete us.”

            And I would’ve replied, “You had me at ‘far out’.”

Waiting on the World to Change

            With so many graduations going on this time of year, there are a lot of proud parents out there. I’m sure they’re (almost) always proud of their children, but a diploma gives them carte blanche to be loud about their pride, and rightly so. Personally, I foresee possibly getting thrown out for standing on a chair whooping it up when they call my son’s name, even though we’re supposed to hold our applause until the end. It’s definitely one of those milestones every parent looks forward to. Although I try not to rush time by thinking too much about the future, I find it’s helpful in raising my son on a day-to-day basis to step back as often as I can to keep in mind the big picture.

            When people have disagreements about raising a child successfully, you often hear the ones with grown children say, “Well, mine graduated [insert ivy league school here]” or “Mine graduated magna cum laude,” as if that trumps everything. With all our insecurities as parents, maybe that’s a simple way to confirm that we did ok. They graduated from college, end of story. Maybe they think their child is the one immune from being among the many stressed out, maxed out young adults walking around with a college degree. And maybe their child is. However, with the ever-increasing list of achievements teens are compelled to put on their college applications, chances are there aren’t going to be very many young adults who aren’t burnt-out by the age of 22. As parents, we’re not only contributing to this trend, we’re the ones setting it.

            What do you mean, Korina? We’re just doing what we have to do for our kids to be successful later in life. Tell me, if we’re not setting these rules, then who is? Certainly not the kids, but we keep using them as an excuse for our own past regrets and competitive tendencies. Maybe we think, If only I had gotten to play the violin from the age of six… or If only I had gotten to go to soccer camp… or If only my parents had pushed me to take all AP courses… So we do it for our kids without finishing those sentences for ourselves. So what if you had? That’s right, that’s what kept you from being the multi-talented, multi-faceted, good looking, multi-millionaire that you were destined to be! More likely, you might’ve been good at playing an instrument or better at soccer or had a leg up on some freshman college courses, but at what expense? Is racking up the longest checklist what our lives are about?

            For some people, perhaps it is. When I was in my mid-twenties I met someone who often – for years - brought up her SAT score in regular conversation. After being accepted to college, I don’t think I even remembered what my SAT score was. It was just a means to an end, not who I was. But apparently those four numerals defined her. Now that her daughter will be taking the test soon, I’m certain we’ll be subjected to a new generation of score keeping.

            Because sometimes that’s what it is, isn’t it? Keeping score, keeping up with the Jones’s, making sure your kid isn’t a single step behind anyone else’s kid. I think what we need to be clear about is that this need (and fear) is about us, not about our children. We can say we’re doing it for our kids; we just want them to be successful adults. But what is it that we really want for our children? I think we can all agree, we want them to be happy. That’s the bottom line. Even for those people whose identity depends upon which college their child goes to, they still want their children to end up as contented adults. So maybe we ought to step back more often and think about what makes us happy as adults.

            How many of us are happy being scheduled to the hilt, even for things we might enjoy? Yet our kids don’t even get the weekends off from schedules. How many of us want more time with our families? Yet mom and dad spend all weekend, every weekend split apart taking each kid to his or her sporting event. How many of us wax nostalgic about how we spent hours playing outside with our neighborhood friends? Yet we don’t allow that kind of free time for our own children.

            While we’re giving our kids every possible opportunity to excel, we might just be depriving them of the precious freedoms that come with childhood: the freedom to live in the present moment, the freedom to be creative, and the freedom to enjoy quality time with their family. Frankly, we’re cheating ourselves, too.

            I’m not saying we shouldn’t help our children be the best they can be. I’m all for being an involved, participating parent. The bar my parents set for my siblings and me was to stay out of jail and off of welfare. For the record, I think the bar ought to be a hell of a lot higher than that. But we don’t want our children growing up so single-minded in their quest for society’s notion of success that they end up like Suzy Lee Weiss, an angry high school senior who felt entitled to get into her first choice of college, and robbed when she didn’t. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324000704578390340064578654.html) Or worse, Paige Aiello, captain of her college tennis team, who was accepted to nine law schools, but committed suicide just before her graduation. (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/body-id-new-jersey-college-student-article-1.1339669).

            Those are extreme cases, but I see the next generation inching closer to those scenarios. Let’s stop with the excuses about why we can’t ratchet it down, scale back on extra curricular activities, and stop making our kids believe that their school test scores will be on “their permanent record.” On their permanent record will be whether they were kind, honest, emotionally healthy contributing members of society. They shouldn’t forever be quoting their SAT score in order to feel accomplished.

            Perspective might be the best thing we can give to our children. We seem to be telling our kids, “This is how the world works and you have to follow it.” What we could be saying is, “Make your world what you want it to be.” As parents, let’s lead the way.

Slice of Life: Tiptoe Through the Tulips At Your Own Risk

Last year we bought an annual pass to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Our nine-year-old son loves the outdoors and science in equal measure, so it’s a treat for my former botanist husband to give him lessons on plant life as we stroll through. So far we’ve seen the fall foliage, the heralded Holiday Train Show, and the spectacular tulips, azaleas, and magnolia and cherry trees of spring. However, after our third visit last weekend, we realize the NY Botanical Garden has managed to achieve the unachievable: making their visitors feel confined amid 250 acres.

We refer to it as the zoo for gardens for its extreme look, don’t touch attitude. After all, why would they want us to experience the natural environment all around us when we can stick to the concrete paths? Why would they want to foster an interconnection between people and nature when they can spend the entire day telling us to stay off the grass and only smell the flowers that emit a fragrance from a safe distance of at least three feet?

Maybe I exaggerate…but just a little.

My son was longing to climb a couple of giant boulders and asked if he could do so. I, of course, said yes, only to hear a few moments later from somewhere unknown a bellow to “Get off the rocks!” I felt like Dorothy Gale, the small and meek, when the Great and Powerful Oz was berating her for daring to stand before him. He got off the rocks, knowing that the many footprints on that boulder may speed up its erosion to under a million years, and we wouldn’t want that. But it wasn’t just us being targeted. Oz could be heard intermittently shouting at people of all ages to get off the grass.

The amount of visitors the NYBG gets – 800,000 annually – makes rules necessary to maintain its beauty. After all, who wants to pay to see trampled tulips? So yes, stay off the flowerbeds. Don’t climb the trees. Don’t let your children wade into the water. Don’t litter. Ok. But surely within their 250 acres, they could have green spaces for visitors to do more than look longingly from afar. We had brought a lunch; envisioning picnicking with the grass beneath our bare feet, but that was not to be. There was one designated picnic area, tables and chairs only, so people would eat like civilized city folk. Our boy begged us to let him feel the grass between his toes. No son, why would you think that would be allowed here, out of doors?

Although we enjoyed our spring afternoon, the Garden captivity atmosphere came to a head at the end of our visit. There was a maze sculpture in front of the conservatory. There are two openings in the hedges to access it, as well as a wide staircase leading down to it. I stayed back taking photos while my husband and our son walked towards the structure. As our son started through the maze, again we heard shouts from the Great and Powerful. This time, however, he emerged from behind the curtain to run towards the maze as he continued yelling at our son to get out. I mean really yelling, as if our son had started spray painting it. I could hear him from where I stood some fifteen yards away. Our son immediately ran over to his dad, frightened and unsure of what he had done wrong. From this point on, I didn’t hear the conversation between my husband and the employee, but I didn’t have to. My husband’s hand gestures were enough to know that he was going a little New York on the guy. The sign in front of the maze sculpture read: Do Not Climb the Sculpture. There was no climbing. And did I mention it was a maze.

After we got to our car, I tried to do damage control, letting our son know that he did nothing wrong, but that maybe daddy could’ve handled that a little more calmly.

“That was calmly,” my husband said. “I’m from New York.”

Because I was secretly happy that he had told the guy off, I conceded by telling our son that he should always let us handle it as he did, and he should never speak to an adult like that.

He said, “Oh, I wouldn’t.” Pause. “But I did smile while Dad was chewing him out.”

Oh, boy. I guess he got more than a botany lesson this time.