We were sitting in a restaurant eating breakfast one Saturday when I watched about five pre-teen girls jostle each other out the door and then run like little children to the car in the parking lot. (They never looked for on-coming cars.) Behind them was a weary mother who was paying the bill and who walked slowly to the car and the squealing girls. Ah, the memories of all-night slumber parties!
A memory came to me that became the subject for this column. One home where we spent many nights had a mother who always stayed up with us in the room and took part in the silly girl talk and ate snacks and drank co*ke. We usually ignored her, and her daughter was embarrassed that she wouldn’t go back to the bedroom where she belonged and let us alone. She always had on shorty pajamas like we were wearing and spent part of the night putting lotion on her legs and polish on her toenails.
One morning after I had gotten home and my mother asked if I had had a good time (seemingly a universal question of all mothers when their children have been to a party or other kids’ activities); I said that I had but that my friend’s mother had not gone to the back like the other mothers and, instead, took part in everything we did. Mom, in her quiet way, said that the mother was living vicariously through her daughter. She didn’t criticize the mother- she just made a statement and expected me to find out what she meant.
During the ensuing years, I have watched this happening in far too many parent/teen relationships. One dad nearly worked his son to death trying to get him ready for a baseball scholarship so he could go on to play in major league. The boy was a good player, but he was not good enough to even make the college team. Both of them were disappointed, but the dad was the most affected. He had not gone on to college and was just sure that he would have been a major-league player if he had. His dreams became his hopes for his son.
That’s not fair. The dad should be living in his present, not in his son’s. His son has his own life and future to live and should not have to compensate for his dad’s unlived expectations.
When I was a counselor, I had mothers come in to talk to me who were dressed in inappropriate outfits for a grown adult with teenage children. They had obviously bought the clothing with the hopes of looking like a teenager and with way too much skin showing. If we called the student into my office, they always looked embarrassed when they saw their mothers and usually refused to look at her during the conference.
One mother decided that her son was a genius and coached him to enter the medical field because she had always wanted to be a doctor. Actually he was smart, but had no plans to be in that field, and biology was definitely not his favorite subject. He always felt like a failure because he didn’t live up to his mother’s expectations.
She has a lovely daughter and spends too much money on her clothes so she will be the best dressed girl in her circle of friends. They share gossip, Facebook, shop together, have lunch together, and do things together at home. Mom is “one of the girls” living her teenage years all over again and doing the giggly talking and taking part in as many teenage activities as she can. She doesn’t realize that she is making a fool of herself. She is not that age; she has wrinkles; she doesn’t have the body shape of a teen; she looks ridiculous in their clothes.
What she and all parents should do who want to live their present lives through their teenagers is to “get a life”. They need to figure out why they are so compelled to be young again and they must see that living it again is simply not possible without embarrassing their kids and delaying their adulthood.
Parents must live in the present. They are PARENTS with all of its obligations, responsibilities, worries and pains. Their kids have friends with whom they can share fun times and information. What they need from their parents is for them to be a parent. Someone who is there when they need them, but doesn’t want to know the latest gossip. Someone who can give advice and listen to hurt feelings without being personally involved except by being the parent.
If you see yourself in this column, begin now to back away from trying to be your teenager’s friend and companion. Be his or her parent, and a good one.
Jan Knight, MAE, NCC, NSCS, is a long-time counselor/educator in the Desoto County area.
