Uh – Before You Go Out the Door . . .
For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . .
You daughter who’s 16 has been reading a the blog of a young man who is 19. You’ve visited his blog. He writes about cars, music, and girls — lots and lots of other girls. His blog shows plenty of pictures of them. He’s not a shy boy about his relationships. Your daughter and this boy been reading each other’s blogs for several months and leaving comments.Today your daughter has told you that the young man is coming to visit your city and will be staying at the local chain motel. She’s so looking forward to seeing him. What ground rules do you set for the visit?
How do you respond?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Well … my daughter’s just about to turn 6 so I have 10 more years before all of this hits the fan. 😉
And I’m not going to think about it (as he pops fingers in both ears and starts drowning out the thoughts with “I can’t hear you… la la lala la … 🙂
Martin,
That could very well be the best response — for now only. 🙂
I’m living in the now – talk to me in 10 years and I’ll probably still be doing the “la lala…” – not so sure it’ll be as effective then though.
Yeah, I’m just picturing the “oh, Dad!” look that will get you. 🙂
None. After I visit him at his hotel, as he checks in, we’ll not be having a problem out of what’s left of his bad ass.
BTW – I linked to a post about a bad ass.
Seriously, that’s not something to be taken lightly, so I’d have to supervise all visits, at my house.
Don’t agree ? You don’t have to. Just don’t call me whining later.
My kids, my rules. Your kids, your rules.
You mean, kids get to an age where they’re OMG, embarrassed by their parents … No! 😉
No, I mean that parents get to an age where we’re embarrassing. 🙂
I think that happens when the child is born. 🙂
I’m laughing. You’re right about that!
WHAT visit?
🙂
‘Zactly !
Cat, I hear you and I know you would have taken that answer just like a sweet young lady at 16. Now wouldnââ¬â¢t you?
Mike,
I have noooo problem with you aupervising visits. I got to supervising visits with my son and his girlfriend. It’s too easy for kids to screw up their lives.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
That would be better than trying to fix their predicament later.
Yeah, most guys don’t realize it would mess up their future too. Unless they are really jerks.
I certainly hope that this is not another “blogger-who-posts-girly-pictures-meets-my-blogging-daughter” story … and one keeps focus – it’s a “19-year-old-meeting-my-16-year-old-daughter” issue
I don’t have children, but my niece turns 16 nov/2006 .. she’s one smart cookie and If I were her parents, I’d probably allow the meeting .. even if it’s chaperoned and parents sitting on the other end of the store. Better yet – bring some laptops and keep ’em busy while they’re socializing over diet cokes etc.
Hi HART!
Nah! He’s not 63! He’s only 19 and he’s a blogger so how bad can he be? It’s the stupid, young part I worry about. We’re all stupid and young at that age. 🙂
the “stupid, young part” being … the 19 year old? Or .. the 16 year old daughter? 🙂
Well, to tell the truth, I’m not sure I’ve gotten over my stupid part yet. 🙂
Poor old HART.
Never try to give advice about kids till you raise one or more of the dang thangs.
Anybody that allows a 16 year-old girl and a 19 year-old boy that she met on the internet to meet unsupervised is a fool.
He ain’t after Diet Coke and he don’t want to play nice on a laptop.
I just had a friend who had his 21 year-old son quit his job and run off to another state to meet up with a ‘girl’ he met online. She turned out to be a mother of three and a bit older than he had thought and he had to crawl back to his family and apologize for leaving them, his job and his senses.
This ain’t no place to take chances.
Chances are for Vegas.
it must be the car pictures then that worries ya .. I understand
Yep, those car pictures will do it every time. Thanks for spotting that. Now I’m laughing about a wheel flying off in front of a pool hall.
On the other hand.
Never trusting your children by supervising them constantly leads to other problems.
Hi Candice,
Trust and supervision aren’t mutually exclusive to me.
Depends on how the child feels about it, really.
My sister and I both voluntarily went to boarding school as teenagers to get away from an overprotective mother. Mom was so paranoid back then that my friends’ mothers took to lying for me.
And at 16, she’s going to do what she wants anyway.
Not that I’m saying it’s a good idea, but from my own background I gotta play devil’s advocate on this one.
Mike .. I never said “unsupervised” and it’s too bad that your friend’s experience has placed a lemon in your heart.
ps. I met my wife online .. and we’re happily married. The world’s getting smaller and smaller good buddy.
ppss. Yes .. I’m poor, but I don’t feel as old as I look.
Yeah, Candice, I understand. There’s care and then there’s otherwise. We just made sure out son didn’t have too many long blocks of time — her mother had rules that were unbelievable, so really we were off the hook. 🙂
As others have said, 19 isn’t really much older than her. It’s no different than her knowing a new guy at school.
If he was 50, though, I’d be worried.
Story time …
What a combination – a 16 year old daughter, a 19 year old boy, and a hotel room.
Liz – When I was 16 … yes, that’s the base of the issue, isn’t it? When ââ¬Ëweââ¬â¢ were teenagers, boys as well as girls. Each of us have electric, sparky and spicy memories to think back on. Whether living vicariously, or not.
When I was 16, my parents pretty much allowed me to do whatever I wanted. Within reason.
By ‘within reason’ they meant I couldn’t rob a bank, or run up my phone bill, or drop out of school without parental wrath descending.
As long as I stayed within bounds, I could go where I wanted, when I wanted, at what time, and for however long.
Typically, I wanted protective parents like most of the others had. Not parents who let me stay weekends with the grown men I was dating.
When friends stayed over for weekends I felt I had to pretend that we were normal. That we had to sneak out for late night parties … and out my bedroom window we went (usually tumbling down the drive after missing our footing).
Would my friends have thought it was ‘neat/cool’ that my parents gave me such freedom? I imagine so. But at that age, who wants what they have?
Mostly, I wanted protective parents. With all the warm fuzzy, caring bits that came with it.
Would I have rebelled? Absolutely. It’s what teens do. I rebelled even with all the freedom I had back then.
Moving on …. several years down the road (but not many), when I was 19 I acquired a 9 year old step daughter.
When she became older we made an exchange. She became a teen – and my life became a living hell.
From then on in, during the difficult moments I’d call my mother to beg her forgiveness for every mean thing I ever did back then.
Now, in thinking about it, my mother probably felt that I received an even exchange out of the deal.
Around her entrance to the teenage years, my step daughter got hooked up with a rough bunch of kids. They were the spoilt rich kids of the school she was attending at the time. Two got into such trouble it made national tv. It was sad, shocking, and a revelation. One of the kids had protective parents, the other had parents like mine. They attacked the protective, caring parents.
Not knowing what to do, my step daughter was put into an all girls Catholic school. They picked her up at the door and delivered her home after. Part of the problem solved.
One the other hand, my step son was a dream. The (near) perfect child. I’ve mentioned him before – after graduating from Harvard Medical, he’s now a doctor.
So, knowing what I know, would I have allowed my 16 year old step daughter to visit a 19 year old guy in his hotel room on her own? Never.
Would I let my step daughter meet up at all? Maybe, depending on how her week/months had gone. But it would be at the house, or a restaurant, or at the movies. Attending would be her father or myself. Or both.
You see, I knew what she was capable of. And having a free-for-all of an upraising myself, I’d also been there, done that. I knew what I was capable of as Iââ¬â¢d been given the same freedoms.
Hereââ¬â¢s the (admittedly) black and white choice – do you want to be the permissive parent? Or the protective parent?
Yes, I know, I know … there is a mindset of “Have you raised your daughter right?ââ¬Â ââ¬ÅHave you raised her in such a manner than you can trust her? ” All are important issues and they do come into it, but they didnââ¬â¢t for me as youââ¬â¢ve already read. Getting into it further, my step daughter was mostly raised before I came into the picture. Also, I was a baby raising/supporting/sitting babies. And yes, it would have been great to have been a wonderful parent who could trust their teenage daughter in everything … but, I’d only had my personal experiences to go by … hers and mine. Both nixed even being able to have the ââ¬Ëgreyââ¬â¢ mindset.
So for me the decision would came down to this – given the scenario above, did I want her to feel like she was cared for? Or on her own?
I knew how I felt as a teen, so wanting her to feel cared for is the only response I can really stand behind realistically. Knowing what I’d experienced personally, as well as who she was/is, does come into it.
A 16 year old has a lifetime ahead of making their own choices. Itââ¬â¢s my belief that most 16 year olds are not mature enough to make ‘all’ of them.
Not the 16 year old I knew, and that goes for myself as well at 16. I was not old enough to take on the responsibility I was given. Not in the manner it was given anyway.
How did I raise my son? Totally different. He was more of a responsible person then not. At 10 he was already capable of some, but not all adult decisions (but he was never given that particular one). There were many instances where he was more the adult then I was. He had to be. But, that’s a totally different lifetime … and … another story.
ps: Liz, thanks for the writing practice …
Hi Pedro!
How nice of you to stopby!
I agree. Though I must add that the distance of experience between 16 and 19 can be small or massive depending on the two involved. It’s still worth looking in on. Don’t you think?
Hi Cat!
Yep, so much depends on the child in question and how well he or she makes decisions to begin with. My best friend at 16 would have easily handled the situation. Trusting 19 year old fellas — even though she enjoyed their company — wasn’t her first response. Me, I was hopeless in that category. I always saw folks’ postential rather than what they were. . . . That’s why I kept her around. 🙂
Thanks Cat. I also had too much freedom and was always sure to not violate the “too far” part of that deal. But I did things nobody believes I did. I have way too many memories and nightmares about them.
People always perceive that their raisin’s were prototypical and have no real idea about the other ways, as evidenced by some of the goody-goody responses to this question.
Just because you were not filled with bad intentions at that age doesn’t mean no other kids were.
By the age of 19 I’d been around the world and back and has seen and done a wide variety of things that you wouldn’t have believed …. all thanks to and paid for by Uncle Sam.
Kids of any age want one thing – to know you care.
This one’s easy for me:
Plan an out-of-town trip that weekend for the family. Make it a really easy choice for her. (Universal Studios or Motel 6)
Better to have an expensive, memory-making weekend than to have either stress over what is/will/may happen to your daughter, or the actual results of said blogger’s arrival.
Hi Jesse,
I think that easy isn’t so easy when there’s a smart 16 year old involved. My guess is that she’d see right through that and ruin the trip entirely . . . because she saw you as ruining her weekend when she was going to meet her blogger friend.
That’s just my guess. . . 🙂
Liz,
As having been the ‘smart’ teen a decade or so ago, I can tell you that if she has been raised correctly, then the parents should be able to say that they are completely uncomfortable with the situation of a face-to-face meeting.
From there, my parents would have made 2 offers: volunteer to do something else OR be restricted in my activities that weekend. I would have had complete freedom to hate what they were doing, not like them that weekend, and to think that they were ruining my life, BUT as the ‘smart teen’ a decade or so later I’d also have the chance to look back on my stupid years and see that my parents aren’t as idiotic as they used to be. 🙂
‘Smart teens’ can be a blessing and a curse. That is where good parenting comes in. Your job in basic respect and commanding should be done by the age of 3-5. After that, you’ve lost control for life. There needs to be a basic understanding in a child that there are little lines to cross, and then there are “the big ones” that if you cross them, and thusly the parents, there will be consequences…severe consequences that will be completely unavoidable regardless of school, work, or friends.
If someone has a 16 year old that is still giving them problems that give them valid concern for the kid’s safety, then they failed to communicate authority. Bottom line.
I’ve seen this at church a lot. I used to volunteer with the youth group after college, and there were the kids that had complete freedom with no worries from their parents. Then there were the kids that smoked dope, went to friends’ houses whose parents had beer flowing for all in the house, and contantly caused concern for their parents. Was it because some kids will just do that? No, it is clear that they respond to authority of all kinds differently. Sadly, their parents elicited the same non-chalance as a commercial trying to persuade them to buy a new car.
I should stop my diatribe now and get back to work before people wonder why I’m typing so much. 🙂
Hi Jesse,
I don’t disagree with your thinking.
Being a teacher and a early-childhood specialist, I know how important those years are, and I also know that we’re never really sure exactly what it is we’re teaching — or should I say, what it is folks take from the information we are trying to convey.
But any parent of a 16 year old will tell you that all of the foundation in the world will not make up for nature — the young lion needs to fight the old lion — and sheer lack of experience — complicated decisions require practice at figuring them out.
Even in business at the age of 30, folks think because they have the skills that experience doesn’t count . . . they manage without it and sometimes end up in a mess.
Parenting is a lot harder than it looks. There’s no black/white about a second of it, except the part that says love should be unconditional.
Thank you for this, Mike.
Kids of any age want one thing – to know you care.
Oh, for my child, I’d so say no way, but if you were going to do it – meet in a very public place and bring several large guy friends along who are very concerned with your safety and will help you ditch him if necessary ;). Never ever leave those friends ;).
Hi MamaDuck,
Yes, let’s take your young man out to dinner in the finest restaurant. I’ll buy!
I like your line, MamaDuck “Friends to help you ditch him, if necessary.” Good thought. 🙂
That’s what I’m talkin’ about right there MamaDuck !
That’s my kind-o-logic !
And that’s what I’m built for … impact.
Nope no way. She will NOT be going to see anybody. When she is 18 and out from under my roof she can do what she wants after I tell her to be smart about it and bring a few friends, maybe even a guy friend…
It’s an interesting question. Steve, you should blog about it. 🙂
This just gave me an idea. I can create a blog on parenting. I have absolutely no experience. I have great ideas and experiences of being parented.
My posts should get plenty of comments from parents telling me “that would be great, but that’s not how it REALLY happens.” LOL. That would be a controversial blog from the get-go. A real discussion-starter.
Great idea, Jesse!
Call it something like “Parenting Advice from a Kid who has no kids” and you’ll get both folks like you and their parents too. You’re right it could really take off!
I could blog about it, hmmm
hmmmm
hmmmm
You know, Steve,
Fathers are always thinking about their children’s future . . .
I have a 15 year old daughter. Who at 13 became a different person. The sweet little angel that played with Barbie dolls and hated boys, to put it mildly, liked boys. I have rolled with the punches but it drives my wife crazy that our little girl has changed. In talking with her friends/relatives my wife has found out that the teen years for girls is difficult for every parent. It’s almost as if nature is helping the parent break that bond between mother and child. By the time they are 18 you want them out of the nest. Of course that never happens as they will always be our little girls.
To the original question, my wife would probably say lets all go to lunch or dinner. My opinion would be he can rot in his hotel room. We would most likely meet somewhere in the middle.
Hi Roy!
I understand completely what you mean when you say she changed. I ascribe to a certain parental fantasy that somewhere around the age of puberty children should be sent away and not return until they have recovered their senses again. 🙂
We’d miss them, but we’d remember them so fondly. 🙂 I have so many stories about my son from that teenage time. 🙂
Jesse “I can create a blog on parenting. I have absolutely no experience. I have great ideas and experiences of being parented.”
Apologies, but I’m laughing here. When I was pregnant with my son I read a lot of parenting and childcare books.
For that short time I thought I knew everything there was to know.
On top of that, I knew how I was NOT going to raise my son, like my parents raised me.
One of the books I read was written for first time parents. In it was a cartoon that went something like this …
After you bring your first baby home from the hospital, the next time you will have absolute confidence in your childrearing abilities will be when you are safely tucked behind the label ââ¬Ëgrandmotherââ¬â¢
It’s so true. When you are actually living and raising children, the pat theories go out the window.
Advice from aunts, uncles and perfect strangers come fast and often, but there is one reality I knew for a fact – there are no cookie cutter solutions when it comes to raising children.
Every situation is different because every child is different. The extenuating circumstances surrounding each issue are different as well – they change yearly, sometimes monthly or even weekly.
Right when you feel youââ¬â¢ve settled one crisis, another one comes to the front. Itââ¬â¢s an emotional juggling act with high stakes – a well balanced child moving into adulthood.
Oh Cat,
You said that so very well.
Having a child is like finding you’ve just learned the owner of your home has moved in with you — except it’s a new owner every few days, and you never get to know when the ownership changes . . . In fact you’re always the last to know. 🙂
Mike,
Sounds like we had similar upbringings.
“I did things nobody believes I did. I have way too many memories and nightmares about them.”
I do too. I went through some tough spots 15 years back or so.
For me, it took getting to adulthood to realise how much damage my childhood left.
I was too busy running around being ‘original’ and trying to prove nothing was wrong. What a shocker when I learned I was not original at all. I was living my early adult life just like others with the same experiences.
“Kids of any age want one thing – to know you care.”
I so agree. They may not feel it at the time, but it’s not our job to win a popularity contest.
(and how many times have we heard THAT old line? 🙂
Thanks for the reinforcement.
Life’s tough – fight hard.
There are two pieces that I did not address in my earlier response.
1) He writes about cars, music, and girls ââ¬â lots and lots of other girls. His blog shows plenty of pictures of them. Heââ¬â¢s not a shy boy about his relationships. Your daughter and this boy been reading each otherââ¬â¢s blogs for several months and leaving comments.
“He’s not shy” can be taken many ways. He’s not shy about his opinions, or what they did? In what way? All would have a strong bearing on the final decision.
2) Today your daughter has told you that the young man is coming to visit your city and will be staying at the local chain motel. Sheââ¬â¢s so looking forward to seeing him. What ground rules do you set for the visit?
To me, this shows that the daughter has a good enough relationship with the parent to tell the truth. Well, maybe. There are so many twists and turns when it comes to teenage daughters. Sometimes it’s like playing a game of chess with half of the rules missing.
She is either asking for parental control because she feels the need, or she realises the parent is also reading his blog so they will find out anyway.
By telling the parent, she is sharing the responsibility for the final decision. If it all goes wrong (or right, depending on her aim), she can say in her defense “well, you said I could go”.
But again, I’d really like to know just what he was posting on his blog. Is it xrated, or just chat? Does he tear down each girl in a disparaging manner? Does he pass out addresses and phone numbers, along with measurements?
An actual meeting really would depend on getting answers to those questions.
I’m sure each of us have filled in “Heââ¬â¢s not a shy boy about his relationships” with our own assumptions.
I’m curious, what did it mean to you?
“He’s not shy” to me when I wrote it meant only that he was forthcoming about them. He didn’t keep secrets — not that he was “in your face.” I think I meant it literally.
Liz,
Thanks, that makes it clearer.
From what you’ve shared, you had a wonderful, protected childhood.
I didn’t, so ‘he’s not shy’ could mean … well, I guess I’ll just say it had a different meaning to me when I went back and thought about it.
As it was coming from you my first two posts took that into account … but I had to check in the chance I was reading you wrong.
Hey, Cat,
The story goes wherever the readers take it. Every writer knows that.
Cat:
I’m glad you’re laughing, because it’s ludicrous, but crazy enough to work. We have “experts” for everything. How many of them actually have any experience doing what they are claiming to be such gurus about?
We have political experts who’ve never run for office or held a chairmanship, medical experts who have only been patients, sports experts who get a rash just thinking about jock straps, and the list goes on.
Since I have never had kids, have no intention of having any in the next 5 years, and love the attention of digging myself out of holes that I create by saying absurd things, I think such a blog would be a smashing success. As long as people click the ads, I don’t care what they think of my ideas, because they will always claim to know better…can you imagine actually winning an argument with an Onion.com-like stance on parenting.
“I think toddlers should be allowed to sit as close to the television as possible. It helps promote their ability to focus.” – I think I should stop before I get carried away with some good material. Lemme see what I can pull together as far as spoof/roast material goes.
Pity the person who thinks TheOnion.com is a real news site. LOL.
Jesse,
You’re one creative guy!
True, but clarity is king, and in an online world it’s difficult to make sure all angles are covered … so I was covering mine ‘just incase’ 😀
Jess – reading back over what I wrote, I want to make it clear that I was laughing over my own pre-parenting days, and in a good way.
Before I became a parent, I had long lists of what I’d do, or not.
Like, I’d never say “because I told you so”.
(Didn’t you HATE that growing up?)
Well, that was before I was juggling three kids of various ages. And one big one. Two of who bombarded me with “but WHY? WHY can’t I …. WHY, WHY, WHY?”
The “But WHY’s?” usually came at stressful times.
Like when the dog had thrown up in the back seat of the car. A back seat filled with laundry because the washing machine had died. Again.
Or, I’d just been pulled over for speeding because either the youngest was going to pee their pants and I was making a run for the closest facilities.
“Because I said so” went the way of many ideals I had before I became a parent. Drinking coke, going to the big M’s, eating sugar, watching xxx amount of tv, staying up late … one by one, they eventually went.
“Having a child is like finding youââ¬â¢ve just learned the owner of your home has moved in with you ââ¬â except itââ¬â¢s a new owner every few days, and you never get to know when the ownership changes . . . In fact youââ¬â¢re always the last to know. 🙂 ”
Isn’t that the truth! And right when you think you have it sussed, everything changes and you have a stranger once again.
They say the first child is for practice, the second for real. I never made it to a second (of my own), so my experience stopped at the practice model. But if I’d had, I’m sure the ‘ownership changes’ would have been less of a mystery.
Because no matter how many books you read about child care, it’s never enough. Especially when you are trying to figure things out after being up for three days with a sick child. The brain just does not work …
Jess,
I agree, your blog would be a hoot!
And I’m thinking there might even be some jewels in there that parents have missed.
Short story – at the end of HS there was a test for those wanting a scholarship for cooking.
One girl who had never taken any cooking courses won the scholarship.
Why? Because she come in with fresh answers. To many of the cooking questions she answered ‘when it’s done’ .
Who knows, your blog, although written tongue in cheek, just may give the same.
I just finished my first post. I’m really pumped about this new blog. It will really take the dullness out of the office days when I can’t write posts about my World of Warcraft character because I’m not playing the game at work. It will be something I can post to when we have downtime printing large jobs or waiting for a response from management.
Liz, do I have your permission to put the link up here for Cat and you to see?
Sure Jesse, Go for it!
Thank you, for being the gentleman and asking. 🙂
Thanks, Liz.
http://parentingguru.blogspot.com
I hope you all enjoy it. I’ll be tweaking it as the day goes on, and maybe get crazy and make a *gasp* second post.
Hi Jesse. I was just checking back here to see how it went. It’s a good start!
I have found employers through my blog and I must say that I have had both good and bad experiences in that.
Tough one, “no daugther of mine will be seing one of those bloggers they speak about in 60 minutes” will have her running to his arms in no time, also lots of “yelling and hating” towards oneself, but “oh no sweetie, that’s ok” could end in pregnancy (almost without a doubt). So, yes they can see each other… but here where i can see you both.
Your answer, Whoa, is very much like my own. I don’t like the age difference much on top of the rest. 🙂
Here in my country (undisclosed location) that kind of difference almost always ends in pregnancy, to which the law goes and says “get married or face jail time”… Maybe she doesn’t want him to be the “bride” in jail so she marries him… and then what?
You have a real reason to keep them under watch. I understand completely.
With my son, it was only that I didn’t want him to overburden his future.
Thing is that usually you see that kids start their own lives at earlier ages in countries with more resources (and even then your mileage may vary). But that is why i think that communication is key, you are their friend first and their parent second. That way you get to know what they think without being “judgemental” (is that even a word?).
Yes, judgmental is not only a word; it’s a quality too many people have. 🙂
I agree with your comment about resources. I’m not sure that I would use the word “friend.” I think I would choose “mentor,” Instead.
My daughter is 6 months so this is something I have been thinking about since, well, since I found out that I was pregnant. I want to be protective, nurturing, trusting, and understanding without being oblivious and psycho like so many parents.
‘
Unfortunately, I am a teacher in a big public high school in a big city. I see what happens when parents are too willing to be “cool”. I teach 9th graders and too many of them have been, or are, pregnant (one in particular was 13 and pregnant by a 16 year old).
I would have to tell my daughter “no way.” Of course I would explain to her why- this guy is bragging about the girls in his life and does not show respect for women because he thinks of them as conquest…etc. I would also explain that meeting anyone in a hotel room opens the door for so many other things- expectations of physical contact and other things that she may not be ready for. If after that she still seems to want to meet this guy, I would allow it only after setting boundaries- both me and her dad will have to talk to him before hand, and we all have to meet in a public place and not at our house. I don’t want him to know where we live because again that opens up doors for other problems.
If this guy agrees to meet her with her parents present, great. He is somewhat admirble. However, if he makes excuses then it is a safe bet that he is not honorable and has shady intentions.
I understand the need to trust our kids, but kids do not rationalize things as adults do; they are incapable of doing so because it is life experience that helps to shape our understanding. At 16t years old, she has not had enough life experience to understand the dire circumstances of meeting a stranger at a hotel. If she did, this would not even be an issue.
Hello Kristina,
Welcome!
Thanks for taking the time to write out your comment. Your insights as a parent and teacher are meaningful and well-thought through. They come from the head and the heart. I can hear how much you’ve considered the choices facing every parent.
I’m a teacher too. I’m glad to know kids come to school and find someone like you waiting there for them.
Teacher’s Unite! LOL. Thank you. I am trying really hard to be the parent who see things from all sides. I’m sure you see how being a teacher shapes our view of the world in a sometimes negative way. Sometimes, I truly hate “knowing”.
Thanks for posing this question to blog-world. It’s good to be forced to think!
Hey Kristina,
I’d love your input for other questions. Do feel free to email me if you think of any that would make a good discussion. lizsun2 at gmail [dot] com
I’m with you, teacher! 🙂
Liz,
I found a story that will make your head spin. It gave me an idea for ‘good’ parenting. I hope you enjoy the tongue-in-cheek as much as usual.
http://parentingguru.blogspot.com/2006/11/want-some-hot-chocolate.html
Oh people! You should take that link over to Parents Misbehaving! 🙂
Is that a blog? I don’t have that link if it is.
I’ve been enjoying your B.A.D.s, and may consider getting a call next week. 🙂
He Jesse,
It’s in the sidebar to the left under b5media blogs. Look under Family & Relationships.
If you’re shooting for next week to be a BAD Blogger I think you’re pushed to the weekend after Thanksgiving. 🙂
That link was awful, but sadly it’s more common that you would like to acknowledge, not the hot-chocolate injury, no, what’s real is that more often than not, people take their kids security for granted.
Be it a hot chocolate (which you should always test it first, no excuses), letting them run alone on the super market or just by not listening to what they have to say.
I say sip that drink first, have them to take your hand at all times when not in a friendly environment, take a morning off and go to school to see his or her teachers, get time to know who those counselors are, do not take them for granted, nor their security. After all, all you do is supposed to be for them. Don’t be overprotective, protective will do just fine.
Whoa,
Your words are wise. It is sad that parents can behave badly in such major ways. Did we raise a generation incorrectly? Giving them room self-esteem and too much room to have their own way? Or has this always been a problem of parenting that we just hear more about. I wonder?
I think it is for sure an issue of the family. The ‘greatest generation’ did such a good job, those kids became parents who took everything for granted and did less work for more return than any previous generation.
Those parents had kids who are now between 20 and 35, and MOST of the stories you read about poor parenting come from this group of parents. Compounding the issue is that some of those 35-year-olds are grandparents now, showing a breakdown in general parenting practices that have worked for hundreds of years when common sense is applied.
Common sense has now become a rare commodity.
Hi Jesse,
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I had a B.A.D. blogger phone call. . . .
A breakdown in general parenting practices does that come because parents are too tired from working or because they’re too busy driving kids to too many activities?
Common sense was always in short supply, I think. 🙂
I think the parenting practices is breaking down from both of your suggestions.
1) the 2-income families are too dog-tired to keep tabs on the kids, care too much about the little details of life, and either crack down on the kids out of ‘that is the last straw for my day’ or let them run wild and undisciplined for lack of energy after a day of work.
2) families where one parent works, particularly well-off families, the parent with the kids run them ragged from SAT class to rowing practice to the ranch to get their riding lesson in, and instead of sleeping in on Saturday are at guitar lesson at 9am and headed to the airport by noon to go college hunting.
These families and the grandchildren that are a product of them are going to have an up-hill battle to be normal and well-adjusted in my opinion.
On a personal note, my wife and I are starting a new blog about our people-watching results and ‘non-normals’ that we encounter in our comings and goings. There should be an endless supply of posts for us. 🙂
Hi Jesse.
I’ve heard from several college professors, in personal conversations, that relationships with students these days are more like relationships with high school students in this way — if something goes wrong –say a bad grade on a paper — the professor is FAR MORE likely to get a phone from a parent about it than just five years ago when students would have been more likely to handle such matters on their own.
GenY graduates are also having trouble relating in business on the level on interpersonal skills. Large corporations hare having to teach them not IM their manager when talking is the correct response. The new employees are smart and want to learn, they just don’t know how. Sounds like their experience was centered too much around Google and cell phones and not enough around significant adults.