As I mentioned a couple of days ago, my oldest son attended a local high school prom with his current girlfriend. He also failed to comply with our request that he come home that night instead of spending the night at her house. The next day he boarded a bus with other prom-goers for a local amusement park and although the bus left that park at 8:00 p.m. he did not return to our house until almost midnight.
So he kind of hit the ball back into our court.
I will say that I read and thought about all of the comments given to me in the comment section below. I also talked to my sister quite a bit about this. (Janette and Ruth might remember my sister as KAH from the old AOL boards.)
So our ethical dilemma as far as I can tell is this: What kind of rules and restrictions can you put on a teenager who is almost 18 years old, but still living at home, with a year left of high school? What are your obligations towards him as opposed to other minor children still living in the home? And is the most important criteria for these late teen years to do anything not to drive him away? Or should it be setting a example for the kids coming up below him? or just sticking to your guns come hell or high water!?
In retrospect I think I have to agree with commenters who felt that my attitude and my husband’s attitude might be driving our son to do things behind our back and away from our clear vision. I think that is part of the sin nature of the teen years and I think it is a fault that our son has exhibited practically from the moment he was out of the womb! He is willful, he is strong minded and he is stubborn. Which is not to say that he does not have many fine qualities as well, but we all have our challenges – those are his. I think Pete and I have been very clear, concise and open about what our expectations and rules are and why we have those expectations and rules. At this point in his upbringing it is our job to reiterate and stand up for what we believe is right. It is his choice to follow or ignore those guidelines.
Now of course, because he still lives in our house and is our dependent, that adds another layer to this. It’s not like he is an independent adult child seeking our wisdom and then choosing to ignore it! His willfullness will set the tone for his siblings. So if we are to remain the leaders or our home instead of the hostages to our chlidren, we have to follow through.
My sister made an excellent point, that his punishment should not make life harder for the rest of us. In other words, kids shouldn’t be waiting or having to postpone their activities simply so that I can cart Calvin to work, school and swimming. I agree with that. I also don’t think that I should have to pay an additional $20 a week in gas for his activities either. So we are not taking the car. Calvin’s biggest problem seems to be following the rules on Saturday night. So for the next three Saturdays he will be driven to work and then picked up. That means he will be home by 7:30 p.m. as opposed to 1:00 a.m.
I did manage to talk to him about the weekend. He did have a good time. He did feel funny that his parents were the only parents not there to take pictures and he understands that a lot of that was because he deliberately kept us out of the loop that a lot of the other parents were in. When he spent the night at his girlfriend’s house there were four other guys sleeping in the family room and he said her father stayed there with them. So they were chaperoned.
Calvin thinks it was a stupid rule for us to require him to come home that night. Perhaps it was, but that isn’t really the point. We had very minimal requirements for him that weekend and this was our only request. It wouldn’t have killed him to comply with it and by not doing so he was publically disrespectful of us.
We talked about missing mass. It would have been really neat if perhaps he and his girl had gone to mass together in their prom clothes even! It would have shown her that he really is serious about his Catholic faith and that it isn’t something to get blown aside when it is inconvenient. He did not give her and his other friends a good witness.
Lastly, I noted when he got home the other night the first thing he did was give his girlfriend a call to let her know that he got home safely. I felt a little stab in the heart with that one. How many nights this winter have I sat at home in the wee early morning hours, unable to reach him on his cell phone and hoping for the some communication that he wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere because of some freak car accident! How nice would it have been for this girl or her father to call me and say, “Hey, Calvin just left and he’s on his way home!” or maybe for Calvin to leave his damn cell phone (that I pay the minutes for) on so that I could just check to see if he was okay. He told me he called her so she would not worry and I told him I completely understod. After all, she has all of six months of her life invested in him. I have 18 years, I carried him in my body, nursed him from my breast, took care of him when he was sick, and homeschooled him for nine years. I know what it is like to have that kind of emotional investment at risk.
So we’re talking sort of. I did take Janette’s advice and I invited this girlfriend to Izzy’s first communion day on Sunday. We’ll take it one day at a time.
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