Texting is the New Parenting

 

     I’m exhausted. I just had a lengthy and very heated discussion with both my daughters -- at the same time, mind you. My eldest daughter and I went back and forth about nursing school and all the expenses associated with that. And the youngest wants my permission (and signature) to get her driver’s license, even though she is nowhere near ready to do so. 

     Yep, I’m tired from all this bickering. But mostly, my cramped fingers need a rest.

See, I don’t have actual, face-to-face conversations with my daughters anymore. Oh, no -- those days are long gone, Grandma! Nowadays, I parent by way of text messaging.

     It’s a sad, sad state of affairs, this new age of “Parenting by Texting.”

     Trust me.  I resisted texting as long as I could. When I first heard about this texting business, I couldn’t believe that people never really talked on the phone anymore, and I refused to give in to this ridiculous fad.

I mean, what could possibly replace hearing another person’s voice on the other end of the phone? You know, REAL human interaction?

     I even asked my daughter -- who developed an entire romantic relationship with a boy long-distance by texting with him every day -- why teenagers don’t like to talk to their friends on the phone, and she said, “There are just so many awkward silences. And you don’t get that with texting.”

     Awkward silences? That’s what real conversations are about, for goodness sakes! Two people dancing together, and around each other, through words, nuances and timbre. Laughter, sarcasm, fear, anger, doubt, admiration, love, desire … all these beautiful emotions you can hear in someone’s voice vanish with a typed message. There’s just no soul behind it.

     So I tried to stand defiantly and heroically in front of this oncoming texting train. (Any parents with me on this?) Problem was, the only way I could actually communicate with my children was through the damn text messages. Whenever I tried to call them, the call immediately went to voicemail. But when I sent a text – voila! – like magic, I would get an instant response.

     “Oh, look! My teenagers are actually talking to me!” I would be giddy with disbelief. Getting a response, any response, from them sure felt good. And soon, like Pavlov’s dog, I was conditioned into becoming a full-time texting mama.

     I’ll admit, it is a rather convenient medium. Type a few words, boom, communication accomplished. But I feel so compromised – especially as a writer and an editor. I have spent the majority of my professional life self-righteously cleaning up other people’s writing, punctuation and grammar. Now, like every other texting literate, I just try to find shortcuts and the quickest way to respond. “You” has become “U;”  “To” and “for” have morphed into numbers. And “See you later” has been replaced by “C Ya!”

     And while it is sometimes easier and less confrontational to flex your parenting muscle through your fingertips, text messages from our children have left many of us parents bewildered and confused. With face-to-face interactions, you know when your kids are being disrespectful to you because you can hear it in their voices. With texting, you don’t know what’s punishable or not.

     “Did she accidentally send that text to me in all uppercase letters, or is she sassing back?” 

     This new age of text-messaging has weakened our authority as parents. The stern warning of a parent’s booming voice, “Don’t you talk to me in that tone, young lady!” has now been replaced with the texting version: “DON’T YOU GET ALL UPPERCASE-Y WITH ME!” Somehow, it just doesn’t pack the same punch.

     It took me a while to wise up, but I am happy to report that I’ve solved the texting/communication problem with my daughters. I’ve regained some dignity, respect and parental control. How? Well, whenever I’ve had enough of all the back-and-forth texting nonsense, I simply type back two words: “Call me.”

     If my phone doesn’t ring within the time that it takes to text a response (well, I do allow a few extra seconds for the old-fashioned switchboard operator to connect the line), I let my daughters have it!

     With a text message, of course – IN ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS!

History lessons for your teens

A very old silver teapot sits like a trinket on a table in my hallway, surrounded by pictures and other tchotchkes. Like many things that are old, it goes unnoticed. Not one person who has ever walked by that table has ever commented on the tarnished antique.

Nor, shame on me, have I ever made them aware of it.

What they don’t know is that silver teapot is the only connection I have to my paternal grandmother, Mary King, an Oneida native and the daughter of Adam King, an Indian warrior who fought in the Civil War as a conscript with the Oneidas of the 14^th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry -- a life-endangering service for which he was paid a (ahem) handsome $200 bounty by the U.S. government. When the war ended, Adam hobbled back to his farm, wounded, to discover it had been confiscated by a white man who somehow had dodged the war. My great-grandfather was later buried in a pauper’s grave.

I know this important piece of my heritage because the story was told to me by my father, the grandson of Adam King -- not when I was a child, but much, much later in my life. Though my dad was a devoted father and brave soldier himself, he was not the best family historian. My four siblings and I didn’t really grow up with a clear understanding of our Native American ancestry. Perhaps it was the Air Force lifestyle. We kept moving from base to base, and country to country, never really planting firm roots, so being connected to the past wasn’t much of a priority.

So the story goes that Grandma Mary, the Oneida, married a German man named Frank who she met and fell in love with while ministering to him as a nurse after he was wounded in World War I. When Frank announced to his family that he was planning to wed Mary, the Indian, his father kicked him out of the house and never spoke to him again.

My grandparents visited us about once every two years or so. I never felt close to them because they missed so much of my life. What I do remember about my grandma was that she wore these billowy, flowery dresses and made the most fantastic homemade strawberry jam and fried chicken. My father told me that people would travel for miles to the inn they owned in Delafield, Wis., just for a taste of my grandma’s legendary fried chicken – it was that good!

In the only attempt ever made to hand down her native heritage to her grandkids, my grandma once sat me on her expansive lap and taught me how to count to 10 in her Iroquoian tongue. I can still do that to this day.

I didn’t learn until years after Grandma Mary died and sadly, took the recipe for that strawberry jam and killer fried chicken with her, that she had endured a very traumatic childhood. When she was about nine years old, strangers stormed into her home on the reservation, snatched her from her parents and forced her to attend a Catholic boarding school for three years. My father said the school administrators cut her long Indian braids and beat her cruelly whenever she tried to speak in her native tongue.

When Mary was finally returned to her parents -- a white-washed and sparkling new American -- they gifted her with a beautiful silver teapot to help assuage her pain. A token of their own shame and feeling of utter helplessness against an evil genocide they were powerless to control.

I am my father’s daughter, and I, too, have raised daughters who know very little about their Native heritage. I have my own lame excuses. My years as a single mother required me to focus intently on day-to-day life and worry over their future. When you are trying to rebuild your life, you have to plow forward, far, far away from the past.

But my eyes have been opened. It’s not too late. Our family heritage is not lost entirely. There are still recipes to pass down, stories to tell and silver teapots waiting to pour out lessons from history.

Top 10 Risks Teens Take

Taking healthy risks is an essential aspect of childhood development, and is one of the best ways for kids to learn about cause and effect and the consequences that come from their actions. Parents should encourage youngsters to take safe risks when the situation arises, but there are a host of not-so-healthy risks that come into the picture when little ones grow into teenagers. To adults, it often seems as if teens’ daredevil antics and harebrained schemes are as baffling as they are enraging, but there is a scientific reason behind teens’ risky behavior that boils down to neural chemistry, reward signals and development as they move into adulthood. While dealing with this behavior isn’t easy, parents can make a more concerted effort to curb dangerous impulses by understanding the most common risky behaviors that teenagers adopt.

• Speeding – Whether they’re trying to impress their friends or drunk on the heady prospect of being in control of a car without adult supervision, one of the most common risks that teens take is driving at a high rate of speed. Thankfully, there are devices that will allow you to monitor the speed at which your teen is driving these days.
• Texting and Driving – There is a sense of urgency, especially in social settings, that causes teens to be less than cautious when they’re behind the wheel and an incoming text alert gets their attention. Distracted driving is dangerous driving though, which is why a strict no-texting-and-driving policy should be backed up by apps and parental control software that prevents such risks.
• Experimenting With Drugs – Teenagers are well aware of the risks of experimentation with illicit drugs. Most are raised with the “just say no” attitude, and there are entire school programs dedicated to educating teens on the dangers of drugs. That doesn’t change the fact that curiosity, the desire to rebel and a need to assert an adult level of independence drives many kids to try these substances.
• Binge Drinking – Seasoned adults have a variety of reasons for social drinking, but teenagers have only one goal: to experiment with something they’re not supposed to be using while altering their mood. Alcohol poisoning and bad decisions borne of lowered inhibitions are both very real prospects, however, which is why it’s important for parents to discuss the matter with their teens in real-life, honest ways.
• Truancy – Some teens skip school to avoid bullies or a classroom setting they are struggling in, while others skip simply because they can. From asserting independence to practicing avoidance, skipping school for any reason is still a common and risky situation.
• Vandalism – While older generations took a “kids will be kids” approach to dealing with vandalism, that’s not the case today. Even when it’s meant to be a harmless prank, the destruction of property is something parents must take seriously. You can be assured that law enforcement won’t see this risky behavior as a joke.
• Trespassing – From the thrill of hanging out in a forbidden place to the more practical application of simply finding a place to hang out away from the prying eyes of adults, trespassing is another common risk that teens take. It’s also a crime, which is why parents shouldn’t turn a blind eye to such habits if they’re discovered.
• Having Unprotected Sex – Few parents look forward to having a talk about sex with their kids, but some of the riskiest sexual behavior of teens stems from a lack of understanding and information. Unprotected sex can lead to teen pregnancy and the contracting of sexually-transmitted diseases, which is why parents must have a frank and honest discussion about the importance of using protection.
• Self-Harming – Self-harming behavior like cutting is, according to a 2002 British study, more common among teenage girls. Most parents would never dream that their kids are cutting themselves, but it is common and it is incredibly risky. From cutting deeply and sustaining real injury to contracting an infection through open wounds, this damaging, risky impulse can have very serious consequences.
• Crash Dieting – Spurred on by the media’s fixation on physical perfection paired with the inherent insecurity of adolescence, crash dieting and even eating disorders are a common risk that teens take in a bid to obtain their skewed ideas of physical beauty. Parents should discuss these issues with their teens, even if no signs of eating disorders or problematic relationships with food are present.

Blog post courtesy of Babysitters.net.

When it comes to teens, God is brilliant!

“… and on the 4,745^th day (13 years), God created teenagers, and all hell broke loose.”

OK, maybe that’s not the EXACT biblical passage, but in MY book, it’s life, verbatim.

As the story goes, I birthed and raised two daughters who are now teens. One’s in college, the other in high school. My nest is half empty. (Or is it half full?) I remember with a swollen heart when these once-darling, precious, obedient angels were the sun that I revolved around. Motherhood was the best job I had ever had, and even though a mom never really clocks out, I couldn’t wait to wake up every morning to clock in.

Somewhere between the age of 12 and the aging of me from countless adolescent battles over cleaning rooms and doing homework and sassing back, the gravitational pull has weakened. It’s not that I’m counting the days until the last daughter leaves for college (about 744, in case you’re interested), but I am looking forward to life, rebooted. 

Sometimes I feel guilty wanting to reclaim my life, B.C. (before children); after all, I will be a mother forever, and I can’t abandon my post now. But then I realize it is God’s plan all along. He’s brilliant! He knows how hard it is for mothers to let go, to release their babes, unprotected, out into the big, wild world. 

And that’s why he created teenagers . . . to make the “letting go” process downright exhilarating. 

Lest you think I am heartless, when I dropped my oldest daughter off at college for the first time, I cried like the baby she once was. So hard, so deeply primal, I had to pull over to the side of the road because I couldn’t see through my torrent of tears. 

“She grew up so fast! I still have so much left to teach her! Where did my baby go?” I literally shouted in agony. Then, the most disturbing realization, “Where did MY life go?” 

But then days passed, weeks went by, and within a month, I had adjusted to life without her under my roof, and so had she. Texting, Skyping, phone calls and e-mails . . . technology became the ties that bind.

I am already preparing for that day when my home, my children’s womb, contracts and spits out the last daughter into the world -- her wide, open expanse to play in and grow in.

It will be a time for sadness. A time for reflection. A time to celebrate.

A time for rebirth.

Bad Lip Reading Gets The Teen Vote!

My oldest daughter's first words were, "Shut up!" Please, let me explain. During nice spring days, I used to tie up my beloved Cocker Spaniel, Higgins, outside in the front yard -- in the shade! -- because he liked it there. Lots of stuff going on to engage his senses, I guess. Problem was, he barked all the time, at everything, even ants crawling by on the sidewalk. It drove me crazy, all that barking. And I would yell out the door, "Higgins, shut up!" probably more than any sane person should.

Now you know where this is leading.

So one day, my little cherub of a baby looked at me and said, "Shut UP!" -- emphasis on the "UP!" Cute, but embarrassing in public, let me tell you! And it suddenly hit me: Careful what you say and do -- your children are watching.

Fast forward about 19 years and another daughter later. My youngest is 15 and of course, has had to listen to me rattle on and on about politics. I didn't think she was paying attention. You know how egocentric most teens are. If it's not happening within their immediate social circle, they just aren't interested.

So at dinner last night, she asked me, "Who won the debate?" It was a proud moment. My baby was talking politics! She really was paying attention. Later, I heard her laughing so hard in her bedroom, I had to investigate.

To my great surprise, she said: "Mom! You have to see this video of Mitt Romney. It's hysterical!" What? Now she's watching political videos – and she knew who Mitt Romney was??! I was beside myself with pride. Just when you think your teen is tuned out, you discover she’s really tuned in.

She showed me this video that I'm about to share with you. It has more than 14 million views on YouTube and is making its rounds in teen social circles all over the world. The good news is, teenagers are engaged in politics. They are watching and listening to everything we say.

The bad news is, they are having fun watching someone edit and dub all over it.

Winging It With Teens

       Motherhood is a work in progress; a lifelong dedication to on-the-job training. Our children aren't born clutching Owner's Manuals, so as parents, most times we are winging it when it comes to raising them.

My oldest daughter, who goes to college out of state, is home for the summer. She did a lot of growing up this last year while she was away at school, and I am bursting with pride for her. Straight A’s her freshmen year, can you believe it? But she also balanced books with her share of fun, too. Frat parties, football games – the whole nine yards.

        I'm thrilled that she is home right now and I get to play at being her mom again. But quite frankly, I'm a little confused about my role with her.  She is in that “tween” stage again -- nearly 19 years old, but not quite a legal adult.  Or, as she says, "I'm old enough to vote, watch porn and go to war.  But I can't drink."

She still asks for my permission to go out at night, for which I feel both grateful and extremely guilty.  It’s nice to know that, in her eyes, her mom still has some control over choices she makes.

But should I ‘fess up? If she only knew that when I was her age, there is NO WAY I would have ever sought my mother’s permission to go out with my friends.  I had my own car, made my own money, my own apartment.  I had completely vacated the nest. 

If she only knew how easy it would be to declare her independence. All she has to say is, “Mom, I’m 18. I can do what I want.” Part of me -- that young girl who was 18 at one time, too -- wants her to play that card; but another part of me hopes she doesn’t quite yet.  I still worry about her and foolishly think that I can still protect her.

Tonight she wants to go out with some old high school friends who are back in town for the summer, too.  A reunion, no problem there.  But there’s a catch:  They are going to a gay bar downtown. See, one of her friends is gay, the rest are straight, and he has convinced them it would be fun to hang out at a gay dance club.

She asked me if she could go. (Again, she really didn’t need to.)  So I played the “mom role” expected of me. I grumbled incoherently about it not being a good choice, and that I was concerned about her being out that late.  She said they just wanted to go dance and have fun.  

I had to repress every ounce of my mother’s instinct to say, “OK,” but I really don’t have much of a say here at all.  The reality is, my daughter is all grown up, and I need to trust her to make good decisions on her own.

Yes, as parents we are winging it most of the time.  But there comes a time, no matter how much it pains us, when we need to push our children out of the nest so they can take flight, too.