Kind of strange how it's turning out for the eternally youthful generation

“Up until the 1950s, American children yearned for adulthood. When their time came to be adults, they stepped into the role proudly, leaving childhood behind and taking up the mantles of responsibility, honor and dignity. They embraced and championed the ideals of those who came before them while valiantly tackling new ideas and problems that their families, communities and nation faced. Those days were long gone.

“Americans now shunned adulthood, preferring to remain in a state of perpetual adolescence. By failing to move forward with grace and dignity, they left a gaping hole in American society. They treated relationships like disposable lighters, tossing marriages away when they ran out of gas. Children were left without families, and even worse, they were left without adults who could be role models of responsible behavior.”

-- BRAD THOR, "The Last Patriot"

Let me start this with two words:

Mea culpa.

Nearly everything I will criticize in this piece will be something of which I am also guilty. I certainly was not influential enough to be responsible for causing any of it, but if, as the saying goes, you are either part of the solution or part of the problem, I was part of the problem.

I never saw my Dad read comic books, or watch cartoonish movies about superheroes. Until he was in his 60s, I never saw him wear blue jeans, and I never saw him wear T-shirts advertising commercial products. We never discussed whether Superman could beat Batman, or what the coming year's Strat-O-Matic baseball cards would look like.

My Dad was a serious guy, and unless you're under 40 as you read this (or unless your dad was Soupy Sales), I'll bet your dad was too. I don't know anyone of my close friends who had a joking relationship with his father when he was in his teens or twenties. In fact, one of my closest friends lost his dad as a young adult, but for years his youngest brother often piped up with "Dad wouldn't want you to do that."

When I was 40 and my brother was 30, I was home for Christmas and Stephen and I were spending some time on the computer playing the second "Leisure Suit Larry" video game.

Our dad was OK with it -- we both had good jobs and it was a vacation -- but he was sort of shocked to learn that we had spent $20-30 dollars calling the Sierra hint line for clues to keep us going in the game.

I'm pretty sure he never -- that's right, never -- played computer games, and he was around for nearly 20 years after that Christmas.

I had an odd moment at my daughter's wedding in 2006 (I think) when I saw my new son-in-law doing some sort of goofy traditional family dance with his brother and their dad to "Woolly Bully."  My first reaction was that I could never imagine my brother and I doing that with our Dad.

Then it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.

In that particular grouping, I wouldn't have been one of the sons. I would have been the dad.

Ryan's dad was my contemporary, not my father's. His grandfather was at the wedding, as was my dad, and neither one of them was dancing.

But to return to the thesis from the beginning of the piece, my generation not only didn't yearn to be grown up, we shunned it. When someone at a store or a doctor's office called me "Mister Rappaport," I can't count the times I said, "Call me Mike. Mr. Rappaport is my dad."

As often as not during my years as a sportswriter, I wore golf shirts and jeans to work. For at least 15 years, I didn't own a business suit. When jeans were inappropriate, I wore khaki slacks. When a tie was required. I wore one with a dress shirt and possibly a sport coat.

If you look at the walls of my home office, it's certainly not what you would expect from a guy collecting Social Security.

The only times I really feel like a traditional-type adult are on the occasions when my children ask me for advice about something. So I suppose you could say they keep me honest.

Thank God for that.

They are 32 and 28, and both of them are definitely adults. They have pursued their careers like hounds pursuing a fox, and both of them have accomplishments at least a few years beyond their ages. They are making their mark in the world, and seeing how things turn out for them and their children is one of the main things keeping me interested in life.

So maybe my generation has wasted way too much time on having fun and spent way too little time as responsible adults. In the end, though, I guess we've muddled through and at least left the world a generation -- our kids -- that is going to fix what our generations and the ones before us got wrong.

Remember, hope is the thing with feathers.