The Youth

This is the last track played during the movie The Kids are All Right, a really sweet movie about love, marriage, children and the difficulty we all sometimes have, within the context of our families and love relationships, getting our needs met.

Somehow, I feel like the lyrics to this quirky song sum up pretty well what the movie is all about:

This is a call of arms to live and love and sleep together.

We could flood the streets with love or light or heat whatever.

Lock the parents out, cut a rug, twist and shout,

Wave your hands,

Make it rain,

For stars will rise again.

The youth is starting to change.

Are you starting to change?

Are you?

Together.

In a couple of years

Tides have turned from booze to tears.

And in spite of the weather,

We could learn to make it together.

In some ways the movie is about how much pressure the youth put on us adults to change. I think if we can let it happen, this growth is nearly always positive, but changing is uncomfortable, and as adults, we have entrenched coping mechanisms -- one adult in the movie turns to wine, the others to sex. When those are taken out of the picture though, the tears indeed come, and the sense that they can make it together -- the kids and the adults, the kids as adults -- continues to grow.

All of which, I'm happy to say, gives me hope for the youth and the adults in this burgeoning family o' mine...