Washington - “Hay Ann. Madrigal Singers was rad. Don’t party too hard this summer. Ha ha just kidding.”
I need to burn all my yearbooks.
Parents know that when they bring a baby into the world, the day looms when they must face their hypocrisy. Whether we forget to substitute “sugar” “freakin” or “CheeseOnRiceOnACracker” for their non-pseudonymous counterparts, face questions about what precisely Daddy and I did to produce our children (and how often we do it now), or choose how much we will reveal to our children about our past and present substance use, we know the reckoning awaits.
My 11-year-old son begins Grade 6 this year. Middle school. Experimentation Ground Zero.
By his age, I’d graduated from The Exorcist to the goriest of horror/slasher films, tried my first puff of a cigarette, and officiated plenty of non-wholesome crank calls.
The youngest of a blended family with four kids, I had minimum adult supervision and maximum hours of television, peppered with playdates I scheduled myself. I enjoyed my latch-key existence.
By the end of elementary school I rode the city bus, my bike, or my own two legs alone or with friends.
How I grew into a member of the sugar-monitoring, screentime-rationing and “appropriate” content-judging parenting Gestapo, I cannot understand. I scan every grocery label, weighing my children’s weekly intake of red dye 40 against whatever lame vegetable-enhanced natural alternative exists.
I enforce the two-hour daily paediatrician-recommended screen cap by kitchen timer like a world-class runner tracking her splits.
My husband and I banned all bloody violent video war games from our home.
If I’m honest, my son has never so much as walked unaccompanied to a friend’s house to play, nor has he ridden public transportation solo.
I try to tell myself my parenting falls under the heading of conscientious and not “crazy-uptight-helicopter-freak-lady”.
Recently I read an article recommending no sleepovers of any kind, mainly because of the risk of predators.
My blood pressure started to rise, then I remembered the story of my own babysitter practically running from our home, so scared of whichever Nightmare On Elm Street movie I forced her to watch.
My own middle school experimentation and consequent high school rebellion - sneaking out of the house at all hours - serves as rich source material for parental worry over my kids’ coming of age.
Except, see, I turned out pretty well. Due to some parts luck and my own fairly good judgement, I survived relatively unscathed, having had plenty of fun and taken my share of wild child risks along the way. That good judgement likely stemmed at least in part from good parenting. My parents affording me space to take risks - trusting me to toe the line between dabbling and real danger - made up part of that good parenting.
Recently my 11-year-old approached me about our ban on war games - even at other people’s homes. He did not want to miss out on his buddy’s sleepover party, nor did he want our rules to compromise anyone else’s fun. I consulted my parent friends in a private Facebook group, and they came back with the answer I already knew; time to let go a little. Not all the way, maybe somewhere in the middle. Time to trust my kid.
With middle school on the horizon, I think we need to find our parenting middle ground. Yes, we need to continue setting the limits, but also we need to find where we can give.
As my son enters middle school, rather than burn my yearbooks and all the inscriptions that are certain to reveal my own adolescent antics, maybe I should read them again and remember the freedom I had, how I experimented with it, and where and when I can gift that freedom to my own kids along with all of the guidance and limits we’ve worked so hard to establish.
Washington Post
* Ann Imig writes the popular blog Ann’s Rants