Pardon us while we climb out of this generation gap we fell into recently. It may take us a while – there’s nothing that can make you feel so old as realizing your youngest child has come to a point of mature judgment in life. Here’s how it happened to us.

Our youngest son, who’s 15, has been surprising us all year. First, back in January, he signed up for a music class in guitar at school. We confess we were tempted at first to add extra insulation to his bedroom and pretend it was his new recording studio, but we managed to restrain ourselves. Then our son surprised by showing a heretofore unsuspected aptitude for playing the guitar. We can only surmise that his newfound talent spurred him to keep up with daily music exercises, running up and down scales on the guitar strings as if they were the old playset in the backyard.

He kept practicing throughout the summer on an old guitar he borrowed from his teacher. One day after he finished his rehearsal, he mentioned casually that he might progress to an electric guitar in the fall. His father took the hint and started checking out online music stores and even auction sites for ads offering an electric guitar for sale. Unhappily for our limited family budget, even the sale prices on guitars came close to what we could afford.

In order to avoid disappointing our teen-ager, we stayed mum about the Great Guitar Quest. What we didn’t count on was that although he never heard his parents when they called him to do a chore, his super-hearing kicked just as we were discussing how to acquire a guitar for him. This knowledge set off a teen-age version of the ecstatic dance done by a certain cartoon beagle when his round-headed master brings out a full supper dish.

We finally got him to calm down long enough to talk things over with us. After all, there was no more reason to keep the conversation secret. His dad began by setting ground rules: Son had to maintain his grades, do his chores, and most of all, justify the investment by keeping up with his lessons and rehearsals. Naturally our budding guitarist readily agreed to every condition.

His father tried to lay down the law with our son. He explained that this was a big investment, since it involved both a guitar and an amplifier. He emphasized that getting a guitar was a reward for our son’s excellent performance, and that he needed to keep it up or further guitar enhancements would not be forthcoming. Then, since the surprise was blown, my husband asked our son what kind of guitar he wanted. That’s when our brains exploded from shock and went flying around the kitchen.

A sober countenance quickly overcame the ecstasy on our son’s face. Although we’re sure he thought his parents were utterly clueless, our teen explained patiently that he was learning to play classical guitar, not rock ‘n roll. He wanted something that would serve that purpose, such as a Takamine acoustic electric guitar

Then after a moment, he added we also might consider the Ibanez acoustic electric guitar.

You could have blown us over with a feather! Here we middle-aged Generation X-ers were contemplating our sprout turning into a god of rock, and instead he’s preparing to become the Andres Segovia of his generation!

Our boy is growing up. Soon as we can pick our jaws up off the floor, we’ll congratulate him for his maturity.