What I don't want, are teenagers.
They say things like, "Why do you always try to ruin my life?!" and "You never want me to have fun!" when you've spent most of your life in utter devotion to their well-being and flourishment.
You work a shitty job to send them to college, you cook a thousand meals to pour down their thankless gullet, you run a mountain-load of their dirty laundry, and after all that the thanks you get is a narrowing of the eyes, a voice laced with disdain, and a cold shoulder. And the eye-roll. I love the eye-roll. "Ugh. Like, whatever. You are like so lame."
Teens feel so entitled. Entitled to the perfect parents who are never selfish. Entitled to have free reign to do whatever they think is pleasurable. And entitled to judge and condemn.
They have learned judgment without mercy, condemnation without compassion, and that's not even the worst part.
The worst part is their lack of judgment.
They get into self-destructive relationships with the other sex. They go to parties where addictive substances are on tap. And they drive recklessly. Any one of those things may have severe consequences for the rest of their lives. This is definitely the age where permanent scarring begins.
So how does one keep one's sweet, innocent child from becoming a monster/brat?
I don't know. But I'm sure their peer-set is crucial. By the time kids become teens, or pre-teens, they suddenly no longer care about what their parents think. Instead they care almost exclusively about what their peers think. Do they think I'm cool? Do they accept me? Do I get their stamp of approval?
Watching Frontline: Growing up Online has really solidified to me how much of an iron-grip a teen's peer set has over them. Lives are literally lost because of it.
Ryan Halligan was relentlessly bullied at school. But it took the power of the internet to amplify that humiliation and condemnation to the point where life was unbearable. In 2003 Halligan committed suicide at age 13. They say the "event" that put him over the edge was, really, just an age-old prank that popular girls would play on unpopular boys. She flirted with him over IM and he flirted back. And then she dropped the bomb. She ridiculed him for "believing her." As if a popular teen queen like her would ever deign to like a "faggot loser" like him.
Megan Meier died an even more tragic death (if that's possible). Her cyber-bully wasn't even real. A totally fictional boy on MySpace told her "the world would be a better place" without her and Megan took his word as her gospel truth. She killed herself within minutes of that online message. She was only 15. Sad.
It seems to me that the problem of teenage-dom is the problem of relative worth. Who do you listen to? Whose word is your truth? Whose approval do you seek? How will you be justified?
Truth be told, I'm still trying to crawl out of the dark vortex of public approval-seeking and relative-worth basing. I suspect most adults are. And I suspect most adults pass on their insecurities and brokeness to their teens, to the third and fourth generations.
So what then can be done about the wayward teen? Probably the same thing that's good for the wayward adult.
Deep, solid roots.
...and no driver's license until you're 21, no parties, no internet, and no dating until you're 18! Just kidding. But your dates will be chaperoned!
