The Long Story
Originally posted by justhangn
You can't possibly think that your children do as you say when you are not there
Of course they don't - they're kids. But at some point you have to set down expectations and stick with them. Certainly we realize that the kids will smoke, drink, have sex, etc. But that doesn't mean we should either condone it or just throw up our hands and give up.
I remember my own teen years like they were yesterday. I grew up in a very unstructured environment with no parental supervision or guidance. I didn't get busted breaking the rules because #1, there were very few rules, and #2, my Mom was too busy with her own life to spend a lot of time worrying about mine. She let me have boyfriends over to spend the night when I was in high school. She let me stay out until all hours. She didn't know who my friends were. She let me date a 28 year old guy when I was 17.
At the time I thought it was cool but, as an adult, I have a lot of resentment toward my mother because she didn't care enough to parent me. I was always secretly jealous of the kids whose parents gave them a curfew and genuinely cared about their well-being.
My first husband came from one of those Ozzy and Harriet families, where they all sat down to dinner together, you were required to show your parents respect and they waited up for you when you went on a date. I was so drawn to that because the parents seemed to really CARE what their kids were doing, unlike what I was getting at home.
My ex's folks warned him off me a zillion times and were very clear that I wasn't what they had in mind for their son. But it was through exposure to them and their values that I grew up and started making better choices for myself. They had EXPECTATIONS of me and they had STANDARDS. And I wanted more than to be "wrong side of the tracks girl" to them.
Ah guys........me and the she did all kinds of things AT THE GRANDPARENTS HOUSE when we were only supposed to see eachother there.
All of this talk about the kids resenting Dems and sneaking around anyway is just a bunch of excuses. These ideas make it easy not to challenge teens. If we all walk around and assume we have absolutely no control over our children well then, we don't have to do jack! What a complete and total diservice to your children!
Dems ... if you and the missus raised her right, when she gets past it and realizes that he was the loser you said he was, she'll thank you for it. You may never hear her speak it, but she'll think it. 
