WASHINGTON ? You know you?ve been a parent for a long time when you stop freaking out over things that used to make you pop a gasket. When my 18-year-old was three, he cut his chin while horsing around with his older brother. My wife and I heard a loud crash and ran to investigate. That was what we did back then when we heard a loud crash. Now we just turn up the television a little louder.

When my wife saw the injury, she called my parents for a ride to the emergency room. Breathlessly, she told my mother that our son had ?a gash in his chin the size of New Jersey.? A few stitches fixed the kid up good as new.

When our seven-year-old fell with a crash and a scream last weekend, we both sighed. ?You want to go look?? my wife asked. ?Give it a minute,? I replied, shifting on the sofa. ?He?ll come to us.?

He showed up soon enough, blood spurting from a cut right next to his eye. At the emergency room, we learned that medical techniques had evolved in the years since we?d waddled into middle-age complacency. High-tech glue had replaced needle and thread, and a competent nurse practitioner patched our boy up with little fuss and no tears.

It?s not just extra poundage and laziness that influence our less-frenzied parenting style. Part of our maturity ? if we can call that ? derives from a greater appreciation of our own parents and the methods they relied on to raise us. Both of us try to react to challenges in the calm, reasonable manner that we believe our parents would use.

While the sight of a scraped knee or a cut chin has little effect on my blood pressure, there are still things that give me pause. Such as paying $37.25 to fill up my gas tank. I showed the numbers on the pump to my seven-year-old who, when not falling and crashing, likes to greet me daily with ?Can we do something fun today??

?See that? That?s why you haven?t been to Six Flags this summer,? I said. ?I could almost buy one adult ticket with that money.?

I also told him that my brother and I would head to the schoolyard on summer mornings, carrying enough bats, balls and gloves to outfit an entire team. We?d get a game going and play happily for hours. We didn?t have science camp, swimming lessons, magic shows, and rented movies as my kids do ? but we somehow managed to have fun.

Maybe we should have pushed our dad for more activities. After all, he paid a lot less for gas. He would order ?two dollars of regular? for our trusty Rambler wagon while an attendant checked the oil and cleaned the windshield. In my memories, that two dollars took us all over town.

?It probably got us around five gallons,? my Dad said when I called and asked him about it. He said he couldn?t break it down in terms of mileage. ?We just drove around the neighbourhood and to the grocery store.?

Ah, yes, the grocery store. I asked my mother how many bags of food she could buy for $37.25 back then. ?At least four,? she said. ?Everything was so cheap.?

My parents were children during the Depression and, like many in their generation, have a genuine sense of what it means to struggle for basic necessities. Considering all that, I wondered if those ?cheap? groceries seemed costly at the time.

Not at all, my mother said. ?I thought everything was very available. Nowadays, a lot of people spend more than they need to get a nutritious meal.?

As a young couple with just one child, my parents lived in Jefferson City, Missouri, while my father completed his college degree. Mom told me they had ?navy beans, cornbread and a salad for dinner every day except Sunday. And we were thrilled with that.?

My children associate ?thrills? with theme parks and Chuck E. Cheese?s. Some timely budgetary discipline could get them there, according to my mom. ?I went shopping yesterday,? she said. ?I got five pounds of potatoes for 88 cents. Beans are much higher than they used to be but you can still get a bag around here for 45 cents.?

That?s it: I?ll suggest to the kids that we subsist on beans and potatoes for a while, and then spend the savings riding roller coasters and carousels. Then guess who will be popping a gasket?