Anybody who tells you parenting is easy is lying. Parent IS a verb. No matter what age and stage your child is at, if you are actively parenting you are physically or emotionally tired….sometimes both. One thing I will say is that parenting teenagers today is very different from when I was parenting my teenagers 10 years ago. How is that even possible? It has only been one measly decade!!!
It is a different world we live in from ten years ago. The fifteen year old boy I had 10 years ago was in a very different place emotionally and developmentally than the 15 year old boy I have today. The challenges facing the world were different challenges, and the values that society lived by were different values. 15 years ago we did not have Kardashians, snap chat, presidential tweets, and a whole other myriad of complications to child rearing.
Some things I have learned parenting this generation of children that I didn’t have to worry about with my older children:
- The whole boyfriend and girlfriend thing… seriously….what happened? My older kids, both boys and girls, had friends of the opposite gender…in high school. They would pass notes at school. Sometimes they would call each other on the phone, and by phone, I mean the land line. It was scandalous if they walked down the breezeway holding hands….This would result in a call from the principal. THE BIG CHANGE: By 7th grade my middle son had girls texting him at ALL.HOURS.OF.THE.NIGHT. I know this because his phone was in my possession at night. Don’t get me started on the things that came through in those messages. I never had to discuss sexting in connection to child pornography with my older son….he didn’t even have a flip phone. Which brings me to…
- Social Media… yeah back when my older kids were in high school, MySpace was all the rage….but my kids didn’t have that. Or facebook, or snapchat, or instagram, or Tiktok or any of the other social media apps. Where teens used to be influenced by their friends, school, family, and yes, movies and TV, all of these things were easier to monitor. Don’t like a kid your kid hangs out with? Make them spend time at your house where they can be supervised. Tv shows don’t approve of…parental access controls via the cable company. Today, we have to contend with instagram influencers telling our teenaged daughters how to have a bigger booty (at best), how to make your eyebrows look like caterpillars, and how to contour your face. Seriously, in my 40’s here and not only have I not mastered any of this, I’m also 100% certain it is a bunch of unnecessary garbage….but teenaged girls don’t know that. We have young men showing off their coordinating shoes, hoodie and watch, that combined cost more than my monthly bills. The messages our kids receive via social media not only encourages them the measure themselves against an unrealistic yardstick, but also distorts what is really valued in society; the extrinsic or appearances over the intrinsic of values and morals. As a parent I am having to work harder to combat these competing value systems than I did ten years ago….see #3.
- Kardashians and Kanye, 6×9 and youtubers. Seriously, reality TV killed reality. We had Halle Berry and Tupac. They were real people living real lives on real talent, not this faker than fake, impossible to live up to Hyped up life that kids aspire to now. Lets not forget about the youtubers…promoting everything from snake breeding to how to take the perfect selfie and everything in between. The worst thing I had to contend with was Jersey Shores…the beginning of the end for social influences. But that was only an hour a week…we weren’t inundated with it every where we looked. My kids were banned from watching this trash…but six year old Jake on first base at tee ball pulling his shirt up, turning to the audience and stroking his ‘abs’ while saying ‘There is a situation over here’ insured we had the cable shut off…immediately, and conversations with our teenagers about appropriate TV viewing.
- The middle class gap… This is a hard one, and a subtle change. My family has always been middle class. My kids have new clothes for school, shoes and athletic gear that they need, access to activities and experiences that enrich their lives…it wasn’t always easy with five children at home, but we always made it work. Today with fewer kids to support, providing those same ‘basics’ has almost become more of a challenge. Wrestling shoes that used to cost us $50 now cost over $100. Formal wear and related expenses for proms and homecomings used to cost us $200 a kid, this year that was doubled! Add to this iPhone, air buds, and just the cost of saving for college….and child rearing has become a financial investment.
- Mental health has become a crisis. Did anxiety and depression used to be a thing 10 years ago? You bet. When I look back at my older kids in high school, there was a TON of teenaged angst….and some legitimate anxiety and depression. My family experienced it first hand, and we were pretty transparent about it. My mom friends of the time, while sympathetic, didn’t really understand and relate. Today, the mental health of our teenaged children is a topic of conversation among most parents, and I have my theories as to why: unrealistic societal expectations (see #2 & 3), increasing pressures from school and athletics for post high school life planning, inflation…just to name a few.
The outcome hasn’t changed, but the path to it sure has
My goals for my children haven’t changed in the last ten (or 26) years, but the means to the end sure has. All I want for my kids is for them to grow up healthy, happy and be productive contributors to society. The complexity of life skills to get them there has increased. In the last ten years, the definition of active parenting has changed significantly. We have to hyper aware of both our physical and virtual surroundings, and teach our children to be the same.
