(Potentially running) thread: Help! My daughter is a tween and the Mean Girls Era has begun!

Correct. And it’s a step in the right direction.

But a ton of people still don’t believe in it.

 

I think every generation, since the one that believed it was okay to beat your kids with a switch cut from an oak tree, has been gradually more permissive because they didn't want to be their parents. We're seeing the results of that now.

And each generation also has been trending towards the Helicopter Parents that we see, who want to be involved and control every aspect of their kids' life, down to joining Moms for Liberty and banning books that their kids either weren't reading anyway, or oblivious to the fact that the kids are seeing more real porn on their cell phones than they ever thought existed in a library book about two penguins holding flippers.

I graduated a public high school in 1974 that was brand-new, had a lot of young teachers and tried a lot of open-space classes with social sciences and English pretty much open to discussions about almost anything.

All my parents cared about was that I was on a decent track to a B average and wasn't getting in trouble. No real pressure as long as I maintained that. When a teacher told my mother, "Hondo could be getting all As but he doesn't apply himself," she just said, "you ought to see how he applies himself to chores."

My mother never once questioned a book that might be in the library, or a teacher. We had two openly gay teachers at our high school, 3-4 downright stoner hippies straight out the Haight, a history teacher who said in class that Nixon was a war criminal and one whose brother was a high-ranking official with the PLO (and was visited by the FBI on more than one occasion). You ought to see my high school yearbook. You can't tell the students from 80 percent of the faculty.

Not one single parent in the early 1970s said a fucking word about it or tried to get those teachers fired or showed up at the School Board meetings like a pack of angry hyenas.

I realize this is a treadjack of sorts but I think it ties into the big picture: parents try to control too much of their kids' lives and then wonder why they rebel.

 

Excellent take. My parents were exactly the same (I was a little less than a decade after you), make sure I was on a good track and not getting into trouble.

Actually one of the tension points is that my wife's urge was to be a helicopter type and I was more hands off (still a point of discussion as our kids become adults shall we say). Being lassez faire is not the best either because I failed to recognize my kid's ADHD and resulting stress from wrestling with the difficulties. So I recognize what worked for me as a kid doesn't necessarily translate. But a bit more freedom isn't a bad thing.

 

The good ole days weren’t completely free of this Moms For Liberty type crap. People always have the knives out when they think their culture is at stake.

e-WV | Exhibit: The Kanawha County Textbook Controversy

The Great Textbook Wars | American RadioWorks

 

As of midnight Central, my tween is now a teen. She celebrated this momentous occasion last night by slipping and falling while operating a super soaker on the run. Turns out her extra present was debriding her knee, followed by five stitches.

Please tell me this is not an omen.

 

Every age has its issues. My daughter is no longer a teenager. She actually turns 21 next month. Apparently, I am supposed to let her make her own decisions even if they seem like really bad ones now. Yeah, that's going to be easy.

 

First it was Baby Reindeer, now some of my clients who were bullies want to apologize to people they victimized. Others are having fantods because their former bullies will not leave them alone. Does everyone in the UK pick a pathology of the month and then collectively run off a cliff like lemmings with adorable accents and a tea habit?

This is not by any stretch a best practice for counselors, but I have been telling people they are not owed/do not owe each other cerebral real estate to seek absolution or forgive. Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave folks alone. ::sigh::

 

I have terrible news.

You never stop worrying about your kids, and their problems keep getting more expensive and the consequences more dire.

 

That was the implication of my post responding to dixiehack. I know there is no chance I'll ever stop worrying about her. I think she is finally starting to realize it is more about me than it is about me not trusting her.

 

My absolutely favorite movie scene is in Parenthood when Jason Robards tell his 45 yr old son Steve Martin “it never ends, the worrying” and Martin is shocked that dad still worries about him.

 

My 8-year-old daughter asked yesterday for her first two-piece bathing suit.

 

Our 19-year-old stepson is heading to Virginia Beach next week with some friends from college and my wife said, "I'm worried about this trip."
Me, "didn't you do a similar trip with your friends to Ocean City at that age."
Her, "Well yeah but..."
Me, "Okay. We're done here."