I have two teenage girls, ages 16 and 14. I think they hate me. To be honest, some days I don't like them so much either. What is it with the mother/teenage daughter dynamics that make life almost impossible. I remember when I was a teenage, my mom and I constantly disagreed. But there is a huge difference in the way I disagreed with my mom and the way my two girls disagree with me.
The difference is respect. When I disagreed with my mom, I could state the way I felt, one time. My mom would hear it, and acknowledge it. But at the end of the conversation, I knew that what my mom said was law in her house, like it or not. There was not talking back. There were no negotiations. There were no outward signs of disapproval for her decision. There was NO disrespect.
Fast forward to 2016 and the culture of our country is different. We want our children to have a voice, an opinion. We want them to think that we are being fair. We want them to feel like they are being heard.
But what are we really instilling in our children?
Think about this. When you go into work and your boss says to you, I don't think you are giving me your best work. I am giving you a 30 day window to prove to me that you deserve this position, or I will have to terminate you. Do you say to your boss, that is not right? You should listen to me and my opinion. You may, but you also know that your boss has the final word and that you must make the adjustment and get on your A game. You may not like your boss' stance, heck you might not even agree with it. But you have to respect it and make the necessary changes.
Or when you go into court for a traffic violation and you have stated your case to the judge, but the judge still rules against you, you don't continue to argue with the judge to see it your way, lest you spend a few nights in jail.
So, I ask you, in 2016, why are we teaching our children that life is fair and that they will always be heard. Why aren't we teaching them that most times you have to respect the person in authority, like it or not, or suffer the consequences.
Let me make this more personal. On Friday, I picked my 14 year old up from school. Normally, I don't see what she wears to school because I leave for work before she is dressed. It is a September day is Georgia, so the weather is warm. She is dressed in a pair of skin tight high waisted jeans and a razor back, spaghetti strap, crochet crop top. Her bra straps are showing and from the belly button up, she looks more like she is going to a beach gathering rather than school.
Now before I go any further with this story, let me give you some background knowledge on dress code for my 14 year old in my house. I saw her about 3 weeks ago with a similar style of shirt on coming from school. It was a crop top but her shoulders were covered. At that time, I told her if she wore a crop top shirt to school again without a tank top under it, I was going to take all her crop tops from her. She tried to argue that she had on high waisted pants so you couldn't see her belly. I told her at that time, she could argue all she wanted, but I had given her fair warning on what I expected for her dress code. As a side note, some of you may be asking why I bought them for her in the first place. I didn't. She makes her own money off her youtube channel and ordered a bunch of clothes offline without my permission or knowledge. And honestly, if worn in good taste, I don't mind if she wears them on the weekends or during the summer.
So back to my story. When we get home, I explain to her that I gave her fair warning about not wearing crop tops to school without a tank top so I was going to follow through with her consequence. I went through all her clothes and took all her spaghetti strap shirts, crop tops, or any shirt I deemed inappropriate for school. I also took her phone because she continued to use an inappropriate tone with me telling me that I was not being fair.
Two days later, I return her phone and she decides to plead her case for getting her shirts back. So I let her plead. She told me that she didn't know that the shirt she'd had on was inappropriate. That it was not the same shirt I had previously told her not to wear without a tank top. She proceeds with, "How was I suppose to know that you thought the shirt I was wearing was inappropriate for school?".
I told her that it was a crop top, so it fit the same criteria as the other shirt. Furthermore, I told her that it was her burden to get clarification from me if she didn't know which shirts were appropriate for school. I also threw in that not only was this shirt a crop top, but it was worse than the previous shirt, because it was razor back and spaghetti straps.
Her next argument was that if her shirt was that bad, she would have been in dress code violation by the school. The school hadn't said anything, so her shirt wasn't bad.
To this I replied, it is not the schools job to teach you about the appropriate time and place for certain clothing, It is mine. I explained that I had given her the rules for dress code, she chose to break them, and she was now suffering the consequences.
Finally she says, nobody else's parents would take away their shirts. You are the only one that thinks something is wrong with my shirts.
Boy, wasn't this the ultimate favorite line we gave our parents growing up.
Now up until this point, I had been rational and tried to hear her out. At this point I was a little frustrated, wondering why I was having to defend my stance as a parent to my 14 year old.
So I said to her, This is my house, my rules. I don't care if you like them. You will respect them. You chose not to respect my rules, so now you have to live with the consequences".
She stood and stared at me for a few seconds before she said something that made me lose it. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "Your logic doesn't make any sense."
That was the straw that broke the camels back. All calmness went out the door. The mother that I hate to be stepped in and her head started spinning. I started spewing words out of my mouth like venom from a spider. I had morphed into my mother, the mother I said growing up I'd never be like.
I told her she was now borderline disrespectful. I told her I didn't care if she liked my decision. She was going to live with it. I was the judge in my house, I said, and I had made my final decision. It was now law. I told her to get out of my room before I knocked all her teeth out of her mouth. (Which of course was an idle threat used by my mom and her mom and so forth - but it let the child know, don't say another word or you might regret it.)
My daughter stared at me then turned on her heels to leave my room.
Seconds later I hear her on the phone rehashing the events to her dad. The typical, mom doesn't listen, she isn't fair conversation that always gets told to dad.
As I reflect on the events, I wonder am I crazy? Or are these millennials the crazy ones.
So she thought that because I didn't change my stance, based upon her weak argument, which by the way she shouldn't have been able to have, that my logic didn't make sense and that she had the right to blatantly express that to her authority figure.
Y'all pray for me. These teenagers are trying to get me locked up.