I've seen the future, and I'm going to be terribly embarrassing to my children.  Today while we were working, we listened to XM Radio.  After a few hours, we turned to the 80's channel.  I asked one of the college-aged women if it was a bad sign that I knew almost all the words to every song that had been playing for the past twenty minutes.  She laughed and said that she hadn't recognized a single one.  Then, Will Smith's "Parent's Just Don't Understand" came on.  I turned to her and said, "Certainly you recognize this song.  It's Will Smith.  Well, it's from when he was the Fresh Prince."  She said, "I don't think I've heard this one."  You might think that at this point, I would just have felt old.  But, no.  Instead I turned up the volume and told her that I'd try not to sing along to the whole thing.  It was then that I realized how very embarrassed I'm going to make my children.

When that time comes, I'm going to be sure to let them know that no matter how embarrassing I might be, I will never be as good at it as my dad was when we were growing up.  When Sophie brings home a boy, I'll never tackle him on the front lawn and tell him that he "better be quicker than that to date my daughter."  I won't ever ask a cute boy walking by our table in a restaurant if he was looking at her.  When in an elevator, I won't ask the young girls on board if they are looking for single boys then tell them that Martin is available.  I'll never launch a weed whipper across the lawn just as Martin is bringing a girl home to watch a movie.  Regarding that last one, I will say that my dad didn't throw the weed whipper to embarrass me, it's just that it was broken and he was sick of fixing it.  But still, it was very embarrassing.