Sophia Fraioli - When Parents Text: So Much Said...So Little Understood

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, youve shaped the person
Ive 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 reproducedmechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout 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
384.534--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 usrecent graduates, home from college, best friends for life. But its also about a generational dividea 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 familyhow 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 were 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 were 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 youve 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, Im sure theyll 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 hasnt changed much, sporting the same floral wallpaper, upholstered couches, and linoleum countertops. My mother diligently changes our holiday decorationsfrom 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 womens 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. Its ideal, reallyhomemade 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 mothers 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 familys 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 Marthas 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 Id 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.