Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher had a long yet very interesting piece in the paper this weekend about the battle between helicopter parents, toxic parents, and the teenagers caught in the middle. Toxic parents get shunned for allowing their kids to be bad influences, and helicopter parents irritate everybody by asking too many questions. And they all are pointing fingers blaming each other when little Johnny goes astray.
I suspect homeschoolers, given our willingness to take control of the education question, probably tend more to the helicopter side of the equation. It’s a tough balancing act. On one hand, if you parent by fear, your kid will never ever call you for a ride home if he or she is out somewhere drunk. On the other hand, if you aim to be the cool parent, your kid may need that ride home every weekend. Neither situation is healthy.
What some parents don’t get, several kids said, is that “nobody cares if the parents are cool.” What they do crave is parents who act like parents.
The baby boomers take a lot of heat for permissive parenting due to their alleged fear of being hypocrites. After all, most of them smoked, drank, and screwed their way through high school, and most survived to be responsible adults. I wonder how Generation X, whose kids are just approaching the teen years, will be different? We grew up with exploding divorce rates, AIDS, and a whole slew of issues that the boomers never had to deal with.
From my admittedly small sample group of college friends, it seems like we are trending less permissive than our parents. Certainly, my children will suffer extreme consequences if either one of them behaves like I did in high school.
What say you?
Attempting 156-315 can be a piece of cake if you first go for EX0-101 before 70-272. That is the usual course one follows after 642-586.
{ 16 } Comments
I think we’re (our generation that is) striking somewhere in the middle. And I read we’re up to Generation Y already – our oldest would be considered that I think.
Interestingly enough, because of our parent’s ages and the years we were born, Ron would be in the extremely young edge of Baby Boomer, and I’m on the leading wave of Gen X – and we’re only five years apart.
Andrea, there does seem to be a gap between boomer and Gen X — my hubby was born in 62, he claims to be a boomer. I think he’s WAY too young for that, lol, his parents are boomers. I was born in 68, is that Gen X? I feel too old to claim that generation .
We had this conversation recently, either here or at Daryl;s. I think 62 is the official cut off year between boomer and Gen X. Although I think 62-65 is sort of a fuzzy transition, with 66 really being the start of the Gen X crowd. I was born in 67, and as I remember high school – the kids that were 5 years older than me always seemed to be more in tune with the 70s than the 80s!
How did this get to be about “Boomers” V. “X’ers”? I am unbashedly a boomer, a genuine boomer, post-WW2 era. In fact, Genuine Boomers are circa “46-53″. The rest are, as best I can tell, “Wannabe’s”. They lack the societal, cultural, and developemental background to qualify.
But be that as it may, Boomer’s are seen as being more permissive and are. Most of us, have come to realize that we were wrong. The first and foremost duty to a parent. It goes beyond being a buddy to their kids. It transends avoiding being cast as a hypocrite (something my father, God Bless Him, never gave a thought about with his “do as I say, not as I do!” and it is surprising how often that really does work!). It exceeds even helping a kid to develop their potental and become a well rounded individual. It is simply producing a disciplined, responsible adult. A contributing member to the social order. Sadly, I think that is a lesson my parents (the Greatest Generation, and they really were) failed to instill in us “real” boomers. Somewhere we failed Andy Hardy despite Judge Hardy’s best efforts.
Oh, and “boomers” know who the Hardy’s were.
So, I take it you are not talking about Frank and Joe Hardy?
I don’t know that it has as much to do with Generations as it does with the lifestyle we’ve chosen as home educators. Homeschoolers as a whole are (mostly) more involved in our kids’ lives and therefore more aware of what’s going on – hopefully without too much hovering. From where I stand, there is a tremendous amount of “permissiveness by default” from parents who are not as involved or aware. Comparing my kids with how I grew up is like comparing apples and oranges – the circumstances of our lives are just totally different.
Hasn’t there been a term coined for the group of late boomers/early gen x’ers? “Johnson” keeps popping into my head …
found it … it’s “Jones” … Generation Jones
http://www.jonathanpontell.com/aboutgenjones.htm
Most articles I found from google search were dated about 5 years ago … maybe the term didn’t stick … the definition in Wikipedia is blank!
And … is there a particular reason the name “jones” was chosen? heh heh
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jones
(COD, sorry to smutten up your blog!)
You must be new here. It would take a lot more than that link to smut up this place
Yanklovich calls the late Boomeers “Contenders”. Gen-X starts at 65. Dh was born in 65, I was born in 66. The kids who were just ahead of us in school were — weird. And not just because they were older.
Wow, some of the stories of parents in that article are scary. I knew we lived in a holier-than-thou society, but I didn’t think people were so obvious about it. The reality is that even the most responsible parents can end up with a kid who gets into trouble or who rebels. I would not necessarily judge the parents by the behavior of their teenagers, who, as we all know, are capable of behaving in a way that’s completely contrary to their upbringing. Sometimes, kids just do stupid stuff even though they know better and know that their parents don’t approve. Obviously, some parents are part of the problem, as the story illustrates, but there’s no law of nature that dictates if a kid has a problem, therefore the parents *must* be at fault. I guess some of the parents in that article have forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager who knows everything and who will live forever.
Honestly, though, part of the problem is the way our society tries to have it both ways with alcohol. We act all puritanical about it for people under 21, but as soon as we hit legal age, it’s drink to get drunk. Look at the tailgating before NFL games, for example. It’s televised and celebrated for all to see. And then we turn around and tell kids not to drink. Duh.
And now with laws that fine parents for giving their own kids a drink in their own homes, we have little opportunity to teach our young adults how to drink responsibly. It’s really ridiculous — we can’t give our 17-year-old a glass of wine at Thanksgiving without breaking the law? Jebus.
My grandmother raised me through my teen years, so in my own experience, the only thing I was lacking that kept me from making better choices was information. I have made it a point to be completely and totally honest with the kids, if they’ve got a question about drinking, drugs, or sex, I find every bit of information they could possibly want.
I figure if they’ve got the information, they’ll be better able to make the right choices or choices which might be stupid, but will not be ignorant.
Will there be horrible punishments for screwing up? Probably not. I think understanding mistakes, learning from them, and moving forward is more important than retribution.
Another note (now that I’ve read the original article and not just your response), We do set clear boundaries. I want them to know what I expect, what my own experiences led to, and have enough information to know what will happen if they make choices that aren’t good for them.
Perhaps your statement of “Extreme consequences” is confusing me here. I don’t consider taking away driving priviledges, phone, internet, for periods of up to 3 weeks ‘extreme’. What do you mean by ‘extreme’?
//What do you mean by ‘extreme’?//
I have no idea. I was mostly going for the humor on the contrast with how out of control I was in high school. However, given that neither of my kids have even been grounded yet, 3 weeks of no Playstation would probably be pretty extreme.
Gotcha
Mine have been grounded. I’m not quite sure it’s done anything towards keeping the house in the ‘cluttered but not squalor’ category, but hey, they survived without the computer and the video games so there’s one lesson taught. HA! 1. You will *not* die if you do not have electronic entertainment.