Topic: Parenting
In This Corner... Thoughts on the Puberty War between Teens and the Parents and people who love them.by Kaydee Barnett
(libertarian)
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tickets, please! Please take your seats quickly and in an orderly fashion. The next generation of the oldest fight in history is about to begin.
In this corner, wearing the Look of Fear, The Robe of Authority, The Lines of Stress, the Patches of Hair-Pulling, and Gloves of Steel, we have our timeless group of champions...The Parents, Caretakers, and Guardians.
And in this corner, wearing the Robe of Hormonal Change, Peer Pressure, Multiple Identity Crisis and the Chain of Authority Figure Defiance...our latest group of contenders....(drumroll, please)....The Pre-Teens, Tweens and Teens! Let's get ready to rummmbbbllee!!! DING!
WHOA!! The Teens have come out in full force! The Pre-Teens are loud and sassy, folks! Socking it to The Parents with barely-there clothing, spiked hair, and a few tattoos in places that would put their Barbie dolls and G.I. Joe’s to shame! Don’t count The Parents out yet, people. They’re showing a little spunk. They’ve got that look of anger and desperation, folks. They’re rising, rising…whoa! I just saw a grounding, folks! Wait, there goes a confiscated cell phone! Way to go, Parents!
UH-OH! Out flies an expletive from the youth corner! The parents are staggering just a bit. Not to worry, folks, The Parents are just a bit stunned, and there goes the laptop and the phone privileges. It looks like the Youth are down. The referee is putting down the count…1, 2..NOPE, the Youth have been rejuvenated. They’re wearing that look of scheme, folks. What could they have up their sleeves? Holy cow, it’s sex! WAIT!! It looks like..what is that…is that what it looks like?? It is! It’s a baby! Whoa, the parents look like they are ready to DROP!! DING! The referee calls for a round break. The Youth clearly have won this round, folks! Stay tuned for Round Two after the break…
Okay, folks, here we go. The precious bundles of joy have surpassed the need to be pushed around in a stroller or toted around in a baby carrier. Your kisses no longer possess the magical quality of healing the "boo-boos", and you have morphed into the Alien Enemy Number One from the Superhero you once were. Congratulations, you've graduated into the Land of The Teens, and what's worse...the Teens of the Millenium.
Welcome, I'm here, too.
Okay, I am not writing this article because I have a degree in psychology or some other expert credentials..(not that credentials make much difference in the real-life in-home battles), but they can offer some suggestions for different approaches, as maybe my experiences and those offered to me by my readers can do for you.
I recently had the role of Mother of a Teen crash-landed into my lap, and MAN, in one quick slap in the face, my talented little angel was replaced by some Galaxian Transformer Podperson I didn't recognize. I found myself screaming, not liking her much, then liking and loving her again, wanting to ship her off to whatever site her spaceship landed in and grab my baby back, and last but not least, quickly find the "Stop-Growth" button on her head and duplicate it for her little siblings that are soon to follow. I most certainly started second-guessing my competence as a mom and found myself desperate to do anything to bring it back to the days that movies, nature walks, DVD's and trips to McDonald's were more than adequate to make her day. But all I can say to that is......LOL! HA! Not gonna happen, folks! The sooner we grasp that, the sooner we'll restore our self-inflicted hair loss and heal that heartburn. Okay, back to the ring..
Welcome back, folks! What a stunner before the break from the Teens! The Parents are victims of a series of surprise attacks and were saved from ultimate defeat by the end of the round. What will they counter-attack with? We’ll found out right now. DING! Round Two…the Parents have been revitalized. They’re back with a look of their own..what have we here?? It looks like tighter supervision, folks! And..oh, there’s a hug! Wait, The Teens are resisting…wicked looks of yet another surprise attack to come…they’re huddling in a corner…and they’re back! Armed and dangerous with explicit lyrics to a song on the radio…oh wait, there’s a whole new bag of tricks, folks! The Teens are pulling something out of the bag..what is it? Correction, what are THOSE?
HOLY TOLEDO, it’s drugs, a gun, and…oh man, the sex has taken a new turn and now we have sexual orientation wars to battle! The Teens are really pounding on The Parents, folks! What a fight this is turning out to be! The Parents are staggering, but they’re still pretty strong….wait, wait, The Parents seem pretty confident as they pull out their own bag of tricks! What could they have in there to recover from The Teens last blow…WOW!! WHOA, The Parents have pulled out A Prayer, folks! The Teens are STUNNED! They are staggering…stumbling…..WHOA, THEY’VE FALLEN!! The referee has once again entered the ring to put down the count….1…2…3! The Parents win Round Two and end this event by K-O! Stay tuned for The Rematch, folks! This battle isn’t over! Thanks for tuning in!
Welcome back. Indeed,this war is not yet over. Puberty is a war in itself that has aspects your children must fight all by themselves, but parents have the added burden of remaining strong, sometimes having to accept that we MUST open the defensive fortress we’ve built against the world to protect them and let them learn a bit, and still be their most reliable force of support when their crazy journey of self-exploration settles into a nest of self-reflection and enlightenment.
I would be the biggest hypocrite if I told you that this will get better with patience. No matter how much knowledge and foresight we have from having once been there; no matter how strong in our faith in God we are, there are times, more often than not, that we can only function in parent-mode. We are not thinking about God’s never-shaky promise of protection and provision when we just got news that our child was caught smoking drugs or drinking. No, not in that particular moment. We momentarily lose our faith when our daughters have just come up pregnant or our sons have impregnated someone when they haven’t even finished junior high school. In that moment, we just saw the innocent baby we brought home in a nursery blanket, (the one we swore to shield from the ugliness we know exists), break out of their protective gate and into the hands of the dreaded world. And we feel STUCK! We feel betrayed, and we feel like we’ve failed. We somehow didn’t lock the doors well enough, or buy the true state-of-the-art security systems that could have kept the intruders out. And now we have our own private war to fight on top of the war we’re fighting with our children. So what’s next?
First, we must know that God is the only true answer. I know many of you will be sighing or rolling your eyes to the sky, but that is the first thing to know. It won’t be easy, because we need a tangible quick fix in the midst of that raging wave of emotions, but hang in there and trust God, even when you don't feel Him. Then, let’s remember what we experienced within ourselves when we were teens. Growing pains have not changed, only the stage props have. Our children have cell phones, we had beepers, and our parents had telegraphs. Either way, we managed to get those secret messages out to those forbidden acquaintances in defiance of our parents’ strict rules and eagle-eyed radar watches.
We, too, believed our parents were alien podpeople who couldn’t understand us and had no idea what "teens" go through because they were adults and what did they know about zits, being unpopular, and not fitting in? Our children our saying the same thing to us. The confusion, identity search, desperate need to fill an inexplicable void in ourselves that come with teenhood is universal. As parents, we have the advantage of experience to guide us through suggestions for communication, but there are many differences in this day and age that are both beneficial and damaging that we did not have in our day.
Parents today are more involved and outspoken, and allow for their children to have more of a voice than we did. Children who report abuse by an adult or other child will no longer be told to keep quiet and deal with their trauma as a dirty family secret. They are quicker to confront what were once forbidden subjects and seek punishment for offenders. This can also work in the negative, as many children have been known to make false allegations to avoid being punished. It is a parent’s duty to find out the truth before making the wrong move.
Predators of our children are now more broadly inclusive of non-stereotypes. They can be women, men, teachers, police officers, and even more frightening, other children. In contrast, predators of the earlier days were less bold and aggressive, usually had more fear of being caught, and respected the church. These days, the Internet is a secret conduit for meetings in code, cell phones are private gateways that can evade a watchful parent’s eye, and predators even dare to accost in public or broad daylight. Children are almost seemingly creating fads that include sex, homosexuality, violence, gang involvement, drug use, alcohol abuse and prison time as "brownie point" incentives.
As parents, our job is to first prevent by example and non-negotiable foundations. We can’t guarantee what our children’s choices will be when they leave us, but it is our obligation to enforce a strong foundation of teaching that lets them know that WE don’t condone the new ideals of the collective. We need to teach them respect for themselves, and for others.
Girls cannot be the only ones we watch, because boys equally have responsibility and accountability for their actions and to respect. We can’t tell our daughters to wear a scarlet letter for having sex while we pat our sons on the backs for their conquests. We can’t send a message to girls that they should have known better than to get pregnant, while we send the boys who impregnated them off to reform school, away from the "little old sexual indiscretion", to protect his future as a college scholarship recipient. It is our job as parents to make a difference one person at a time.
If we teach our daughters to believe in themselves and care enough about themselves the way they are, they will be able to make better choices for themselves and not believe that they need any old smooth-talker to survive in life. There could possibly be less need to make bad choices to fulfill a void of self-loath. If we teach our sons to respect themselves as they are and not believe that having sex is the key ticket to proving manhood, or that women are scheming, materialistic Jezebels who want nothing more than to saddle them down and take their money and their freedom; or that it’s not threatening to your manhood to be in the same room with a girl whose anatomically well-developed and not have sex with her, maybe our youth would emerge stronger, well-balanced adults. If we teach them that someone loving them is something to cherish and not take advantage of or fear, then maybe they will be able to understand that marriage is not the freedom-snatching snare they were taught to believe it is. Maybe they will be able to understand that having a partner in your life who loves, supports, understands and stands by you will enrich life, not stagnate it.
And we need to get really straightforward in our sex talks with them. Be shameless in explaining that sex can be pleasurable, but still should be shared with someone special--AND when they are mature enough to handle the physical and emotional responsibilities that come with it. We can also tell them that it’s okay to get the hormonal tingles, and even entertain fantasies without shame, and maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t be so quick to scheme to have sex.
As parents, if we continue to say no to what we know is wrong, even when it seems like the world has widely accepted it, maybe we can give our children a real chance to fight back and feel successful in being unique. If they see it flowing regularly outside, and there are no boundaries at home, then why should they believe that there’s anything wrong with it?
Two common mistakes that many of us make is not sharing with our children some key stupid, dangerous or bad choices we made as teens. We’re too ashamed to look like hypocrites. Yet, those very mistakes are your best teaching aides. You may be telling your children that you are not so far removed from understanding the pressures they face, and what severe peer pressure can lead you to do. Or you can show them how far you’ve come from where you’ve been, and share with them why you chose to be where you are. For example, if you're a cigarette smoker, you can tell your children just how stupid it is to start a habit that will become a prison they can’t get out of. You can point out how silly and unnecessarily destructive it would be to walk into a prison and throw away your own keys by sharing how hard it is for you to quit smoking.
The second mistake is that we try to be our children’s friends. We CANNOT be their parent and their friend! We CANNOT. We can have a healthy, fun and open relationship with them, but we MUST KNOW when to put our foot down and set our boundaries. Our children will respect, appreciate and benefit from it much more than you being their equal.
And the most important key is that you don’t quit fighting for your child. You’re going to dislike their behavior, their persona, sometimes you may not even like them at a few times, and most often than not, you’re going to feel like a Lone Crusader. You are going to feel like you are the odd ball out who should join them, because you can’t beat them. But don’t give in or give up. Your teen may be a little taller now, with a few added changes physically and otherwise, but they are still testing the "What can I get away with ?" theory. They’re going to push at you…HARD, you have to push back harder. Prepare yourself for the tears, the migraines, the yelling matches, the extra spankings, the feelings of giving up and sending the "problem" away, because believe me, beloved readers, it’s coming if it hasn’t already. And to think, this goes on until they’re eighteen!
The most important thing they need is for you to be there through it all. They want your anger with your love. They need you to tell them you disapprove of their bad behavior. They need you to ground them, pull them out of those parties they snuck off to, and to stand firm in your teachings. And in the midst of all of that, they need you to tell them that you love them anyway, and they are the most important thing to you.
Most of us look back now and thank our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or whoever it was that whipped our rear ends in those years. The ones who refused to let us get away with our schemes or our misguided goals. No matter how far we strayed, those of us who had those parents who loved us enough to stand by us while allowing us to hate them during our pubescent transition into adulthood look back now and can say thank you and I’m sorry. We are a better generation because of it. I am not speaking from a professionally-accredited standpoint. I am speaking as a mother who’s chucking back Pepto-Bismol and Pepcid AC like water to fight the battle of the Teens, and a former teen who remembered that the most important factor of my survival through puberty was to have my oldest sister stand by my side through the whole ugly mess. She screamed at me when I screwed up, then told me that I was so smart and talented that I could succeed even though I screwed up. And then she said that I could scream, rebel and hate her as much as I wanted, but she would be damned if she let the streets take me down.
Don’t the children of today deserve that same opportunity?
Thank you to my best friends, Elaine Nieves and Margie Saez, who offered their parental input in response to my survey on Facebook. This article couldn’t have been written without your important feedback. Hope I helped someone out there and can be helped by someone in return.
Until next time, readers..God bless you. Kaydee
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Kaydee Barnett only and do not represent
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