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“I hate you, I hate you! You’re mean, and you don’t know anything!”
Every parent of a teenager immediately recognizes that line. One day, she’s your sweet-cheeks, your joy and “Prozac” that makes you feel good; the next, you need prozac and wonder why there’s a no-return policy on kids. What the heck happened? Where did the years go?
One very poignant moment I had with a mom recently was when, near tears, she said softly, “I’m so afraid that I’ve failed as a mother…” Her 15-year old daughter was acting out, argumentative, making bad choices, not talking to them, and having poor grades—all just recently. Which raises the question: what does define success or failure, as a parent? That they obey us, or like us, get good grades, are good in sports, are popular, or grow up to make a lot of money? Really, it’s none of the above, because parenting is full of ironies.
“Does she know that you love her?”
“Yes…I think so.”
The more we care about our kids the more we bug them, and in a way they know that’s because we love them. Right now, we’re just mean and stupid (maybe ten years from now, they’ll get it).
“Is she capable of compassion, empathy, and love for others? Does she care about more than just herself?”
“Of course, she’s got a heart of gold...but she doesn’t care how much she hurts me.”
Teenagers can act like they care about everything else except their parents, who are just mean and stupid.
“Does she know the difference between right and wrong? Can she perceive what’s evil if she sees it?”
“Yes she does, but even so, she may not always make the right choices.”
“That’s where parenting comes in—to point out the consequences of choices. Who else is going to do it? Does she feel guilt when she knows she’s wrong? Does she have a conscience?”
“Yes, she can feel really bad, but she just doesn’t know how to deal with it well. In fact, she’s in trouble with me now because she’s always trying to make things up to her friends.”
Free will means that, born with original sin, we are given the ability to choose between good and evil. As parents, it is our job to teach the difference, by example and by love. But at some point the kids grow up and make their own choices. The real question in whether we succeed as a parent is: did you prepare them well enough to choose correctly (even if you’re mean and stupid)?
You have to teach them when they chose bad over good, which is what this mother was doing, because that is what parents are for. (Even if the outcome is, “I hate you! You’re so mean and stupid!”)
The Teenage Brain
Teenage brains in neuroscience studies are really scary.
They have little ability to assess risk. When asked if they would consider drinking a can of Lysol, it took an average of a few seconds later than an adult brain to say “no.”
(Them: hmmm, maybe….
Me: an immediate, “are you nuts?!”)
Their brains are not fully matured in areas of global thinking—seeing the big picture. Delayed gratification has to be learned; it doesn’t come naturally. The irony is that the more technologically advanced we’ve become, the more the sense of entitlement. When we were kids and wanted a song we liked on the radio, we’d get a job, make money, then go buy the album. Today, it’s downloaded on their phone as soon as they hear it. It’s instant gratification, which creates the lack of personal responsibility. There’s no guilt that they got it for free. Someone, somewhere, put work into it. They took it and from their perspective, who cares?
Against that social-cultural background, it’s a real tough job to be a parent these days.
Permissiveness, lack of personal responsibility, a sense of entitlement: its all around us from popular media (MTV) to sports figures (Woods and Vick) to politics (Edwards and a bazillion others) to business (AIG, Big Banks) and more. So we’ve got to do this with support.
Team Up
It takes two to parent. In the case above, when the teen would tantrum, curse and act out against the mother, the father was quiet.
Men, listen up.
Although it’s not in our DNA, and men don’t understand all this very well, understand this: if you say nothing when your teen is showing disrespect to her mother, it also shows your disrespect for your wife.
Tolerating disrespect was the fundamental flaw here; the more passive the father, the louder the mom felt she had to be---until they were diametrically opposed with everything the teen did coming between them. How many marriages have been affected this way?
Men will say – let her learn her lesson (stay out late and get mugged), or it’ll work out (keep hanging out with druggies until trouble). Unfortunately this isn’t like other man-things; this is deeply emotional. The mom is trying to be proactive, like we do when we keep your cholesterol down. Or should we just wait for you to have a heart attack so you learn your lesson?
There is a couple that I see with a little girl with leukemia. The mother does worry and calls a lot whenever there is a fever, cold or any other symptoms. The father has implied that the mother is over-reacting and needs to “settle down” and is generally non-supportive. There’s a reason this 4000 year old phrase still resonates: Happy Wife, Happy Life. If it’s important to her, it will be to you, too. After all, she puts up with your sports fascination and stinky fishing junk.
For those parents with younger kids, these are great lessons to learn now. And to the mom who wondered about being a failure: You’re doing a great job. You love her. You care about not only her safety but also what kind of person she’s going to grow up to be.
You didn’t fail. You’re the best mom in the world, especially because even though you knew you would be called “mean and stupid,” you had the love and courage to do it.
(Now as for dad…)
