Once a dad, always a dad

My most recent picture of my children,

taken in May at David's graduation from

a master's program at Columbia.

I love being a dad.

And I love being a granddad.

My celebration of Father’s Day will be with a cookout with family on Saturday evening.

My daughter will be there, visiting from Connecticut. My stepdaughter Kelsey will be there with granddaughter Rylin. My son, David, is in Washington, D.C., and can’t make it, and the other stepchildren (Patrick, Eileen and Reilly) too are scattered about right now.

My celebration will include a toast skyward to my own dad, who I hope knows how much he has contributed to my richness of being a dad.

Of late, I’ve fallen into certain familiar dad patterns with Rylin, almost six months old, that I did with Elizabeth, my oldest, now 28.

I call Rylin “Goose” and “Munchkin” and “Pumpkin” in the same way I would Elizabeth. It’s no wonder Rylin looks at me with quizzical eyes, as if to ask:”Just who does this guy think I am anyway?”

Of all the things Rylin is, she is not “Scoot.” That was, is and forever shall be reserved for Elizabeth.

I love being a dad because I find the kids interesting. They’re engaging and wonderful company. They’re very smart, and they make me feel much smarter than I actually am. It’s an osmosis thing.

I’ve separated myself enough from the day-to-day chores of being a dad.

It’s been a long time since Elizabeth or David needed to be changed or fed, prodded to finish a fifth grade school project, driven to karate or gymnastics practice, or reminded to make safe, responsible decisions about going to prom.

They’re full-fledged adults, making full-fledged decisions about life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

But that doesn’t mean the elements of being a dad end. I worry - mostly in silence, sometimes out loud about this or that. And I miss them.

Elizabeth is great about calling once a week. If the phone rings at 7 o’clock in the morning, I know it’s her. And David and I play chess -- via text messages that keep us touch by 140 characters or fewer with each exchange.

But sometimes the regular phone calls and texted chess moves aren’t enough; it requires getting in a car or on a train to see them, to give them a hug and a kiss, to view them in the environments they’ve created for themselves.

Here’s to being a dad -- to what it was then, to what it is today, to what it will be in the years ahead.

Blame Nanny State on Baby Boomers

We’ve become a Nanny State and Baby Boomers are the reason.

Blame it on us -- the helicopter parents -- for creating an environment that at times has become too overprotective of kids.

The term Nanny State dates back to a conservative member of the English Parliament in 1965 to describe interference and protectionism by government.

Use of the term has blossomed to include everything from economic policies to regulatory practices.

In the context of kids, it has to do with society being so concerned about children’s well-being that we won’t allow them to do anything that might bring them harm … or even bring them close to being harmed, physically or emotionally.

The most recently example came from the state of New York, which sought to regulate organized recreational activities that it said carried “significant risk of injury.”

Those activities included Whiffle Ball, dodgeball, Red Rover, Freeze Tag, and kickball.

The state’s Health Department created the list, which includes archery, scuba and horseback riding, in response to a state law passed in 2009 to better regulate indoor camp programs.

But publicity about the list created a furor, and the Health Department has since backed off, saying it is compiling a revised list that it says will be “more sensible.”

That we even came to this can be traced to Baby Boomer parents who in the 1980s and 90s had children who they tried to keep safe from all kinds of physical and emotional harm and trauma.

When we Baby Boomers were kids we’d head off on a summer’s day on our bikes or on foot and we’d play ball in vacant lots, or go explore into the woods, or just generally screw around without a parent even knowing where we were.

We fell out of trees and broke our arms. We skidded off our bikes and got scraped. We played full contact Red Rover and survived.

But we put our guard up with our own kids and created playgroups, and supervised play, with scheduled activities filling up their days and our calendars. It’s like we put them in a protective bubble.

Trampolines now need safety netting. We don’’t have winners and losers in youth soccer or baseball -- games end in a tie. If your kid skateboards he wears elbow pads, knee pads and a helmet. A helmet is a required fashion accessory for riding a bike and skiing/snowboarding.

Yes, our need to protect our kids did some good. Yes, we saved countless of kids from injury. Yes, we protected them from the danger of child predators.

Yes, we did good hovering over our children the way we did. But did we do more harm than good in the process?

Are the children of Baby Boomers willing to take the risks that are sometimes necessary to take in a world that gets more competitive all the time? Are they willing to put themselves out there at the risk of getting scraped up?

Many of us Baby Boomers are now Empty Nesters and we’re taking stock of the job we did as parents.

Am I happy with the adults my children have grown into? You bet. I couldn’t be more proud.

Could I have done things differently? You bet.

I think now that allowing a few more risks, letting them take a few more chances, letting them get bruised or bloody in a game now deemed “risky” would not have been terrible.

Better to be safe than sorry?

Not always.

Baby Boomer children to the barricades?

The young people taking to the streets in France to protest future cuts in their government retirement got me thinking: Would my kids do the same thing over changes to their Social Security?

No, they wouldn't.

Social Security has a big bull's eye on it right now.

The government retirement benefits that their grandparents enjoyed and that their parents plan to enjoy, could be vastly different by the time the children of Baby Boomers get to retirement age.

The issue in France is like it is around the world. Governments are going bankrupt. One major cost to a government is its pension system.

France wants to try to save money by raising its pension eligibility age from 6o to 62.

Young people and union members took to the streets in protests and strikes. It got violent there for a while. The transport of fuel went to a standstill.

The French National Assembly has voted to approve the change, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to sign it in the face of a legal challenge.

A similar fate faces Social Security.

One way to rein in spending government spending here is to put more control on entitlement programs such Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Social Security and Medicare are especially vulnerable because of the volume of Baby Boomers who are now becoming eligible -- 10,000 a day for the next 20 years.

The worry is that more money will be paid in benefits to retired Boomers than will be paid in payroll taxes by America's workers.

The full retirement age for those retiring now is 66. (You can start collecting at 62, but you don't get the full value of the benefit.) For those born in 1960 or after, the full retirement age is 67.

A deficit panel created by President Barack Obama is considering a proposal that would raise the retirement age to 68 by 2050 and to 69 by 2075.

Baby Boomers will get theirs. I'll get mine at 66 ... 62 if I decide to accept less.

Baby Boomer children may not. My daughter Elizabeth will be in her mid-60s in 2049, David in 2052. And you have to wonder if Social Security will be there then and how much further out of reach it might be for my kids.