Reasons I'm Happy I'm a Parent, Not a Kid, in 2015

Maybe social media is to blame for this too — are parents pushing kids to double up on activities because of what they see on other people's Facebook feeds? Or maybe kids are so oversaturated with images of their friends running from soccer games to play rehearsals to jujitsu competitions that they think that's the only normal childhood you can have? Whatever the case, there's much to be said for downtime, being bored, and figuring out how to entertain yourself. It just doesn't happen much in 2015.

At least 20 times in the past month, I've remarked how glad I was that so few of my teen years were documented. The world is a better place without thousands of pictures of me prebraces with bleached, feathered hair, rocking full Flashdance couture.

These days, everything is captured, able to be preserved — and possibly manipulated — for the whole world to see. Though this comes in handy when documenting a government coup, your average kid is at best posting yet another picture of her pumpkin spice latte, at worst posting a video of a classmate in a compromising position.

If people were going to be mean to someone else, they had the balls to do it in person, and they had to witness how it affected the other person. Now kids bully other kids with cowardly anonymous posts. And that's just when they're trying to be mean.

Kids post photos of every party they are at to make themselves look popular or to show people what they are missing out on. (This goes for adults, too — before you post photos of your kids' parties, think about how the kids who were excluded will feel when they see them.)

There were no Kardashians. No Paris Hiltons. No reality TV. Entertainment personalities weren't perfect, but they weren't grown, catfighting women or vapid celebrities famous for nothing other than a "stolen" sex tape. I have seen Kim Kardashian's shiny vagina all over Twitter. I can't say the same about Joanie Cunningham. Some things are best left unseen.

I'm talking about the kind where artists played actual instruments and didn't have to rely on autotune. And there were records — my kids don't know the excitement of pulling a record out of its cover sleeve and hearing those first notes when the needle hits the vinyl. They don't know what it's like to spend hours pouring over liner notes and reading lyrics. Yes, there's some good music out there, but it's not the norm. I'm looking at you, Nicki Minaj.

Kids' lives these days are filled with instant gratification. When I was growing up, calling a friend involved the following steps:

1. Get a phone book and look up the friend's number.
2. Pick up the phone and make sure no one was already on the line.
3. Wait for my mom to get off the phone.
4. Pick up the phone.
5. Fight with my sister about who needed to use the phone next.
6. Pick up the phone.
7. Wait for my dad to get off the phone.
8. Dial my friend — we had a rotary phone. This process could take up to five minutes if you messed up the number or if your friend had a lot of nines in her number.
9. Listen to the busy tone.
10. Hang up the phone.
11. Repeat steps two through 10.
12. When the busy tone finally stops, let the phone ring for a few minutes.
13. Walk to your friend's house to see if she is home avoid avoid another repeat of steps two through 10.

These days, if kids wants to call a friend, they just click the name on their phone and, if the friend doesn't answer, just leave a message or text. If there's a show they want to watch, it's available On Demand. If there's a book they want to read, they can download it on their Kindle or have a drone from Amazon deliver it. If there's a question they need answered, they turn to Google. Though WebMD is my friend when my child is sick at 3 a.m., for the rest of things in life, I've learned that there is great pleasure in anticipation, and the act of figuring something out, just searching for an answer, is a gift in itself.