On the heel of midterms, just as half the campus is ready to jump off the bridge and the other half is ready to drink itself into oblivion, the College has played a nasty scheduling trick. Instead of enjoying a well earned respite from stress, many a student will spend this weekend trying to think of ways to show parents that Dartmouth actually is $20,000 a year better than State U. Bongs are being wrapped in towels, girlfriends temporarily moved back to their own dorms, and spines on textbooks cracked to approximate usage.
Luckily, I will be spared this headache, for my Sophomore Parents' Weekend has already come and gone. There were a few facets that tended to be common for most people. First of all, your mother will think your room or house is a pigsty no matter how many times you clean it. Even if you hire a professional maid, her brain will superimpose enhanced visions of "Animal House" over what she sees. Secondly, your father will think that you're having more sex, drinking more beer and doing more wild things than you actually are. By the time he leaves, you will be feeling like the biggest toolbox on earth. And no matter who they are, taking younger siblings to fraternity parties has never been a positive experience for the student involved.
But, for many of you, the worst part will having to hear one more time about what a blast college was in the '60s, and how much our generation sucks in comparison to theirs. About how their music was so much better than the current noise, about how the partying was so much harder, and about how they had morals and vision and CHANGED THE WORLD!
There is only one logical response to such a self-serving journey down memory lane: What a bunch of bull! Mark Twain once made a comment, which has since become a cliche, about how the older he got, the smarter his parents got. Most people our age see some truth in this statement. Paradoxically, however, the older I get, the dumber my parents' generation looks. Ever since we were young, we have been inundated with personal recollections and media concoctions about the virginal beauty and ultimate importance of the youth culture in the '60s. Our parents' generation has flooded the culture with paeans to their youth, with the implicit message that it will never be rivaled by their offspring.
However, when we look at the actual truth about our parents' generation, we can probably get closer to the truth. As soon as they became adults, our parents' brothers-in-arms sold the precious values that they still break out for class reunions and proceeded to sell our future for short-term financial success. This was the generation of junk bonds, of voodoo economics, of skyrocketing divorce rates. To go into the sins of the '80s would be a column in and of itself. It is instructive in this case for showing the general character of the Baby Boomer generation. It is a little unbelievable to think that they had worked purely selflessly and suddenly turned on a dime to become Reagan's Army.
The fact is, the "world-shaking" generation was nothing more than middle- and upper-class college students who acted in their own self-interest. They were self-important kids who had been spoiled rotten by their parents, who had just returned from the horrors of WWII. This is not to say that there weren't a great number of legitimate problems that needed to be addressed. But the real changes were made by dedicated men and women, who often gave their lives, not by students taking over college buildings to smoke pot in the president's office.
So when your parents mention that they can't believe how apathetic everyone is towards the outside world, and how they can't believe that we'll someday be running the world, just nod your head and smile at their self-delusion. Our grandparents said the same thing about them, and there is no way we can do any worse. When your parents recount numerous instances of college insanity, chuckle and realize that they are the result of 20 years of romanticism. And realize that someday you too will be remembering things at Dartmouth that never actually happened, and bitching about your kids' generation.
