Dear Facebook Dad...

Dear Facebook Dad,

In reference to your newly viral video: Well said, my friend, well said. I am, however, going to stop short of saying well done. Let me qualify that by saying that I feel your pain! I am currently on my 8^th 15-year-old, and if I’ve learned nothing else, I can tell you that as a parent, it’s a shitty age. I can tell you that as far as an attitude goes, your daughter is dead center of the bell curve. Probably the poster child for all that ails that particular age group.

I can tell you that my first run in with this attitude was a 15-year-old know-it-all who called me a lazy bitch. Me…the single parent of my nine kids with no child support from their father, working more than full time - on a farm, no less, - in school part time, building my family a house with my own hands in my off time…a lazy bitch. Hmmm. What to do. That was back in 2003, and she got a backhand across the mouth. The second time a kid put me in their sights as the target of all their teenage rage came down to one of us leaving the house in handcuffs…and although it should have been, it wasn’t her. I found that 15-year-old boys who have out-sized me are not easily extricated from cars to get their ass back in the house “because I said so”. These are just three highlights from the adventures of 15-year-old kids in my parenting career.

As I said, I am on number eight, now, and I have never raised a hand to this kid, and rarely raised my voice. Not because she is a perfect child, or somewhere out on the edge of the aforementioned bell curve, but rather because I have learned something over the years of dealing with this attitude.

The first thing I realized, is that they all have it. They all go through the ‘Mom and Dad are such schmucks’ stage to one degree or another. They are full of hormones and angst and we are convenient targets.

Secondly, and more importantly, they outgrow it. Oh, there are plenty of people who outgrow the attitude, and go on to adopt even worse ones, of victimization and anger toward everything.  But most of them grow to realize over time that they were brash, immature, and just plain old nasty to their folks. For some it takes longer than others, but it happens. Life is not static. It’s ever moving forward.

Third, I have learned that my response to their ugliness will by and large set the stage for the next few years of their teen-hood, and their launch into adulthood.

What you said is absolutely true, and I hope that the many who see this will take note of the generation of kids we have raised, who have a sense of entitlement that I cannot even fathom. As a Facebook video, it was a “Go DAD!” moment, because you acted upon something that we all WANT to do when we come up against the same thing. And if this were a movie, we’d all cheer you on. But I do suspect that this is a reality. That you are a real person, with real frustration, and a real father/daughter relationship at stake.  And there is a reason why we don’t go out and act upon the violent urges we have.

Anger begets anger. As I indicated above, I am not some hippie who does not believe in corporal punishment. It’s just that I have learned how to make it pretty much unnecessary. I have learned that we are not raising kids…we are raising adults. I’ve learned, further, that parenting as a means of controlling another person just doesn’t work as well as parenting as a means of teaching our children to take responsibility for their own lives, and this is far more profitable when taught via our actions rather than our words. They are not always listening, but they are watching, whether they admit it or not.

I am not presuming to know the “right” solution to this kind of issue, but what I am suggesting is that shooting the computer was probably akin to poking the bear with a stick. You pissed me off, now I’m gonna piss you off…the start of what I hope for your sake won’t be a life-long pissing match between you and your daughter. At some point, someone has to give, and let me tell you, that as the parent to take the “high” road, and not respond in-kind to their nastiness generally diffuses a situation in the end.  Never, and I repeat, NEVER underestimate the power of karma for these kids.

Had I handled the altercations, insults and disrespect from my teenagers in the manner that I wanted to – (and shooting their stuff was probably high up on my list, too!) – I might not have the friends that I have today in my grown children.

Most of us were/are able to parent and discipline in the privacy of our own homes. And while I applaud your intentions, this action, especially having gone viral, is going to live for a long, long time, immortalized in video on the internet for all to see. You are now the new hero to a million parents out there, who actually DID what we all fantasize about doing, to the cheers of the same.

But what about the kids? While they may gasp or chuckle at the video, the comment that keeps repeating is “I’m glad I’m not HER!”  It would seem that your actions may have served to widen the rift between parents and teens in a day and age where teens need the input and guidance of their parents more than ever. But that cannot be accomplished when we are at war for control of their lives and attitudes. They need to trust us. They are moving from a stage of dependence to independence; from depending on us as their parents, to depending on themselves. And through the teen years, their brains are not even done growing, for heaven’s sake! They need as much wisdom as we can possibly expose them to. If they see us as the enemy, how will they trust us to guide them? They won’t.  In fact, too often they will do the polar opposite of whatever we say just out of spite. And we end up having to look on while they charge headlong into walls and box canyons in their lives. Trust me, the lamentation then is not that I did not ground them longer, or discipline them more severely. It will be a sorrow that we do not know this person better…and that this person does not hold us in esteem…this person has no clue how very much we love them.

Whether you were aware of it or not, the fact that your video has gone viral is about to rain upon you more publicity that you could possibly imagine. You will now be the poster child for parents “striking back” against their children. My guess is that this is not what you intended. But like it or not, you are about the get your 15-minutes of fame. What will you do with it? Everyone is listening now. Expect the calls from the media…everyone from Oprah to Tosh.O. What will you tell them? You’ve got the mic…what do you really want to say?

Will you continue to promote parental tactics that further alienate our teens, creating the “Us vs. Them” mentality that seems to have been embraced by so many? Or will you share what it’s like to have your entire life invaded by the masses via video – and perhaps rethink whether or not we need to dip to a level of anger that ends in destruction? Maybe that laptop with all it’s new gadgetry would have been better off donated to someone who genuinely needed it and appreciated it. Perhaps your daughter could be signed up to go on a mission trip to a Mexican orphanage for a season, or volunteered at a homeless shelter to see how the other half lives. Maybe a job at a nursing home should be mandatory,  rather than being confined to her room/home – the last place she wants to be. The very place where teens seethe and plot their courses to go as far away from us as possible.

Motivated by an anger than so many of us clearly understand, we have punitively shown our children what they do not or no longer have.We take their freedom, their toys, their power.  Perhaps it’s time for someone to take the pedestal and suggest that we should count backwards from 10, find our motivation in our LOVE for them, and show them what they DO have.