It is clear that for 90 per cent of the time I’m flying blind with this parenting gig. Look we’ve survived 15 years, everyone is still here, there are only a few physical scars (Princess Child had a habit of throwing herself into activities with a little more vigour than her coordination development allowed; hence front teeth damaged on slippery dip, stitches in forehead after going through glass window), the psychological scars are yet to surface, and hey there are plenty of reasons why a person ends up in therapy at 30 and it’s not ALL their mother’s fault! So I reckon my just-getting-by dealing with each issue crisis-by-crisis approach hasn’t been a complete failure.
However, I have moments when I decide I have to be a bit more responsible. Deal with things before they are a problem. Face the fact parenting in the modern world is a vastly different experience than even 20 years ago. Ge’ez if the world would just slow down and stop inventing stuff that gives us parents new problems to deal with it would be great. Just a moratorium on creating anything new for the next six years, until my youngest is off my hands that would be wonderful.
Anyhow, assuming the geeks will continue creating, I need to face up to parenting in the new millenium and try to be a bit more proactive. Here’s what happened when I tried to make an effort.
It’s important to give your children chores, so they learn responsibility and go on to be employable adults. I only gave them one job to do last week cart the groceries from the car to the house and put them away. Yesterday I discovered the source of the odour that had us all gagging in the car – a leg of lamb accidentally left in the boot. Note responsible parents check the tasks they give children and fix the stuff-ups.
This week I have been reading my friend Rachel’s blog The Kids Are All Right. It’s a great resource for parents of teenagers. I weighed in on her post about Facebook with my holier-than-thou “I have their passwords and I do spot checks”. After writing that I realised I couldn’t remember their passwords and it had been ages since I conducted a random check. I asked for passwords and heard “oh I haven’t been on Facebook for months, after you do your check mum can I have the I-pad I might see what’s going on”. Great I’ve reignited an interest that had died. Go me.
The second post of Rachel’s that got me in a panic was a conversation she had with her daughter regarding porn. Apparently our children are exposed to a lot more disturbing images at a younger age than we could ever imagine. Rachel named sites and chat rooms and talked about how teenage boys in particular where obtaining an unrealistic expectation about sex from the porn they were able to easily access on phones and computers (a dirty mag under the bed is long gone).
So in my new, responsible parenting mode, I attempted the conversation. Obviously at the wrong time, wrong place and wrong audience. Have to learn not always best to go with an idea at the moment it pops into my head.
Me: Do boys at your school watch porn?
Miss 15: How the hell would I know?
Me: Do you ever hear them talk about it? Have you ever seen any?
Miss 15: Oh I like a couple of their videos they are funny.
Me: Porn videos?
Miss 15: The bodyboarding videos there’s this guy on this wave going up and down …
Me: There’s a bodyboarding porn video?
Miss 15: What?? No. It’s a film about bodyboarding.
Me: But we are talking about porn.
Miss 15: No mum you are talking about porn, I’ve got no intention of talking about porn.
Me: You have to let me talk to you about this stuff, why do you always refuse to have any discussion about sex? Rachel talked to her daughter about it, look I’ll show you the post.
Miss 15: And if Rachel jumped off a bridge …
Me: Nobody likes a smart alec.
Miss 15: Just sayin …
Me: (Had been battling a migraine all day which of course put another thought in my mind which I just HAD to share) Have I told you the pill is bad for migraines? If you ever decide to take the pill you need to tell the doctor you get migraines, my migraines were much worse when I was on the pill.
Miss 12: (I had forgotten she was in the room) When were you on the pill?
Me: Ummm err, when I didn’t want to have children.
Miss 15: I am not having this discussion.
Me: Seriously, you would have to tell the doctor …
Miss 12: Look mum, she can just get the boy to wear a condom OK.
Right, the ever practical 12-year-old has solved that problem, the eldest has managed to yet again successfully avoid any conversation regarding issues of a sexual nature and we all return to watching X Factor.
Are teenagers different in the country vs those in the city? Are country kids more naive, less exposed to this stuff? Or as a parent have I just got my head-in-the-sand and it’s everywhere, I just haven’t experienced it with my children YET?
There ends my attempt at responsible parenting.
Well, you had me chuckling the whole way through with that post! You could be right, there may be a difference between country kids and city kids, plus it comes down to the general nature of your child’s school year. I don’t think you have your head in the sand – I imagine after that discussion you would know if you had to dig deeper. Unless of course “bodyboarding” is a euphemism…
Your post was so beautiful, the conversation was so well done … my attempt so different. No bodyboarding isn’t a euphemism. After I posted she told me it isn’t just a city kids thing, it’s around her too, she just chooses to ignore it. Considering she struggles to even remember how to get into the school’s Moodle site I’m not sure she’s got the technical ability to navigate porn sites and chat rooms.
That’s interesting to know that it isn’t any different in the country. I had the car half packed.
Thank you so much for following up rachel’s post with yours – every bit of perspective helps and I love hearing that your daughter is aware of it but chooses to ignore it – i was kind of the same about drugs in my school in the 80s.
I know I was like that with drugs and alcohol too, so it is possible for teenagers to see/know about all this stuff but not choose to participate. We have to cling to that.
A great conversation, we try to talk about these topics to encourage kids to open about it. We also talk about contraception and treating your girlfriend/boyfriend right. To forbid access just means kids will lie about it, I would rather them to be open about it all.
I really do believe conversation is the key – keeping on communicating – even when they are reluctant.
My girl would sit and talk after school and it took all my effort not to show the shock on my face when she would tell me what some of the kids in class would talk about and the websites they would visit.Thankfully she was like your girl and chose not to go along with those kids.But she was still exposed as there was no escaping what they talked at times.Especially when lined up to go into class.
As for Facebook…some of the people in her class had two accounts.One for the parents to check and one their parents didnt know of.I couldnt believe it.
Yes parenting in this day and age is so so hard with all the technology.We had many an discussion over the computer use and doing chores.Arrgghhh.
I think so long as you set aside a time of day to just be together then things come up in conversation and then they dont think you are having a ‘talk’ with them.If they think you are trying to talk about something they tend to shut down.I found my girl would only talk when she wanted too.Typical teenager!
I think you are doing a great job as you really are trying to be there as a parent and that is all a child can ask for.Xx
I love the sound of your mother daughter chats each afternoon. You are right, it’s so important not to look horrified when they do start telling you things (and not to be judgemental or patronising or derogatory or…) it’s a hard job! Someone once told they need you more when they are teenagers than when they are babies (given I was in the middle of drowning in the baby years at the time I thought she was insane), however, now I can see that she was probably right. They won’t talk to you schedule (as the above post shows), however you do need to be around and willing to listen at the moment when they do decide to share! The Facebook thing still worries me, I feel confident that my kids only have the one account – but then I hear what you have just said and I hope I’m not being naive. I always hate it when parents say with complete confidence “my kid doesn’t do that …” “my kid would never …” because I feel they are cruising for a fall. Yet I do feel I know my kids, we do have pretty good communication and I’m hoping I’ve read the situation (and the child) correctly.
It’s often a thankless gig this parenting thing, isn’t it? But you sound like you’re on the right track, despite what you think, because of your efforts to be there for your kids. It’s never a good time for ‘those’ kinds of conversations but you still have to try; it’s all part of the job. My venue of choice is often the car, when it’s one-on-one with me and the particular child – they can’t escape and I can at least just say what I want to say and then let them think on it for a while!
Technology has really changed the parenting landscape, and not in a good way, IMO. You just about need to be a computer science geek to keep pace with all the social media available!
I reckon there’s a blog post in how the car has become the confessional/therapy couch/conversation starter for families. We spend so much time transporting them everywhere and it is often the only time we can get one-on-one time with them. As for the technology my head hurts. Rachel’s post mentions sites etc I’d never heard of, obviously Twitter and Facebook are old hat (and I’m not sure I even had my head around them properly and I go there every day). Aargggh.
Conversations I am not looking forward to having … Your 15-year-old sounds like fun, though! Very nice turn of phrase on her.
Yes she can be quite articulate when she wants to be (particularly when disagreeing with me!).
A conversation I’m not looking forward to having with my son! The New York Times had an article on their parenting blog about how to talk to your kids about porn. I couldn’t finish reading it, kind of made me a little nauseous!
I don’t have much to weigh in on on this one – my parents and I never had the sex talk – I have no idea what I would have done if they tried. I had a few of my friend’s parents for answering questions – and everything else I think I asked my friends.
Then I look at shows like Secret Life of the American Teenager where they discuss EVERYTHING with their parents and it kind of blows my mind. I think that’s unrealistic.
Sorry – this was not helpful at all.
My daughter would think that was a far better set-up than what we have, with me trying to force her into these really “gross” conversations.