Imagine for a moment that you have a roommate. But not just any roommate – this lodger embodies the self-righteousness of Torquemada, the imperiousness of Anna Wintour, the self-regard of Kanye West, the grandiosity of Joan of Arc, the sanctimoniousness of Cotton Mather, the arrogance of Donald Trump and the censoriousness of Simon Cowell. And she is scrutinizing your every move and finding you wanting every minute of every day.
Plus, this roommate is not only NOT paying rent — she is compelling YOU to pay her mobile, car, clothing, food, shelter, latte and education expenses — and bitching about the quality of the goods and services you provide. Congratulations: you’re the parent of a teenager!
If my mom was still alive, I would text her a version of the above, and she would laugh her ass off at me and tell me I deserve no better because I was such a gigantic pain in HER ass back in the day. And she would be right. Le sigh.
Please feel free to offer advice on coping with insufferable offspring or discuss whatever.
Baud
You birth it, you buy it.
Josie
I read somewhere that God made colleges for teenagers to go off to.
bemused
Teenagers can be so adorable!
I do remember looking back at myself as a teen and smack my head. A sunlight outdoor photo with a beautiful layer of snow of my parents, my younger brother and me outside the home of my uncle and aunt as we arrived for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner is a hoot to look at. It would have been a lovely photo if it were not for my sourpussed teenage face which really stands out. Oy.
beth
I can offer no advice, only sympathy. Mine moved out, had a horrible roommate experience and moved back in. You would think having a roommate who didn’t ever clean, mooched food, left the tv and lights on 24/7 and took 40 minute showers (Mom, do you have any idea how much utilities cost?) would have given her a clue. Like you said, le sigh. We never see ourselves in others.
Valdivia
I love that sentence so much.
The thought that I did this to my mom is making me want to go and apologize once a day for at least a month.
I graduated from high school very young and left home relatively soon after that so maybe I spared her the worse?
newdealfarmgrrrlll
Mortifying them in public is a slight plus – when I was an obnoxious teen I just KNEW my dad was trying to embarrass me in public. Then I became a wiser twenty-something and laughed at my overly-sensitive teen self. Many years later, when I had my own teens to deal with, I realized Dad did indeed try to embarrass me in public. It is So! Much! Fun!
My one regret is that I never got around to making a Star Wars costume to wear when I picked my youngest up after school.
aimai
I certainly have my moments of unpleasantness with my teenagers but really, I don’t have anything like this experience. They have their angst and their griefs and worries but they are both uniformly kind, thoughtful, generous, hard working and they try to take care of their own stuff from laundry to shopping and now rent for the summer for the one who is in college. I was much harder on my parents than my daughters are on me and they genuinely seem grateful for everything they are given.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Ours was 14 when we got her, and there were moments when none of us were sure we would survive it.
Now she’s an adult who works with teenagers, and catches herself saying the stuff we used to say.
gogol's wife
I was a very good teenager. I was a brat when my mother came to my college graduation, though. I just did not want to graduate from college. And I was right. But it wasn’t her fault.
I sympathize with parents. I can’t imagine what it’s like. But in your case I guess you have to be grateful for absence of serious physical or mental problems.
Chris
Including Joan of Ark with all these other schlemiels? Really?
Betty Cracker
@newdealfarmgrrrlll: When I had to pick my daughter up in the car rider line at school, I’d play really cheesy 70s music loudly to embarrass her. And sometimes when she has friends over, I’ll wear a zebra print Snuggie and insist on playing “Stairway to Heaven” on the ukulele for them. No wonder she hates me!
@aimai: Lucky dog! Mine could be a lot worse, lord knows. She’s a good student and polite and cooperative with everyone but us, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t have creepy friends, etc. But she is a whiny, entitled, mercurial little thing!
Betty Cracker
@Chris: She loves to play the martyr and occasionally shaves her head. Trust me, it fits.
geg6
Although I’m sure you’re exaggerating and your lovely daughter has little reason to be a bratty teen other than being female and a teen (everyone tells me boys are easier and I believe that), some teens (like me) have good reasons for dissing the parental units. For me, it was my mom and I have few regrets for my behavior at that age. Our relationship improved before she died, but that was more me deciding to get past it than my mother changing at all.
Robert
this is the “normal parental curse”…I know my mom used to tell me…”I hope your kids do to you what you are doing to me” in a loving and caring growl….and as a parent who lost my 27 year old daughter…there are worse things that can happen, so, cherish every minute, and second, no matter your frustration…Love them, cherish them, and most of all don’t let the small stuff get to ya…
Chris
@geg6:
Boys are supposed to be easier? Really?
(Only one sister and she’s a decade older than me, so I don’t remember her teen years).
Snarki, child of Loki
Hey, just think about the rapid increase in intelligence that you’ve got lined up!
Right now, according to your teen, you’re a total dummy that understands NOTHING, but in another 6-7 years, you’ll just get smarter and smarter. I think Twain noticed that, amazing how universal it is.
J.D. Rhoades
@aimai:
My kids were both Jekyll and Hyde at different times. They’ve matured into lovely individuals who have come back to pitch in and help around the house while their mom is going through recovery for her hip replacement surgery. Hang in there, Betty, it gets better.
Kathleen
My daughter was a great kid, but we had our moments, and in those moments I said to myself that it is God’s will that we hate each other during those years. I was a pain in the ass to my mother after I graduated from college and lived at home for awhile. And I do regret that.
Kathleen
@Robert: I am so sorry. I can’t imagine what you and your wife experienced. I appreciate your perspective and words of wisdom.
luzeelu
They do grow out of it. Eventually. But remnants can persist for many years. I still encounter moments of oversensitivity with my nearly 40-year-old “teenager.” I can ask a simple question and she gets defensive, as if my question implies criticism. She does, at least, occasionally cop to how awful she was.
Hal
The details of your incompetence do not interest me.
PhoenixRising
Love ya, but you have Cadillac problems.
This week my 9th grader organized a group outing for her peers, by *talking on the phone* to 3 different teens including the one whose parents make him take his calls on their land line…even 6 months ago, that would have been impossible.
We have every reason to hope that by the time she’s completed HS coursework (+/-30 months from now, unless she gets hit in the head & has to rewire her brain yet again) she will have developed enough skill at communicating with those who have been hearing from birth to leave home & attend one of the colleges that have appropriate services for students with disabilities.
Enjoy your typically developing teen, who will certainly grow out of this and leave the nest. Just in time for you to appreciate the quiet, so you can hear the demands for money from somewhere far away.
D58826
OT from Huffington –
The judge seemed to be saying that since half the Cleveland police department shot at these two people it wasn’t fair to pick on this one cop. Oh and jumping on the hood of the stopped car and emptying your gun into the occupants is just a normal tough day on the beat. Just reading the snips from the news story it does sound like the judge was going out of his way to wash his hands of the mess.
It makes you wonder what does constitute excess force. Maybe if they had used the government supplied grenade launchers or one of the tanks it would qualify.
Cervantes
@beth:
Widespread problem.
donnah
I can recall losing my temper occasionally with any of my three sons when they were teens, only to have them say, “Mom, I’m a good kid. I don’t use drugs, I don’t party, I get great grades, and I am a nice person.”
To which I had to bite my lip and agree. They have all grown into smart, kind, and thoughtful adults, and not only am I proud of them, I like hanging out with them.
But yeah, I get the whole teen drama thing.
Renie
@D58826: One of the defense lawyers said did people really think the cop wanted to shoot these people? He thought he was being shot at. How can that be when the auto occupants had no weapons. Unbelievable.
Cephalus Max
@Betty Cracker:
Good god, that is epic.
But since there is absolutely nothing you can do about the teenager-ness, I guess you might as well go big.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Video or it never happened.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
Ah, but do you also sing it? Especially the part about the bustle in one’s hedgerow being just a spring-clean for the May Queen?
Suzanne
My elder Spawn turned 11 this year, and that has brought alllllllllll of the adolescent angst with it. It can definitely be irritating at times.
But Thursday was the last day of school, and one of her closest friends, who has had some mental health and family struggles for a while, confided in her that he was planning to commit suicide by the end of the summer. She had been struggling for a couple of months with this friend’s increasingly dark turn, and it had been weighing on her, but hadn’t told us. Apparently, another friend’s family had reached out to the kid’s family at one point about things he was saying, and the family didn’t take him for therapy, but instead he got in trouble for talking about his problems outside the family. Anyway, she finally decided that she couldn’t keep something like this a secret, and she told us of his plans. We were able to get in touch with the district administration, and the school psychologist reached out to the family. The family turned out to be receptive, and the child crisis team has intervened, and he’s getting the mental health care he needs. It took a great deal of personal strength and good judgment for my 11-year-old to spill this secret and to risk her friend’s anger, but she is so concerned about him.
I need to remember this when I get grouchy at her, because she is very clearly on the right path.
Cervantes
@Robert:
Few things are more difficult to survive than the loss of a child.
Sometimes we go on only because others need us to — but part of us is forever gone as well.
Thanks for reaching out to connect, and thanks also for the wise words.
Cacti
After the recent revelations on the general depravity of the Duggar family, I wonder which of the girls will be the one to go rogue and write the tell all book about growing up in their fundamentalist patriarchal mini-cult.
I’m willing to bet a sizable amount that after Josh spilled the beans about molesting his sisters, they got some big-time slut shaming from Jim Bob and their church elders.
They have my unending pity for having to live under the same roof as a sexual predator and being coerced into keeping silence to preserve said predator’s reputation.
Cervantes
@Suzanne:
What brave kids.
Yes, it would have been too much to bear by themselves. Glad you were able to help them.
Cervantes
@Cacti:
Just a note: it was not only his sisters he abused.
Cacti
@Cervantes:
I’m aware.
I’m also wondering if any of his other victims will speak out…and of what acts the well-connected Jim Bob might have commited to intimidate them into silence.
Origuy
From RTE: The Ireland Referendum in pictures
skerry
My youngest graduates from high school this week. She heads off to college in August. While I am more than ready to have her out of the house (she’s not a very good roommate), I know I will miss her when she’s not around.
The idea of an empty nest both delights and frightens me.
Cervantes
@skerry:
You can bet she feels the same way, too!
patrick II
I don’t suppose she reads this blog.
Kent
Parent of three daughters ages 9, 12, and 16 here.
Yes, I’m concluding that the teens were put on this earth to torture us for our sins, real or imagined. And there are a lot of imagined ones!
Best child rearing advice I ever received, and I don’t remember where I got it. Live by 3 simple rules:
1. Don’t get angry (if you do you lose)
2. Don’t talk to much (they don’t always need an explanation, they need clear boundaries)
3. Don’t give in (rules are rules and limits are limits and breaking them has consequences).
kdaug
Ah, reminds me of an old favorite Nick Cave song.
Watch your matches.
RandomMonster
How about a Hooray for Ireland post! It looks like the opposition there has conceded defeat.
Xantar
But she’s more likely to be tolerant of gay people than your generation. So there’s that.
Valdivia
@Robert:
Sorry to hear about your daughter. We lost my brother 12 years ago and though we have soldiered on, there is something missing for all of us.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@aimai: I can say the same things about my two teens, except they are boys.
They are now grown, with lovely wives and little kids of their own. I can honestly say they have been treasures all their lives and were actually very easy to raise. I do think boys are a bit easier than girls, less emotional.
opiejeanne
@Chris: That “boys are easier” thing is a myth. I raised a boy and two girls, and it just depends on the kids themselves, aside from gender. The boy went through a terrible phase that finally ended at age 15, and thank goodness because I thought one of us was not going to survive it. My younger girl, the baby of the family, was difficult at times, but after she was out of HS. She’s 32 now and needs a child or a cat to boss around because she’s trying to mother us and we don’t need that just yet.
My kids were generally great as teenagers and we enjoyed their company and that of their friends. We had the house that the other kids wanted to visit, which my kids could not understand.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Robert: I have no adequate words, only sincere condolences.
BubbaDave
My mom always complained that we do it exactly backwards in the States — you keep the kids at home for their awful teenage years, and just as they start to develop into someone worth having around we send them off to college. I think she was a fan of the boarding school concept… which might tell you something about me or my brother.
I myself have roommates who embody
— but they’re cats, so it’s not only forgiveable but cute. Which is good, since they will never graduate and move out into the real world.
mai naem mobile
My niece graduated HS this week and she can drive me crazy. She’s still at a stage where she gives way too much stock to what other people think. I have no idea where this came from. It’s not from our side of the family. But she’s overall a good kind kid. I hate mean kids.
Hillary Rettig
Having a tough day?
Back when I had the foster kids (war refugees), no matter what complaint I brought back to my mentors (other parents), the response was along the lines of, “Wow, you have no idea how lucky you are.”
“He kept me waiting for 2 hours at the train station before he called!”
“He called? That’s amazing!”
“He told me that life with me was worse than the refugee camp!”
“Big deal. My kid told me he wished he was homeless at least once a week.”
To this day, when I tell people about the “refugee camp” quip, I get two reactions. People who haven’t had teens are horrified, while people who have, guffaw.
My favorite teen story, however, dates from the late Roman Empire, when apparently some teenagers liked to dress up like the Huns to annoy their elders.
Elly
My kids (son and daughter) actually were pretty pleasant to be around throughout the majority of their teen years. We did get some ‘tude from the (younger) Girl Child during her freshman year in HS, but that was pretty understandable: we moved from Ohio to Washington state at the end of fall quarter, and she was a tad bitter about leaving her best friend and all that was familiar behind. But she accepted my offer to set her up with a counselor; acquired a new set of friends and that was that. By the end of the school year, she was a happy camper and conceded that the move was a change for the better.
I think the key to managing their teen years was that their dad and I had already learned to listen to their complaints and take them seriously. This was a lesson I learned early on with my son, when we moved from Oregon to Ohio between 3rd and 4th grade. Shortly after he started school, he began to complain about how awful and boring it was, especially math class. I initially wrote his grousing off to the move and assumed he’d adjust; but the complaints didn’t stop. Finally, I agreed to sit in on his math class; and to my chagrin, I realized he wasn’t exaggerating. It was just awful: he’d been tracked into a “low achieving” math class, because he didn’t have his times tables memorized – the outcome-based education model his Oregon school followed (where he was in the “Talented and Gifted” program, no less) didn’t require it. I was absolutely furious – with myself as well as the school, because I’d allowed the problem to fester to the point where he couldn’t be moved to the regular class because he was too far behind. I ended up tutoring him in the hall during math class myself, in order to get him caught up.
To be sure, not all of my kids’ complaints required decisive action on my part. But I still always listened, and where I felt it was necessary, offered some larger perspective or helped brainstorm a more creative way to deal with specific issues. For example, my son despised his 7th grade English class because he loathed all the angst-ridden teen fiction he was assigned to read (he was into sci-fi/fantasy). He was particularly bitter about an assignment based on one book, “Romiette and Julio” (!!!), which was to create a poster advertising the hypothetical “movie” version of the story. I asked him to show me the rubric, and then pointed out that there was nothing in it that required him to praise the book, so why not use his poster to make fun of it instead? On the fly, I gave him the ground rules of what I now call “creative subversion”: to flout the spirit of the assignment, he had to make sure that every “i” was dotted, and every “t” was crossed, so that if he was marked down, the only reason could be for his attitude. And then I promised him that – if that happened – I’d happily ream the teacher for it. As we brainstormed, his fury turned to giggles and resistance turned into constructive action. He also got an “A” on the assignment, lol.
In the end, “creative subversion” was a technique that both of my kids made good use of during their high school years.
To make a long story short(er), I think that respect is the key to having a good relationship with teenaged kids – however ridiculous or melodramatic some of their complaints may seem, there are often legit issues and feelings involved that are worth addressing. And while it may be a bit late, the language of your post suggests this is something you might need to work on. Sure, your daughter may be being childish and unreasonable, but publicly mocking her (even anonymously) isn’t the best way to help her realize this. I “get” the desire to vent, but it’s not cool to do it at her expense, IMHO.
Cervantes
@BubbaDave:
Wait — your cats aren’t censorious?
BubbaDave
@Cervantes:
To be censorious they’d have to care about my actions.
ETA: Although they do give me disgusted looks when the weather is bad. “Dammit, Dave, did you forget to pay the sunshine bill again?
JCT
@Josie: Yup, one of my colleagues was bitching and moaning about her teenagers the other day and my comment was that the only “cure” for teenagers is college.
And for the record, my son was an order of magnitude tougher than his older sister as a teen. Had us wishing that there was “early entry” to college instead of just “early admission”.
All works in the end, Betty and imagine all the fodder you will have to tell *her* grandchildren. Revenge can be sweet.
Amir Khalid
The police have destroyed their records of the investigation into the child-molestation allegations against Josh Duggar, pursuant to a judge’s order. This looks fishy to me. Is it legal?
Ruckus
Being the youngest helped me. I got to see the things my siblings did that made life harder for them and learn from that. Also by the time I was 12 I tried to spend as much time away from home as possible. That helped my relationship with my mom immensely. And that’s about the time I started going to work with my dad. Lots of weekends and summers. So I got to see how other people operated and how they fit in. Another help. And moving out as soon as I found a place after the service. That was a biggie. Of course being away for 4 yrs helped as well. I think I see a theme here.
shell
Do they still make Clearasil? It sounds so Archie Comics.
KmCO
Anti-teenage sentiments have always perplexed me. I would much rather be the parent of a teenager than the parent of a child under 5. At least you can talk to teenagers and have an interesting relationship with them.
aimai
@Robert: I’m so terribly sorry. I can’t imagine any grief greater than losing a daughter.
aimai
@KmCO: Oh! While I see what you are saying a child under 5 is a delight! You can definitely have conversations with them and those conversations are hysterically funny and thought provoking. There is nothing more interesting than a child under five or even up until about 8. The way they look at the world, the way you learn to look at the world through their eyes, is astounding. And the tantrums are really nothing, you just have to learn to be less attached to certain things than you were before you had children like time, or efficiency.
Cacti
@Amir Khalid:
Everything about this case reeks of extra-legal activity to protect a member of the good old boys club.
shell
If she’s old enough to drive it won’t be a year or so more before she starts turning into a human being again.
aimai
@Amir Khalid: One of the girl child victims made the request and it was done pursuant to her request. I guess I think that although it was fishy, and probably done to protect Josh and his parents–especially in light of the case that came down today where another large, christianist, homeschooling family was just found guilty and sentenced to jail time for allowing the boys to molest their sister–its also perfectly reasonable for a girl in an extremely hostile shame culture like that of the Duggars/Arkansas to move to have the records expunged. They should have been sealed, though, not destroyed. I don’t see how one person’s right to privacy w/r/t a legal proceeding supersedes that of other potential victims.
shell
Oh, and Betty. Just wanted to add I really enjoy your artwork, from your drawings to your wine foil sculptures.
Betty Cracker
@Robert: I’m so sorry. There can’t be anything worse. It sure puts everything in perspective.
@patrick II: Nope. Blogs are for old people.
@shell: Oh yes. It’s still the #1 zit treatment, I think.
WereBear
@Robert: I’m very sorry for your loss.
WereBear
It’s no fun being a teen, either.
You are being inundated with ridiculous expectations, like choosing your career for the next forty years on roughly three years of actual life experience.
You are being pressured into adulthood with issues of dating and attractiveness at a time when you are often at your least attractive, as body parts grow at differing rates, skin problems appear, and hair grows in strange places.
Just as you are getting pushed into epic decision making, it becomes clearer and clearer that the adult world is full of dipshit hypocrisy, false personas, and outright lies. And from this flimsy material you are expected to craft maturity.
All while hormones are running tornados up and down your nerves.
So… I can sympathize.
opiejeanne
@Kent: Huh. That’s exactly opposite of my rules.
I talked their arms off so that they understood why or why not. Telling a kid “stop that” without adding “because you’re bothering other people” doesn’t teach the kid a thing. My kids may not have liked it but they understood it. The only time we didn’t explain was when they were infants. We started explaining stuff when they were about two.
Sometimes anger is justified as well as demonstrative of just how important an issue is. I tend to get very quiet when I’m angry.
Some rules don’t have to be set in concrete, such as when to be home. I didn’t have one but I was expected to let my parents know when to expect me, and to call if I was going to be later than expected.
They turned out great, all three of them. No drugs, no drunk driving, no booze issues, generally good grades, etc.. and they are kind thoughtful adults now.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Congrats on raising a good kid. She did the right thing. Two weeks into navy boot camp a fellow recruit slashed his wrists. Someone found him in time and last we were told he survived and was getting much needed help. But the part of the story that I haven’t told is that he confided in me, not that he wanted to commit suicide but that he was having a very hard time with boot camp. He gave me every sign but the actual words, but I never recognized them. A few years later I learned what those signs meant when I volunteered as a counselor at a mental health center. I wish I had known then what I know now and what your daughter recognized. A person not just having a hard time but having too hard a time and needing the pain to stop.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
When I was in Florida a couple of weeks ago, my mom was complaining that my brother’s 17-year-old semi-stepdaughter was being “sassy” to her mom. I laughed and told her that she had obviously blocked out her memories of what I had been like at that age. Sorry, but a kid who tells us a long and dramatic story about the terrible proctor she got stuck with for her second round of SAT testing is not a kid with major problems.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Epic!
Culture of Truth
Wait, we’re NOT talking about cats?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WereBear: Well said. Too many people don’t remember well enough what it was like to be a kid or a teenager. The world would be a better place if they took the time to try to remember…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I’ve always thought that too much information was better than not enough.
And the old “Do as I say not as I do”, that one never works. Like explaining alcohol, that adults can drink but kids can’t, with no explanation as to why.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Or having your career “chosen” for you at 11-12, that’s one that frosts my butt. I don’t imagine that happens as much as it used to, the following in parents footsteps, to help them justify their careers.
opiejeanne
@KmCO: Oh, me too! My kids got more entertaining the older they got. I don’t entirely understand the adoration of babies; I mean, yes, they are cute part of the time, but I liked my kids a lot more once they started talking, and once they were old enough to understand why not to put a bobby pin into the wall socket* or run across the street without looking, it was wonderful.
*I did that. I remember doing it. I remember being so stunned by the shock that I didn’t even cry.
opiejeanne
@aimai: We dealt with tantrums by laughing at the kid and walking away, if we were at home. I don’t remember any of them ever trying it in public. I think they knew they’d not survive that kind of experiment.
WereBear
@Ruckus: What I see a lot of (I’ve been a peer counselor) is pressuring the young people to choose a seemingly “safe” career, now, no matter what their talents and inclinations are.
What I tell them is how many middle-aged people sit across from me on the point of tears because they listened. Now they are stuck in a routine of work they hate, shackled in place because of spouses and kids and mortgages, and hoping they make it to retirement.
I let them make up their own mind. However, I’m giving them as much information as I can.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: Thanks. We drowned them in info about the world and it seemed to work. I dislike authoritarianism, as did my very Republican father, the guy who set no curfew for us and was reasonable about how late we stayed out as long as we were reasonable about it too, like not telling him I’d be back at 4am unless we were doing something that actually required that kind of thing, like working on the floats for the Rose Parade. It was a great relationship.
I was costuming a show in SF once and we had tickets for the final dress rehearsal so we took the girls. While we were hunting for parking the younger one, who was all of 12, said, “Oh look! A hooker!” Her older sister, age 16, hadn’t noticed the woman. The funny thing was that when we finally did park it was right down the street from her and as we passed she smiled and said, “Hi girls” to my kids. They were a bit thrilled, but partly that kind of thrill you get when something startles you. This was a brush with the Dark Side as far as they were concerned: fascinating but not a place you want to live.
Betty Cracker
@opiejeanne: Despite the annoyance expressed above, I’ve mostly enjoyed the post-toddler years. I too found the kid more interesting when she learned to talk and reason (although sometimes I wish she’d just shut the fuck up).
Babies are precious and wonderful, but I found the need for 24/7/365 vigilance a crushing responsibility. And baths, potty training and car seats — ugh!
opiejeanne
@WereBear: I remember my dad telling me I should study computer science in 1968 because that was a growing field. I think he thought it would be an exciting field but that it would also be safe because of the money. I don’t think I would have lasted long in that major, chose English instead while I figured things out.
I was the one making the “safe” choice for myself.
I ended up with a degree in music, as it turns out.
opiejeanne
@Betty Cracker: I could tell that you enjoy the twerp from the way you wrote that hilarious rant. I just wish we had snuggies back when mine were growing up, and that I had played the uke instead of the piano.
We discovered the perfect way to embarrass the heck out of them was to admit to having had sex exactly and only three times because there were three kids to prove it. They still cringe a bit when we say that, and the oldest is 44, but we only trot it out when they deserve it.
WereBear
@opiejeanne: Ironically, I gave up on my English degree to drift into computers, in the late 1970’s.
But it did work for me. I did not have the ability to labor long at something I did not enjoy.
Gretchen
They’re awful so you can stand for them leave.
Aleta
Funny song from the 80s or 90s called The Guest (by Bill Burnett), about housing a kid:
stretchmedia.net/wp-content/uploads/Guest-The-MSTRD-807.mp3
A couple quotes my mate used often during the teen years:
“They talk about the joy of parenting. The joy of parenting for me is only one feeling: the feeling of relief each time she ends up OK and safe.” (He got that from an essay in the book Lesbian Parenting.)
“I keep telling myself, you don’t have to get used to anything. Whatever it is, they grow out of it eventually. ”
Later, he liked to quote Darlene when she left Roseanne’s house for college. “Sorry about those teen years.” (One sentence and she closed the door and was gone.)
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I was 13, 1962 and wanted to study electronics at technical school they wanted to send me to. Mom, no you have to follow your father into his business. I argued, in front of the school counselor, but as was typical, she never allowed any deviation from her intended path. Dad was OK with it, wanted me to work with him but understood one should follow their own path. Guess where I ended up? Owned the old man’s business when he retired, ran it for 15 more yrs. And yet look where electronics are today. Vowed that if I ever had kids, I would encourage them but never try to make them choose my world for theirs.
Kent
@opiejeanne:
Opiejeanne:
By “Don’t talk too much” I don’t mean don’t talk at all. I’m always willing to give explanations. What I’m not willing to do is endlessly litigate every decision I make. “Yes, you are getting off the X-box this afternoon and going to soccer practice because our family has a commitment to physical fitness and you made a commitment to your team. End of discussion, hop in the car” We have one daughter who will endlessly argue any and every thing if we give her a chance. The other two, not so much.
As for not getting angry I really mean don’t lose your temper. My wife struggles with this more than I do. When the teen screams at her it is all she can do to keep herself from screaming back. Basically don’t let them push your buttons because then you give them the power. Someone has to be the adult. Yes, I have been angry with the teen but I try hard not to fly off the handle and then let fly with threats that I’m not willing to live up to after everyone has calmed down.
Listen to them and show them that you are listening to them. Love them and show that you love them. And be the stable adult in their lives that they need no matter how much they think they don’t. That’s about all you can do I think.
Tree With Water
On perhaps my surliest day as a teenager, my father ask me to go pick up a head of lettuce at the store. He even let me drive his car. He had fed, clothed, and sheltered me my entire life, but I resented the request. I went, I bought, and I returned with a head of cabbage. I realized in an instant by the way he looked at it what had happened, but it was too late. And then he looked at me with an expression on his face that betrayed that he was thinking, “what kind of moron did I raise?”. That was it. He just put the cabbage down, and continued preparing dinner as if I wasn’t in the room. It was the cruelest cut he could possibly have inflicted, and I’ll take the memory to my grave.
Exurban Mom
@Suzanne: Be very proud of your brave and compassionate daughter. She saved a life.
Exurban Mom
@Elly: That is some awesome parenting right there.
Ruckus
@Elly:
I was on the other side of that. Told my mom that I needed glasses because I couldn’t see the board and had already moved to the front of the class. She didn’t believe me, no even when I asked, “What 12 yr old kid wants to wear glasses and be made fun of?” So I had to take a stand and say I would not go to school until she took me to the optometrist. Even then when the doc told her I needed glasses she thought it was a plot to make her look bad. He adjusted the projected letter chart to show her what I saw and she finally understood. Went to that doc for 35 yrs.
fuckwit
I don’t understand why parents whine and bitch about teenagers. I have a teenager. No problems, other than the same kind of annoying things adults do, but in slightly more concentrated dosages.
I’m generally a misanthrope– I can’t stand being around people of any kind. I find people equally annoying and insufferable, regardless of their age, gender, nationality, race, religion, background, etc. Teenagers are just another variety of people I have to deal with, and generally not the most irritating.
fuckwit
@WereBear: Yes, but if you were doing substance abuse, homeless outreach, foreclosure, welfare/foodsecurity, or other counseling, you’d see what happened to the kids who DIDN’T listen to that excellent advice, and “followed their dreams” instead… right into the gutter.
Parents give that boring-ass advice for good goddamned reason: capitalism is a brutal, violent, vicious system that destroys people callously and aggressively. It’s a meat grinder. You don’t want your kids to get turned into hamburger by it.
You naturally want to shelter your kids from that, and that means imploring them to do the safe things: study hard, get good grades, go to college, pick a practical major with companies hiring right out of school, finish college with a degree, get a good job at a solid company, choose your mate very carefully, marry well, save all you can of your money and don’t spend too much, invest wisely for your future.
I was beaten over the head with the good advice, got railroaded into following it, did so on autopilot for a long while, then rejected all of that in my mid-30s, and my life became a catastrophe from which I will likely never recover.
I have a deep respect now for parents who tell their kids to NOT follow their dreams, but instead get their heads screwed on straight and just follow the boring, proven program.
Cervantes
@fuckwit:
The alternatives are worse.
Cervantes
@fuckwit:
Sorry about that catastrophe. Hope you and yours are coping.
I think it’s possible to teach kids about how to manage risk, even from an early age.
Ruckus
@fuckwit:
No one said to go out and do whatever you want. Studying, leaning, earning. All of those are what you have to do in any society to exist. You may be earning food directly or through a paycheck but you have to earn it, unless you are physically/mentally incapable. It’s earning it doing what that matters. You want to be a surf bum, that’s OK as long as you realize what that means in the end. One should be able to find some sort of a passion in life and at least try to follow it. It’s a big world and there’s a lot of things to do and lots of levels of prosperity. But doing some simple mind numbing task for 30-40 yrs, simply to survive, that’s not what I’d call living. I saw lifers in the military who hatted it as much as anyone and tried to make everyone around them miserable(and usually succeeded) and they were in it just so they could get their 30 yrs in for the pension. What a miserable way to live. I’m sorry that your life didn’t work out the way you wanted, but then I don’t know many whose lives did. And I have friends in many countries and states who lived their dreams while young and when they no longer could they moved on. I’ve had three separate careers and am back working as an employee in the first one. And that wasn’t the one I wanted when I was 7, nor the one I wanted when I was 12, nor the one I ended up getting the second most training for and not pursuing at 26. Life is funny that way.
Gian
@Amir Khalid:
depends on state law.
depending on the time lapse, and the offense, the laws do favor expunging juvenile records. It’s hard to expunge a murder (hard meaning never). OTHOH, a couple dozen rapes that were never charged, is probably something to make go away. (not to sound like it doesn’t matter, commenting on the odds)
Dick Woodcock
My Mom always said that she wished there was a place where she could send all her teenagers away to until they turned 20. I didn’t understand why back then. I sure do now.
When she’d get angry with me, she’d say “I hope you have 3 kids just as bad as you are!” Well, I only have one kid, but she’s 3 times as bad as I was. Thanks Mom!
Big Picture Pathologist
@Elly:
Great advice, thanks!