Does my parenting suck?

"The way to hell is paved with good intentions"

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153)

It’s terrible weather outside. Some wouldn’t put a dog out. I need to travel for an hour using three types of transport to meet a friend. We sit at a cozy and warm café in the historical city center, drink hot chocolate and talk. What do women of our age talk about? You know, your general fusion physics and Hadron collider problems. To be precise, about the Dark Matter – a code word for teenager mentality. I have two kids, my friend – four. So there is a lot to talk about.

Half a liter of hot chocolate later each, we reach a consensus that what teenagers lack today most is motivation to do anything. Well, today…Plato lamented “the youth of today”. But Plato had no children of his own. His academy was inherited by his sister’s kids, his knowledge by his students - the very youths whose conduct he lamented. What did he know about the toils of a mother or a father to keep their offspring on the straight and narrow? He also didn’t have responsibility for how the rest of his follower’s lives are going to develop. They came and they went. Our kids mostly stay.

They love their lair at the hotel “mama” and the peace of mind they have, when they don’t need to think of where their next meal is going to come from. We cannot afford to fail, we work, cook, clean, do the washing and provide mental and material support, all the time being scared to say what we think, for the fear of losing our kid’s trust. We turn into a perfect “Ginny in a bottle”, providing services and preferably disappearing till we are needed again. For more wishes, just rub the bottle. But the purpose of this is not more lamentations.

I can narrow down our conversation to a particular topic – the feeling of entitlement, exaggerated expectations, totally unrealistic view of life by our kids. We found it frightening, what kids think they can do later in life, just from the depth of their sofa angle and Youtube videos, showing the exuberant lifestyle of half a handful youtubers that made it to fame, dabbing their lipstick on or competing in the amount of chili burgers they can eat. I know that kids need role models, but these?

As we were debating this doubtful influence, one of the lady’s sons had called to say that he slept in and won’t be able to make it to the interview at a college. We threatened to inflict pain and suffering if he doesn’t immediately meet us at the train station. I volunteered to come along. Turned out the college was quite a hike away and we were stranded on a train with a grumbling, bad tempered teenager, who was torn away from the comfort of his warm, fluffy pillow at the ungodly time of 12:30pm. Conversation was somewhat stifled as a result, and his mother and I had to occasionally duck for cover. Still, I found it most interesting.

It turned out that even after having slept a miserly 11 hours, one can be capable of shaping a linear thought. Even if it goes in a following direction:

I am tired and had no breakfast.
No, it doesn’t matter that everything is in the fridge, you were out with your friend instead of setting the table.
Where are my grey socks? I couldn’t find any.
Why do they need to make their appointments so early?
Why do I even need to go for an interview, if this is a place of learning where I will just need to do more work.
This place is too far away from home. I don’t like it.
No, I haven’t been there.
Btw, a friend of mine wants to go to Hawaii for xmas, I would like to go with.
And anyway, he is taking a year off to travel around the world. Why can’t I go? You are denying me basic human rights.
Traveling is good for development. Development IS a human right.
I am hungry.
Don’t talk to me what it was like, when you were my age- it was different.

Getting more and more thoughtful with every word, I asked why does he think that it was different. Very simple, he said, when you were my age, you had less. Pregnant pause… How much more does an average teenager have today to his name? How is it that their feeling of entitlement has grown, according to what his parents were prepared to make available for him. He is not to be blamed. He always got what he needed. His parents have worked hard to make it possible. A mantra of every (especially migrant) parent – our kids should have it better than us. Whether it is good for our kids, is another question.

To tell the truth, I was even a little offended. What does this boy know of my longings at that age? There were always comparisons. Like his friend who can travel for a year, we had kids at school who were getting things shoveled onto them by their parents as I was getting up at four in the morning to work at the market stall, to earn money for that pair of shoes I wanted so badly. His mother has never had her own room or first hand clothes. There were no Youtube stars, but we didn’t live in the jungle. The dazzling shops in the premium mile were all there and prospered, so obviously there were people around who were able to buy those mink coats and those Mercedes. Still, I could think of nothing more ridiculous as approaching my parents to pay my European vacation. In fact, such a luxury didn’t even occur to me at the time. And anyway, my parents would just have laughed, had I asked.

So, what has changed? Have our kids lost sense of pride for own achievements? Or do they just not feel the need to achieve anything, when everything is served on a silver platter? May be this sense of hunger is what necessary for self – development, and not a tour of the world, financed by the parents? Perhaps by taking away the need to work for things they want, we rob them of the motivation they need to develop. Guilty as charged.

Feeling misunderstood, underprivileged, overworked, ugly and unpopular is according to many youth psychologists a common denominator among teenagers. Out of fear of losing them, we are prepared to turn a blind eye to a lot of things we wouldn’t tolerate from a partner, friend or a neighbor. This in turn plummets us into a spiral. Our kids develop a way of thinking that makes them a victim all the time. They are a victim of us. We have placed too many expectations on them, the teachers are out to get them, the school is stupid. None of this has anything to do with them not meeting their responsibilities, with them not acting autonomously. Of course not. We are the enemy. To counteract this, we do more and more, knowing full well, that this doesn’t matter. May be they’ll love us for it, may be they won’t. We hope it is a fair gamble, to give and wait. The problem with continuous giving is the fact that they get used to it, and don’t see it as something special. Everything else is being formed from that level.

So, of course this boy doesn’t know what I am talking about, when I say he’s living too well to be able to act his age. I can’t even expect him to. But somehow I do. I don’t want to give up hope that while fighting for their right of human development, our kids don’t forsake their responsibility to develop some human kindness.