Parents Are Hypocrites, and That’s Okay
I had a great conversation with a member of Spew Nation last week, who shared this nugget about parenting:
Parenting, it’s so much f***ing work. And they have no idea.
This may be Spew Nation’s new tagline. Feel free to use it as your personal motto.
. . .
I had an interchange with a parent recently who wanted guidance about how to manage his 16 year-old daughter’s phone use.
She is asking for unlimited screen time, he wrote in an email.
She claims it’s hypocritical that we, her parents, have it when she doesn’t.
Sadly, I don’t have an ironclad answer about how to manage teenage screen time.
I do, however, have plenty of thoughts about hypocrisy.
Well, of course you’re a hypocrite! I replied.
You’re a parent!
Teenagers call parents hypocrites all the time, and if we want to get technical, parents are hypocrites when their behavior is viewed through a teenage lens.
Parents get to use their phones whenever they want.
Hypocrites!
Parents get to drink whenever they want.
Hypocrites!
Parents get to go to bed whenever they want.
Hypocrites!
Parents also get to pay the mortgage, file taxes, and deal with the leaks in the roof, not to mention clean up barf, wipe asses, and keep their self-esteem when their children roll their eyes at them.
So, the next time your teenager calls you a hypocrite, lean in.
You’re right, honey, Thanks so much for pointing this out to me.
Of course you can have unlimited screen time, and I also put the W-2’s on your desk so you can sort that out by April 15th.
It’s so much f***ing work, right?
. . .
I am a total hypocrite myself, especially when it comes to technology. I hate it, and yet I am completely addicted to my phone.
And so are my teenage clients, but a few of them have given me hope by sharing real life examples of how technology can transform lives.
One 17 year-old girl explained that she has a friend who has a crush on her. It is not mutual.
My client and her friend were hanging out with other members of their friend group, and my client was seated on a couch next to the person who has the crush. They were kind of squished together.
Now, because my client is a teenager, she had shared with all her other friends, who also happened to be squished onto the same couch, that this one friend has a crush on her.
So my client gets up to go to the bathroom and one of her non-crush friends texts her, from the couch, and asks if my client would like this friend to change places with her, thus creating a buffer on the couch between my client and the crush friend. My client responded from the bathroom saying thanks, but I got it.
While my client didn’t need to be rescued, it made her feel good to know that one of her non-crush friends had empathy for her situation, and this made her feel like she could handle it.
Another client has difficulty communicating with her parents. She says she has a different “love language” than they do, and often they get stuck in their communication because her parents are very lovey dovey and affectionate and they expect her to be the same. But that’s just not who she is.
But she can write stuff down.
She has discovered that she can communicate her feelings to her parents through texting, and it makes her feel great. She doesn’t have to look them in the eye and say, I love you, which is what they do, and what she can’t do, but she can let them know via text that she cares.
. . .
It’s okay to be a hypocrite in your teenager’s eyes. In fact, it’s a requirement if you want to maintain healthy boundaries.
Parenting, it’s so much f***ing work!
But so is being a teenager.
sues.spew@gmail.com
___________________________
To protect my clients’ privacy when I write about them, I change identifying details and circumstances. In addition, I sometimes create amalgams for the purpose of bringing forth universal themes from individual situations. I hope this approach allows readers to hear echoes of their own experience in the stories of others.
My intention in sharing snippets of other people’s struggles is to provide comfort to all the lonely parents out there who think they suck.