Being unemployed now, I have plenty of time for unproductive bullshit. In between firing out resumes that don't garner a response, and grasping at straws, I watch too much TV. It's the type of TV I'd never have watched a year ago. This morning I was watching some morning talk show that comes on after the news on Fox. M&J in the morning. This morning they had this Mother and her 16 year old daughter on, they were debating whether this kid should go alone to Mexico for spring break, and by alone, I mean along with a couple of her equally clueless 16 and 17 year old girlfriends. Before I was a middle aged reprobate, I was once a teen aged reprobate, so I get it, when these kids say that want to go off to Mexico and party. Kids think they are invincible, bad shit won't happen to them. There's nothing surprising there, what is shocking is the mother. She was actually on the fence, she was considering allowing her blond headed, naive child to travel alone to a country that touts kidnapping as a cottage industry. Mom was dressed just a wee bit youngish for her 40 something age. They were Pals, mom and daughter, more like sisters.
When did parents change from disciplinarian, the voice of reason and responsibility, into some watered down version of a parent? Somewhere along the line there was a paradigm shift, parents lost their ability to dictate whats what, and became wishy washy BFF's. I realize that the majority of parents still run things where family is concerned, but it's only a majority by a slim and ever shrinking margin. One would think that just the opposite would be true. I was a teenager in the 70's, compared to today, the 70's were pretty tame. Sure we ingested all manner of mind altering substances, screwed like minks, and wore ridiculous clothes, much like the youth of today. Bad, life altering, sometimes life ending events took place then, but not on the level of today. Even in the formative budding criminal circle I ran with, we didn't carry automatic weapons, we never randomly sprayed bullets at community centers, today random acts of violence are so common we are rarely shocked when we hear about them.
So I wonder about these so called parents who desperately want to be friends with their kids, so much that they allow them to do whatever they please, out of fear of rejection. I know they think if they schmooze up to their kids, the kid in turn will be open with them, they will bond. Parents aren't supposed to be friends with their 16 year old kid, at least not to the extent that they would allow them to travel alone to Mexico, or Florida, or anywhere , with other junior sloots in the making. Yeah I know , who am I to criticize. I was a juvenile delinquent of the highest order, and shit just got worse for a whole lot of years before it got better. In my case, I had good parents, sure they made mistakes, but their hearts were in the right place, I was just bound to end up like I did. Ozzie and Harriet, along with Ward and June, could have teamed up to raise me, it wouldn't have mattered. I was just bound to be a wild kid, but I was an exception to the rule. For the most part kids are by and large good, they just need guidance. That guidance doesn't include being an older parody of one of their high school friends. It means you respond with a quizzical look, followed by a resounding " Are you fuckin kiddin me?", when they ask to run off to Mexico with their underage girlfriends.
We adopted our daughter late in life for all of us. We were in our mid-40's and she was 15. Now we're late 40's and she's 17. She had led a pretty wild life before coming to live with us. She already had a record and was on the verge of going to "juvie" until she turned 18. Now she is an A & B student with a job and doing good. A couple of times she has likened living with us to being in a monastery or on an amish farm. But she also admits that we have kept her out of trouble and that her life is pretty good when she looks at it. We are best pals and parents. We can do silly things but are also ready to ask "Are you out of your friggin mind?" when her old ways resurface. Parents need to grow a set and be parents. And not this BFF asshat stuff. Before they end up on teevee trying to find their missing child.
ReplyDeleteSolid advice written with style.
ReplyDeleteFunny...the "are you fucking kidding me?!" repsonse was exactly the one that I got from my parents when I was 17 and asked to go to Mexico with my friends. Their rule was that in order to go on Spring Break, I needed to be able to PAY for Spring Break on my own - knowing full well that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to be able to afford to buy a swimsuit on my own at that time (with no job), let alone a plane ticket to another country. My parents have never tried to play the "we're buddies" card and I love them for that - I have friends to turn to when I need friends...kids need actual parents or at least a responsible adult figure to turn in the lives, too.
ReplyDeleteGood advice. Too many parents try to be BFFs with their kids because it's more fun and less work than being a parent.
ReplyDeleteNice post MM.
ReplyDeleteIf it was my 16 yr old daughter asking to go party for Spring Break with her buddies, after telling her "no way in hell", I would call her buddies parents as well and ask them what the hell they were thinking!
Maybe then you find out that its a thing of "everyone else is doing it", when in fact they ain't.
I don't have children so ANYTHING I say, I get the eye roll from people that do. Some parents think(not always all that correctly) that they were mistreated, misunderstood, mis-everything'd, by their own parents, and they are going to be little Sally's best friend. Little Sally is then, usually, a horrific brat who says things like, "My Mother doesn't discipline me for saying F*** because she knows I am very creative and free-spirited."
ReplyDelete~Mary
Well, we were too poor to even consider spring break as a family much less for a high school kid. By the way, back in the day (ahem) spring break was a college event. Going anywhere except to Aunt Mae's was unheard of for a high school kid.
ReplyDeleteGreat post MM.
A-fucking-men. My mother is a mentally ill beast in many ways, but she never would have let me get away with any of that, and I give her credit where credit's due. She was also fully on top of my grades, if I got in trouble, she made me do my time, and I have good manners to this day, no matter how much I want to tell many people to sit and spin.
ReplyDeleteI don't have kids yet, but I teach, and this BFF attitude is ruining kids. They flunk a test? The parents call and scream because we made their precious babies feel bad about themselves. They get caught cheating? The parents call lawyers and try to scare us with the word "sue". They're not doing their kids any favors. When they're out working, are they gonna call their kids' bosses and complain if they get written up of fired? Ridiculous.
And you're right, most kids start out good. It's the parents that make them rotten.
Man, I agree with all the posters. I told my son a long time ago that I was not his friend and would never be. I'm not friends with my parents, I'm middle aged and they're still my parents that I answer to, at least on occasion.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't friends with my mother until I was an adult and living on my own. I can only imagine the trouble I would have gotten into if I had looked at her as my buddy and not the mother aka "boss, ruler of my world".
ReplyDeleteYet, five months down the road, we let these same 17 year olds go to an even scarier place than freakin Mexico - the college campus! =)
ReplyDeleteI just saw "Taken" over the weekend and it is definitely a spot on depiction of spoiled children and clueless parents endangering their precious kids lives. You have to teach your kids early that you don't care what other parents are letting their kids do - you have your reasons and you don't have to share them. I plan on having a great relationship with my daughter as she grows into a bratty teenager, but I'm not going to sacrifice the responsibility I have in keeping her safe and developing her into a responsible adult and confident person.
MM, as always, you make some great points but I would add that I think there is a place for approachability and relatability in a parent/child relationship.
ReplyDeleteYou've spurred another post for me that I'm working up now. Thanks for the motivation.
MM, you nailed it. I've seen the results of this misguided parenting notion of BFF. I went to war in Iraq as commander of a number of these 19 year old products of mis-parenting. I learned their life stories. Everyone of them was a disaster prior to finally getting the structure and discipline from the Army that should have been given to them by their parents. The good intentions of their misguided, no-boundary-setting, aiming-to-please parents had nearly ruined them. Many were well on their way to becoming juvenile delinquents. I had to read their security background checks, and it confirmed their problems.
ReplyDeleteHumanity has successfully raised children for thousands upon thousands of years. Why do some parents today suddenly think they have a new and better way that tops those multi-millenia methods of discipline, education, and structure? We haven't changed as a species. Children still grow and develop and need the same nurturing as they did ten thousand years ago and we're all products of those hard earned lessons and cumulative successes. Maybe some of these misguided parents should do a sanity check and contrast their new ideas with that history.
I wonder if the BFF attitude towards kids is a result from both parents working? They feel guilty that they don't spend enough time with their kids because they are working all the time and that guilt manifests itself into letting the child get whatever they want and thus become a spoiled brat.
ReplyDelete