I take pride in being a good parent or at least trying to be a good parent. That's my goal anyway. So when I was watching the comedian Louis C.K. last week, I couldn't help but laugh at his jokes about being a single dad. Those jokes, like laser-guided missiles, were dead-on target, funny, and very true (the best comedians can do that, you know?). After laughing so hard that tears were pouring out of my eyes like a busted water faucet, Louis said something very poignant, "I found out I'm a pretty bad father. I make a lot of mistakes. I don't know what I'm doing. But my kids love me." And that was it. I was crying like a little girl. Well, maybe not a little girl. OK, I wasn't crying at all. I'm a tough guy, you know?

Louis did get me thinking though. As a parent, I always use what I know as a point of reference and for most of us good parents, we think about what our parents did for us as children when we try to make parenting decisions for our own kids. The funny thing is, as my kids get older and more and more decisions have to be made for them, I realize that what my parents did was in stark contrast to what I do now. For instance, I recently had a conversation with my kids about them walking to school. My immediate reaction was, "There is no way in hell that you girls are going to walk to school. There is an extremely busy street where we live. You could get run over. And kidnappers! What about the KIDNAPPERS?! And don't get me started about the CHILD MOLESTERS!" After I dropped my kids off at school, I thought really hard about what my parents let me do when I was my own daughters' ages. I dusted off those childhood memories and remembered that when I was in kindergarten, my dad let me ride my bike to school, which was a few miles from my house. I had to ride through an alley and a field of grass to get to a road that took me through the other side of the neighborhood to my elementary school. I was only five years old. I didn't get run over. I didn't get kidnapped. And I did not get molested. Weird, huh?

When I tell my friends who are parents about this, they always seem to say, "Well, times are different now. It just wasn't like that back then?" Back then?! You mean WAY BACK in the mid 1970s? Excuse me for shedding some light on when the bad guys first appeared in history but it was LONG before the advent of the internet. I mean, Jack the Ripper was screwing things up in the late 1800s. There wasn't any CNN or Facebook back then, smarty pants, to scare the bejesus out of us. So was it an act of faith on my parents' part or was it the old "ignorance is bliss" argument with them? I recently asked my mother about this, the whole riding my bike to school thing. And do you know what she said? "Your father and I expected you to do what you were told. So when we told you to ride your bike to school, we expected you to ride your bike to school." That's it? My parents just expected a dumb ass, five year old kid (that would have been me) to do what he was told? Do I expect my kids to do what I tell them? Of course. Do I still worry about them? You're damn straight! And I think that is the difference between this generation of parents and our parents' generation before us: the worrying.

So, why is it that I feel we as parents worry so much about our kids? That's a pretty tough question. But after quite a bit of thinking (and quite a bit of red wine, I might add, thank you), I've come up with two reasons. One: the internet. Our lives are now inundated by tragic news. We get bombarded every minute through our cell phones, tablets, computers, our goddamn TVs, streaming boxes, video game systems, and even our cars. Every gadget in our lives is trying to get connected to the internet and it's turning us into a bunch of worry warts! We can't even take a dump without the bad news infiltrating our quiet bathrooms (and don't try to tell me you don't browse the internet on your phones while you're in the bathroom. You're probably reading this blog in the bathroom now).

Two: our generation is different. Now, this is the most important part because our generation does things like never before. And I mean, NEVER BEFORE in the history of the world. We have stay-at-home dads. We have women in the workforce doing serious things. Our generation is blazing trails with new gender roles like never before. But, and this is a big BUT, I think we are fucking ourselves up along the way. When you blaze new trails, you make mistakes. And this, my fellow parents, is why we worry. We are worrying because we are doing things that other parents throughout history have never done before. That is some scary shit, my friends. In my own case, I can't use my dad as a point of reference when I have to make certain decisions. Not because he was a bad father, but because he didn't do the things I do as a parent. So when Louis C.K. says, "I found out I'm a pretty bad father. I make a lot of mistakes. I don't know what I'm doing. But my kids love me." He's not saying this because he literally is a bad father. He's saying this because he WORRIES he's not being a good father. I worry too. That's what our generation does.

So, I would like to propose a toast to all of my hard working friends who are parents (and this includes you too, internet friends. We are all in this together, you know?). Get your glass of wine or pint of beer or glass of scotch or your Diet Dr. Pepper (I'll forgive you "non-drinking, yet still worrying nonetheless" parents just this once), whatever gets you through the day. Here's to you! I know you work hard at parenting in spite of all of your mistakes. Your intentions are good and your kids love you anyway. That is all that matters. In the end, your heart is in the right place. For a generation that is like no other, that speaks volumes. Now, put your drink down because your toddler just flushed her head in the toilet. Or your son just licked the electrical outlet in his room. Or your twins are shoving poopy fingers in each others' mouths. Cheers to you! You deserve it.

If you enjoyed this blog, then please fire up those Kindles or Nooks or iPhones or iPads or Sony Readers or whatever you read stuff on (I know you can read. You read this heartfelt blog) and search for eBooks by yours truly, Scott Semegran. You'll find some great stuff to read, some of it FREE and some of it cheaper than a Starbucks coffee. If you need a link to get started, then here you go. Give this indie author some support. I have kids you know. They are probably doing something that will make my hair turn grayer than it already is. I'm sure they already have. Shit.

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