What started out as a small sleepover Friday night in North Andover, turned into a alcohol-fueled party of more than 40 high schoolers. And the homeowners were arrested.Here's a tip: Yes, they did. Even if it was the tacit, passive aggressive "oh, if we ignore it it's not really happening" kind of thing, they allowed it. Whether they provided the alcohol or not, they provided a gathering place for dozens of underaged kids - most of them not even of legal adult age - to drink alcohol illegally. Claiming that they didn't know it was going on is laughable at best, a pathetic lie at worst - I know when my two kids are fighting at the breakfast table; you cannot tell me they didn't know exactly what was going on in their own home.
Ron and Susan Smits have been charged with providing alcohol to minors, but their best friend in the upscale neighborhood says the Smits would never allow underage drinking in their home.
If they really didn't know what was going on, then they ought to leave certain body parts at the doctor's office the next time they have a check-up...
Please, spare me the "I'd rather have them drinking in my home where I know they won't crash into someone on the way home" crap. That's a bullshit copout excuse for failing to properly rear your kids - look, all kids are going to drink; it's a natural reaction to the "forbidden fruit" allure we give alcohol here in the US with the insanely high drinking age. If you've talked to your kids openly and honestly about alcohol - being the parent rather than the buddy - they should know enough to drink responsibly if they're going to drink.
It's natural to want to be your child's friend; lord knows I've fallen into that trap myself. There's nothing saying you can't or shouldn't, mind you; it just makes certain things like disciplining them much harder. If they view you as a pal, a peer, an equal it makes it much harder for them to have to be disciplined by you - "But mom/dad, I thought you were cool!" You add in a sense of betrayal - do any of your friends force you to clean your room, finish your broccoli, or go to bed at a reasonable hour? - to the already difficult task of laying down rules and punishments for breaking said rules.
We all want to be the "cool" parent, the one that all the kids want to hang out with, the one that orders pizza and plays Guitar Hero like a pro and lets the kids stay up until midnight on the weekends. If you can do that and still maintain discipline and order in your house, power to you. Write a book - you'd make a fortune. Most of us have to walk the tightrope of providing guidance and guidelines to our growing, rebelling, limit-testing kids while at the same time not stringing concertina wire around the perimeter... Being a strong, fair, honest and open parent is far more important than being buddy-buddy - while they might long for the "cool dad" like little Timmy down the street, they'll appreciate your firm but fair hand when they're off to law school and little Timmy is serving 5-10...
Be the adult, not just a kid with a credit card and a mortgage...
That is all.
5 comments:
I just pray that when Sweet Daughter gets older and hears her friends saying "My mom is cool -- she drops me off at the mall with a credit card!" she responds with "Oh yeah? MY mom is takes me to the range and we shoot zombies!"
Good thoughts Jay. As a parent to two wonderful (I'm slightly biased) teenagers, I can say without hesitation that you must always be a dad first, and a friend second. They're both God loving, conservative minded kids, who have no problem understanding that you can be a compassionate person as well as a zombie slaying s.o.b. who fights like a maniac to protect his/her loved ones.
HankH
I have never wanted to be the cool parent or a friend to my kids. Probably because my mother was that way, and even as a child I could sense it was wrong. I have noticed that my girls want to spend a lot more time with me than I ever did with my mother. Even very small children can sense the natural order of things.
When we were growing up... my group of friends had "safe houses" to drink @ where the parents of all the kids involved knew there was gonna be drinking. May not be right but it was safe.
Whippers snappers. Every one of you. When I was growing up the drinking age was 18. Spring was senior blowout time. There were weekly keggers at the house of different seniors. The juniors and sophomores attended, as well. No big deal. Nanny state. Federal black mail. MADD insanity.
Don't want to lose that Federal hand out (stolen proper from us to begin with...) now do we. We'll just do as we're told and call it the proper way of doing things from now on...
Sad.
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