From: caroline@sco.COM (friend of a fiend)
Subject: Re: A Teenager's job (Was Boundaries)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:13:35 GMT


In article <92199.52867.L621035@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> L621035@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:
>------------------------- Original Article -------------------------
>>   Oh, I'm afraid I'm just going to have to disagree with you, here.
>>All teenagers are not drugsuckingunsafesexhavingharddrinkinglaw-
>>breakingfatherstabbingmotherraping terrors, granted.  But they are
>>teenagers, after all.  It's their job to be as difficult to you as it
>>is within their ability to be.
><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>I found this statement to be *VERY* true.  In fact, I called my teen
>at home & quoted to her.  She used her oft-repeated phrase "Yup, it's
>my job (pronounced "yawb").  She knows that it's my resposibility, as
>her mother to set the limits for her to test. (Or, is that the other
>way around?)  She may grumble at times, I may grumble at times, but
>we have the security/safety nets firmly in place. It works.  Anyway,
>good insight!

I don't agree with this at all, I think it is a load
of pop-psych crud that we all believe just because 
everyone repeats it so often.  I just can't buy the
line that it is completely "normal" or acceptable for
teenagers to make their parent's lives hell.  Of course,
I've got one of these hell-children, and I can tell you
exactly why the problem is occurring, in pop-psychology
terms:  it is because I, as a parent, do not have as strong
a personality as my daughter does.  The experiences I've
had and the way my personality has developed have taught
me to be nice, polite, and not particularly assertive,
to depend on cooperation voluntarily offered -- so, in
the general power struggle that happens when a kid hits
the teen years, this means that I "lose" and she "wins".
Her experiences, on the other hand, have taught her thousands
of ways to out-manipulate just about anyone, she has no
qualms about being rude, hateful, and generally vicious 
when she wants to get her way about things, and she tends
to believe that she is behaving perfectly ok when she
"stands up for herself" in these ways, no matter who or
what she steps on or destroys in getting there.  She'll
probably go far, if she ever manages to get a career, but
she sure won't win a lot of close friends getting there.  :-}

This has become more and more clear to me over the last
few years of misery, and especially the last few months.
But the thing is, I don't have unlimited resources or
unlimited flexibilty or an unlimited ability to change
myself and become the person that my daughter really needs
for her parent.  I am who I am, and she is who she is,
so in that sense, we both lose, because she doesn't have
the super limit-setting parent she needs, and I don't get
the experience at parenting a "wonderful" teen daughter 
that I was expecting, I don't get to be support and backup
for the kinds of things I was hoping to be able to give her.

The reality, instead, is that I can't get her voluntary 
cooperation on even some very basic issues, but I am not 
willing to have my home and life be a daily battleground
to get there.  (Some of you may remember postings about 
this back in January...)  So, at not-quite-16 years old,
my daughter has nearly complete freedom to go where she
likes, when she likes, associate with whomever she likes,
and do what she pleases, because the reality is that no
"consequence" I could possibly impose upon her will prevent 
her from doing this anyway.  My "rules" have evolved into
things like: "If you can't be in by 10:30, you must find 
somewhere else to spend the night, because I need my sleep
so that I can function at my job" and "Don't ever bring anyone
you know to our house".  Accepting that this is how my life
_is_ right now and will be for the forseeable near future
has been the hardest thing I've ever done.  

So, I'm very envious of all you parents that have managed to 
"succeed" so well with your kids, and am in deepest sympathy 
with all the rest of you (us).

But back to my original point:  I just don't agree that it is
always "normal" for a kid to be as difficult to his/her parents
as possible.  I think that this is entirely an artifact of
the way our society treats kids, starting from day 1.  Well,
actually, I suppose it starts from about the time that we,
as parents, ship them off to day care, or kindergarten, or
wherever, start separating them from our lives as adults,
and it continues up to the point where their bodies are
screaming adulthood with hormones, but the society gives
them no responsibilities and few rights.  At that point,
you've got a teenager who is into testing the limits, rather
than a teenager who sees him- or herself as an emerging
member of society. 

Of course, just try separating your own personal family life
out from the rest of the society you live in (!) so I guess
it's a moot point in the reality department -- just consider
it a theory I have, though it is not very testable.  :-}
Some support for this theory can be found by examining the fact
that in other cultures, they just don't have the same kinds
of teen problems that we do in our "civilized" society:  teens
are expected, and generally start fulfilling, their "jobs" as
normal members of society rather than rebelling against everything
in sight.

=caroline=
-- 

It's been a bloody odd day.... not even a two plus two equals five kind of
day, more like two plus two equals ... fish ... or something.

						-- from 'Cages'
Xref: sparky alt.parents-teens:1057 misc.kids:19413 soc.men:13542 soc.women:13916 alt.dads-rights:1518