We have babies to have babies, not to have teenagers. But what would we do without teenagers? This life would be so boring if they didn't exist.
Sometimes when you are a parent, you take a look at your life, not the life you have now, but your past and if you had a rough entry into adulthood, you might fear that you are going to ruin your kid because they are so much like you and they have your genes. You helicopter parent trying to prevent what you are afraid is going to happen to them. More than anything else, you do not want them to make the same mistakes you made. You want to protect them from themselves. This is a problem if you are a different sex because... well, boys are different from girls. I was never a 13 year old boy. I don't know how they think, or what is important to them. I don't know how it feels to have raging teenage boy hormones and I don't want to know. I do know that in a lot of ways, they are all the same. They play with language behind our backs and make crude jokes that we may or may not understand. They think they know all there is to know about the world and people and they think that nothing bad will ever happen to them. I am lucky that I have a 13 year old who still likes to cuddle. He doesn't give me big hugs in public, but he is very affectionate at home. He loves his family and is fantastic with his little cousins. For the most part, he is grateful for what he has and shows appreciation. He is also a bit messy and lazy, but that is just part of being a teen.
Over the past year, my son transitioned from a 12 year old boy to a 13 year old teenage boy. The transformation has been amazing. He was a squeaky, brace-faced kid and now he is a pimple faced, almost as tall as me, hairy thing. As much as seeing these changes amaze me, they also terrify me. As a 13 year old girl, I was very naive. I learned about sex from diagrams on posters in health class and maybe a little bit from my parents careful explanations. We were taught that the reason for sexual intercourse was to make babies and that you should not have sex until you are married. We learned about STD's and what the other sex's parts looked like and that was about it. I admit, at that age I really wasn't all that curious. I never really understood what people were talking about when they gossiped about what so-and-so was doing with what's-his-name. I was only interested in getting my first kiss because everyone else had gotten theirs. Sometimes I wonder if the naiveté also came from the fact that I was growing up in a small town (a bit sheltered). Times have changed so much. My son has seen things that would have scared me at his age. He already knows what a lot of sexual terms mean. This is a discussion that I feel is very important to have as difficult as it may be. My child is not the only one who has this exposure. Because of media and the internet, our children have access to everything. Teen pregnancy has been glorified and sex is in almost every television show out there. Our children are overexposed and no matter how much we want to shelter them, it is becoming impossible. Our kids grow up much faster than we did and I don't see this changing anytime soon. You know how "40 is the new 30?" Well, 13 is the new 15.
When I first realized that my son had seen and heard things that I was not yet ready for him to see or hear, I reacted by freaking out. I did not want my pure, wonderful, kind, loving child to be exposed to this or even worse corrupted by it. My biggest fear is that he was a kid who was easily influenced and that he would want to do whatever seemed to him to be fun. I wanted to take all of the electronic devices in the house and smash them to bits. I wanted to punish him for looking at these things and I wanted to lock him in the house and never let him out. Instead, I cried and thought that I was a horrible parent. How could I let this happen? How did he get around all of the parental controls I had in place? What was I doing wrong? I went on like this for some time. I had discussions with my son about what he was looking at and about porn addiction. I asked him if he was having sex or doing drugs every day and drove both of us crazy. I admit, it took me a few weeks to calm down, but I finally did after talking to some very knowledgable people on the subject. These people assured me that my baby was just fine and that everything he was doing was really very "normal." I have been told by some of my male contemporaries that they would have been doing the same thing if they had access at that age.
I still believe that our children should be sheltered from a lot of these things until they are older and I do feel like my son has been corrupted in some ways. We talk openly about sex and drugs, but I have backed off some. I do not allow pornography and if I see it, I will take his phone away. I have accepted the fact that it is natural for him to be curious and for him to look, but I will not enable him. It is one thing to see nude pictures, it is not okay with me for him to see sex videos. I feel that women are objectified to the Nth degree in our society and I want my son to know that women are not playthings.
There is one more topic I would like to discuss. Because of social media, our children can communicate with the world and we need to educate them to be careful. They all want to have thousands of followers because they think that is what it means to be popular. I have told my son to be careful and not to accept anyone's friend request who he does not know personally. Do I think that he follows that rule? No, I am sure he doesn't, but I check his friends list on a regular basis and delete anyone I feel to be inappropriate. If he wants to be part of social media, he has to be friends with family members and he knows not to put anything on Instagram that he would not want his grandparents to see. That being said, there are ways to have private conversations and our children are sexting. They are able to say things in messages that they may not say in person because absence of face gives confidence and because you can be anyone you want to be when you are virtual. This is what I want to warn. Parents, please remember that your child's phone belongs to you, not them. It is a privilege for them to have and use, but it is your property and you have every right to go through it and you should. It is for their own safety. Please teach them to be careful and to never put anything out there that is personal (pictures, addresses, phone numbers, etc). Let's keep our kids safe. They are going to look at what they are going to look at and even if you try to stop them, they will find a way. It is our responsibility to make sure they are careful and safe.
