Got teenagers? Got Prozac? If you have the first, I sure as heck
hope you have the second.
Got teenagers? Got Prozac? If you have the first, I sure as heck hope you have the second.
I suppose it is possible to raise teenagers in an unmedicated state, but it seems kind of chancy. We adults can be told how incredibly stupid or uncool we are only so many times before anesthesia or perhaps surgery (frontal lobotomy?) seems like the way to go. Even Libertarians would agree that immunizing parents against teenagers should be a basic government service. “Hello Sir. Hello Ma’am. Your children are approaching adolescence. Would you like a local anesthetic or would you like to be put completely under?”
Remember that cell phone you got your teenager so that you could know their whereabouts while they gallivant around? By now, you know that checking in with your kids is, to them, an incidental and annoying use for that phone. While talking to you, they might be missing an important call. They don’t miss many though. “How can you have talked 8,631 more minutes than the minimum?” Sound familiar?
How are you doing on your teenager vocabulary? I work hella hard to learn their lingo. And for the most part, I’m pretty chill with it. But sometimes they’ll dis me, because when I talk, it’s just not sick.
Dr. Phil (please bow your head) says we should “communicate” with our teenage kids. Renée and I do that, but it doesn’t take very long. A Saturday morning conversation might go something like this:
“How was your date last night?”
“OK.”
“Where did you go?”
“Places.”
“What did you do?”
“Stuff.”
“That’s great.”
Our son’s phone conversations with his buddies are a similarly succinct exchange of low-register mumbles. The phone rings. And he checks to see who the caller is:
“Dude, ‘s’up?” …
“That’s chill.” …
“8 o’clock? Tight.” …
“Peace.”
In our house, we have set down firm ground rules of acceptable behavior. Kids need to understand that they cannot use course language nor speak with disrespect to their parents. So, we have established a system of deductions from their allowances when they swear or speak to us inappropriately. Right now, our son owes us $4,250 and our precious daughter owes $2,050. We have consulted a financial planner, and we think this plan will bolster our retirement account since our Roth IRA took a hit a couple of years ago.
I have been carefully observing the shopping habits of my daughter, and I have an idea for what I believe will be a very profitable business venture. I am going to open a string of retail clothing outlets for teenage kids. We will develop a clever hip concept called something like Abercrombie Eagle Outfitters, and we will sell shoddy clothes at outrageous prices.
We will sell $50 T-shirts and $80 jeans covered with our logo. Our marketing campaign will feature pasty-white rail-thin models breezing along in our fashionably raunchy clothes.
We will manufacture the girls’ clothes (Motto: higher and tighter) and boys’ clothes (Motto: lower and looser) at a sweatshop in Vietnam for next to nothing. Loud “music” will blare in our stores, and our pierced and tattooed staff will steal us blind, but at the prices we charge, we can afford the losses.
Parents with older kids who have passed the teenage years tell me these trying times won’t last forever. When they get a little older, they will “come back.” Oh, boy.
Whoops, got to go. The kids just arrived home from school, and my medication has almost worn off.
