When Parents Text: So Much Said...So Little Understood
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Authors: Sophia Fraioli,Lauren Kaelin
So Much Said . . . So Little Understood
Lauren Kaelin
Sophia Fraioli
WORKMAN PUBLISHING • NEW YORK
To Mama and Papa K, without your ceaseless support
none of this would be possible.—lk
To Mom and Dad, you’ve shaped the person
I’ve become. Thank you for all your love and support. I love
you very much.—sf
<3
Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Kaelin and Sophia Fraioli
Design copyright © by Workman Publishing
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaelin, Lauren.
When parents text : so much said . . . so little understood /
Lauren Kaelin and Sophia Fraioli.
p. cm.
eISBN 9780761168638
1. Text messages (Telephone systems)--Humor. 2. Parenting--Humor.
I. Fraioli, Sophia. II. Title.
PN6231.T565K34 2011
384.5′34--dc23
Cover design by Will Staehle with Jean-Marc Troadec
Cover photo by Thomas Northcut/Getty Images
Interior design by Jean-Marc Troadec
Illustrations by Tae Won Yu
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When Parents Text
, in some ways, is about us—recent graduates, home from college, best friends for life. But it’s also about a generational divide—a technology gap between parents and their children. There is a new code of our generation, one of tweets, likes, and appropriately placed emoticons. We wrote the rule book, and now our parents are trying to learn the rules.
Our website was originally about our parents: our mothers and fathers, our muses. It was about how much we love them and how crazy they are. It has now become, we hope, about your family—how much you love them and how crazy they are. It has been our privilege to read the exchanges between parents and children and see glimpses of our own in them. Some people worry that technology is hindering human connection, creating more distance in relationships, but we think
When Parents Text
is evidence to the contrary.
We hope that our website has brought you joy, made you LOL, and finally opened some dialogue about the meaning of the word
chode.
Best of luck in your future communicative struggles.
_______
We met in elementary school and bonded over mutual love for soccer and trading Got Milk? ads during recess. When we entered sixth grade, we sat next to each other in social studies class and became best friends.
It was 1999: Our most prized possessions were our portable Discmans. We spent countless hours downloading music from Napster while communicating incessantly over AOL Instant Messenger on our parents’ desktop computers. We did not own cell phones until the end of high school (and we’re sure those first few texts would be worthy of a website).
We were inseparable throughout high school, contenders for the dynamic duo superlative; most people still think we’re sisters. Despite all this, we come from very different families.
Lauren:
If you call my house in Montclair, New Jersey, a four-year-old me with a subtle lisp will tell you that you’ve reached the Kaelins and you can “leave a message, if you like.” For twenty years, that has been the message on our answering machine. And when my parents eventually retire and hopefully move to their dream lakeshore property, I’m sure they’ll find a way to take it with them.
I grew up the youngest of three in a fairly traditional household. For two decades, my home hasn’t changed much, sporting the same floral wallpaper, upholstered couches, and linoleum countertops. My mother diligently changes our holiday decorations—from pumpkins to Santas to snowmen to hearts. My father loyally watches the Knicks games and completes
The New York Times
crossword puzzle Sunday through Wednesday.
To combat our Catholic upbringing and strict curfews, my brother, sister, and I snuck copious amounts of music television and late-night phone calls. We developed sarcastic personalities and fairly foul mouths.
I went to Smith College, a small women’s school in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts with a legacy-rich history. “Barbara Bush drank tea on this couch.” “Betty Friedan lived in that house.” My college experience was the perfect mixture of baby grand pianos, hundred-year-old tradition, and modern debauchery.
When I graduated, I was told I could do anything: follow in the paths of notable alumnae, tackle the issues, lead a life of distinction. I did not spend four years trying to figure out what to do when I graduated, but convincing myself I never would. I had bought the GRE prep book but had stopped at the chapter on Special Right Triangles and opted instead to perfect my gin and tonic proportions.
Come graduation, I was ceremoniously booted into the real world. With few job prospects and overwhelming student loans, I returned to my suburban home and all its familiarities.
In this childhood redux, I no longer have to sneak music television, but actively tune in for
Jersey Shore.
When I come home at 3
A.M.
, my mom asks me to walk more quietly. It’s ideal, really—homemade soups, live-in laundry, and the most obliging of roommates.
Sophia:
The Fraiolis would best be described as loud. Loud voices, loud opinions, and loud personalities. We are a middle-class family, Jewish, Italian, and a little bit crazy.
I come from a long line of New Jerseyians. My mom was from Trenton, and my dad lived in a small town called Essex Fells, and before that, my mother’s parents both came from South Jersey. I was born in New York City, but after four years of life in Manhattan, the Garden State seemed to be calling my family’s name. So we decided to leave our apartment in the East Village and move to Montclair, New Jersey, the sixth borough of New York.
I grew up the way most kids did in my town. My sister and I attended public school and spent Mondays and Wednesdays learning Hebrew at our local temple. My life played out in typical suburban fashion. I sang and danced in school plays and made macaroni necklaces in art class. I spent my teen years being clumsy and very messy. I rarely cleaned my room and had my friends write lyrics on my walls in permanent marker.
In the summer, I vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard, where I spent full days with my extended family on the beach, followed by hefty barbecued meals prepared by my father. When I finally graduated from high school, I was excited to move beyond the suburban landscape I had grown up in and on to something more exciting.
I decided to attend the University of Vermont, where I studied anthropology and political science. I went to a lot of parties and switched roommates more times than I’d care to recall. I gained an amazing group of friends and by my junior year could call the small city of Burlington my home. But at the end of my four years, I sat among my classmates at graduation with no plan. Lauren and I had discussed the prospect of moving south, somewhere warm where we could live together, but neither of us had the means to do it.
Like many recent graduates, my only option was to move back home.
Though I felt slightly defeated, I knew that Lauren and a handful of my other friends from high school would be there, too. And we could commiserate about failed job interviews and the woes of parental problems together.
Reestablishing this relationship with my mom and dad was not easy. But after a while, we came to an understanding about when I needed to do the dishes and how my previous curfew of midnight was no longer acceptable. We can now agree on scheduling our DVR properly and eat dinner together on most nights.
We never imagined the adult version of our friendship playing out back in our hometown. It’s strange living at home and not having to wake up for school in the morning, not caring whether or not it’s a snow day. It was a postgraduate twist neither of us expected. But there were also reassuring consistencies: a few old friends, the local deli, real bagels, and the new joys of our favorite bar.
In between babysitting jobs, unpaid internships, e-mails from DirectLoans, and taking NJ Transit into the city for various hourly wages, we received some texts from our parents.
Lauren already had had tacos for dinner, but Sophia hadn’t eaten since lunch, so she insisted on stopping at a Panera for a soup-and-salad combo before going out to meet friends. It was near closing time. As the staff mopped around the soda machine and Sophia ate her Fuji Apple Chicken Salad and artisan bread, a fateful exchange took place.