Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Parental support

We're all parents of teenagers here at MCMM. But some of us are parents of very special teenagers. By that I don't mean the academically perfect MIT bound volunteer for the summer in Kenya building schools special teenager. More like the "lazy, emotionally immature, neurologically impaired, psychologically tweaked" kind of special. My kids are certainly in that category and many of our writers also have kids who fit in that strange mix of labels as well.

Today I'm going to skip talking about the kids and talk about parenting. It's hard enough parenting a neurotypical teenager. What with the mood swings and the opinions and the foul mouths, it cam be challenging just getting through the day with a really cool and neurologically fine kid. But parenting these other kids, these 'special' kids can rob an adult of their ability to be congnatively awake at any given moment. When your brain is working overtime just trying to stay one step ahead of the kid that is manipulative, dishonest, and has little control over implusivity, you're gonna flatline if you don't seek a bit of help yourself. It's just too darn hard to do this stuff alone.

Many couples rely on each other and don't think they need outside support. Or get psychological help for their child but eschew family therapy. If you want to burn out quickly and affect the other NT members of your family, that's certainly a way to go. But I don't believe that it's necessarily the right way, nor the only way. What I want to talk about is the support services that are out there for families with these special kids.

If you have a child that is using drugs, stealing cars, lying and stealing, or doing a lot of illegal activites but has yet not been caught by the police, you can ask for court involvement without getting your child a record. Did you know this? It's a way of taking the onus off of you, the parents, and putting it onto the Judge that oversees your child's case. To do this, you have to go to your local courthouse where there is a Youth Probation Officer and file a CHINS. This means a "Child in Need of Services" petition. A CHINS essentially sets up a relationship between your child and the court, and will write up a contract with your child telling them exactly what they may NOT do. A lawyer is assigned to your child. It is NOT your attorney, it is your child's attorney, and their discussion is priviledged, just like a therapists. But, like a therapist, if there is any notion of harm to self or others, they will tell you and they will seek a hospitalization.  When a child has a CHINS, they have to appear in front of the Judge regularly. The Judge gets the child's report cards and reports from the school regarding attendance and behavior. They also confer with the child's therapist and psychiatrist, as well as the Attorney and, if needed, a guardian ad litem.  If the child has NOT followed the CHINS, the Judge can make decisions regarding the consequences. This might be further court involvement, Department of Social Services (CPS) or Department of Youth Services involvement, or might just involve tweaking the CHINS.

The CHINS is your first line of defense when illegal activity or behavior you cannot control, such as running away or setting fires, has you really needing outside help. When you have filed a CHINS, you are able to get VOLUNTARY DSS services. Scary? You betcha. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the scariest decision a parent has to make when dealing with a child whose impulsivity is dangerous to himself or others. But so many of us HAVE faced it, and made the decision to ask for this type of help. And after it's over, we're all pretty darn grateful considering how much help you can get this way.

If you ask for Voluntary DSS/CPS involvement, you'll be assigned a caseworker, and with this caseworker you'll determine what the family needs entail. They will pay for therapy, ensure that you have medical insurance for this child, they'll get you an in-home social worker for family therapy, they can assign the child a mentor, they can get your child hospitalized, into Acute Residential Treatment  programs, and even into residential schools. Your caseworker can help you with special parenting skills classes, respite care, and even some financial help. Once your child is involved in DSS Voluntary services, you are going to get help. Sometimes more help than you wanted or think you needed. It might be a couple of years of some very difficult work with your family, but it IS worth it in the long run.

Another road, if you have a child with a mental illness, is to contact your state's Department of Mental Health (DMH). Yeah, that one is a hard call to make. Nobody wants to admit that they are dealing with a mental illness that is making it too difficult for the family to function normally. It takes some families years to ask for this one, but again, once the call is made, if you are accepted into their program, it is going to make a huge difference. Most of what DMH can and will do for you is similar to what DSS does. Only DMH works with different agencies that specialize in mental health issues. You'll still get a caseworker, you'll still get the hospitalizations, insurance, ARTs and residential schools pair for, only by DMH. They offer MORE in the way of financial help, ensuring that you won't get evicted from your apartment because of mental health issues, and will assign you an in-home therapist as well.

Asking for this type of help is extremely difficult. But it is there for you. It's just waiting for you to make the first step and call. As a parent who has made these phone calls more than once, I know that the decision to admit you need outside help feels like you're failing as a parent. But it isn't that at all. In fact, I believe that to be a GOOD parent of kids like this, we do need to ask for help in order to offer our children the best of the best.

If you have questions about the process or about my own experience with these various agencies, please email me. I'm happy to answer any questions I can.

Yes, I'm sending my son to Israel

By Nina

It never ceases to amaze me  -- the looks of horror I get when I tell people I'm sending my 16-year-old son to Israel for the summer.  Even from Jews. 

Well, I'm in the south now and down here people think nothing of asking you straight out, when they first meet you, "What church do y'all go to?"  And then when you tell them you're Jewish and you don't actually go to church, but you belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, three minutes later they say, "Now what was the name of that church you go to?"   OK, maybe it's hard to wrap your brain around the tangle of Hebrew that is Shearith (remnant) Israel (Israel).  This stuff doesn't even rattle me.  It's almost cute.

What I hate are the looks of grave concern when you say you're sending your child to Israel.  You'd think I was sending the kid to Baghdad.  In fact I'm sending him to his homeland, the most progressive, impressive and remarkable nation in modern history.  He will be touring with other teenagers from North America, under strict supervision in what is turning out to be one of the most robust summer tourism season in a few years.  Israel needs that badly. 

I don't want to preach here or get too political on you, but this I believe.  Israel is a brilliant democracy that sits in a very bad neighborhood.  It is surrounded by neighbors who would like it to disappear from the earth.  Egypt is digging tunnels to run guns and supplies to Hamas in Gaza.  Syria and Lebanon, it's puppet state,  have rockets aimed at the Golan Heights and Tel Aviv.  And let's face it, Iran's nukes, whether you believe they exist or not,  are intended for Israel. Only Jordan, ruled by a modern and educated King, understands the utility and potential of "making it work" with Israel.

My son will start his trip in Europe.  He'll tour Prague and visit Auschwitz and see the remnants (that Hebrew word Shearith again) of once thriving Jewish communities where his ancestors  lived, learned, taught, created and prospered.  Then he'll sail into Haifa Harbor, like the Ma'apilim (immigrants)  who survived the Holocaust and made new lives in the Jewish State. He'll see the good, the beautiful, the ugly.  He'll see the security wall and the checkpoints.  He'll see Jews and Arabs struggling to coexist in a complex shared destiny.  He'll hear Hebrew, a language resurrected from the pages of the bible, as a living, breathing modern tongue with its own unique street slang and poetry.  He'll see contradictions and complexities on every street corner. 

Israel isn't neat and tidy. It's loud and messy.  It is all at once western and eastern, orthodox and progressive, secular and religious.  It is our pride and our pain. These ads express our immense pride in what Israel has achieved amidst staggering challenges.

And that's the way I want it.  I cannot protect Grumble from everything.  In truth, I think life in Israel is safer than life in America. People are connected there in ways that can barely be expressed.  When you ride the bus and someone thinks your baby might be under-dressed and chilly, 5 surrogate mothers will step in and offer their sweater as an extra blanket.  Once in a restaurant where my 5 year old wailed for pizza, the proprietor sent a waiter across the street and got my kid a slice.  When Israeli soldiers were camped out in a field near Efrat during the 2nd Intifada, my friends cooked for them as if they were their own sons and daughters.  That's the kind of place I want my son to experience. 

There will be an armed guard on Grumble's bus.  He will not travel outside the so-called "Green Line" and security reports will determine when and where his group travels.  But there will also be songs and sights and stories I cannot give him in America. For 5 weeks he'll be in a danger zone.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Just when you thought it was safe...

It's a dangerous world. For all its amazing beauty, it's a dangerous world out there.

I just read Time Magazine's cover story on disaster preparedness. So many concepts struck home, the main one being the idea that we can train our minds to handle a disaster and survive. I remember training with the local police department to prepare for a potential school disaster, and their strongest advice was this: Drill like it's real. I still teach my students with that philosophy in mind.

I read several reactions to the story of a kindergartener who may be on the autism spectrum and the way his classmates were encouraged to "vote him out" reality show style. While I see that the teacher's concerns were initially valid, her actions were inappropriate and potentially damaging. The child and his classmates may never recover.

I read another mom-blogger's reports of her concerns for her child's safety in school. Her concerns are legitimate; learning from history could help her assist in keeping her own child's school safe.

In all of these stories, there is a hero or leader. On a wilderness trail, the leader isn't called a trailblazer for nothing. The leader steps in the mud, gets spiderwebs in her face, and has to figure out if the vine ahead is plant or snake. It's not an easy role, but people, women, moms still step up and take it on. This is part that encourages me. Time recorded several people who trained well and made it count in situations such as resort fires and the World Trade Center attacks. Bloggers on the autism hub are making sure the world knows about the persecuted child and knows this kind of treatment is never acceptable. The blogger-Mom of a fourth grader knew that ten years old is not too young to be a danger, and she took action.

I recently loaned the book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult to another teacher. It's a powerful story that's making the rounds through our teaching community. All of us agree that the story depicted, while fiction, is realistic and, yes, could happen anywhere. We don't need to be heroes, but all of us need to stay alert, aware, and involved.

Our "children" may be in their teens and twenties, but they still need us. They need our experience and our wisdom. And darn it, without us, how would they know to take their vitamins and wash their hands?!

I think she's wiser than her mother

I hear the giggles as I walk by her room. Bekah is chatting on Skype.

(She has no idea of the luxury of those limitless calls. Limitless long distance calls -- limitless because they're free. What will be the luxuries her children enjoy which bemuse her? What awaits my grandchildren?  (My potential, as yet entirely theoretical grandchildren?))

She is chatting with her friend Philippe. Philippe is the very likeable young man who spent a summer with us as an exchange student two years ago when he was 17 and Bekah not quite 13. English-speaking 17-year-olds from Ontario went to Quebec and New Brunswick to improve their French; French-speaking youths came here in exchange. A lanky young fellow with an exuberant mop of red curls, Pilippe's soft-spoken easy-going ways and good humour endeared himself to the entire family.

Bekah, it seems, endeared herself particularly to him.

They've kept in touch through emails and IM, and most recently with the free phone calls. The conversation just flows between those two. Hours and hours of it. He's held her hand (virtually) through a boyfriend and a breakup; she gives him (very sensible) advice re: family relationships and the appalling lack of greenery in his diet. I don't know what all else they might talk about over the hours. I'm not told.

I am of two minds about this relationship. I am not entirely comfortable with the amount of time she "spends" with him. Obviously, sex isn't an issue, which is a relief to me, because she's only fourteen. A physically mature fourteen, a very sensible and emotionally stable fourteen, but still fourteen. She spends a lot of time on this one relationship. I worry some about balance in her life. I keep an eye on her, making sure that other activities and relationships are not suffering as a result. They don't seem to be, but I keep a cautious maternal eye on her.

On the other hand, and this hand weighs heavily, I am very pleased that one of the most significant relationships in her life revolves entirely around conversation. They have no shared activities. They have shared interests, but, separated by a thousand kilometres or so, they can't do them together. The can't watch movies together. They do occasionally play internet games together, but not often.

What they do is talk. And talk and talk and talk.

Yes, I do haul her out of her room. She eats meals with the family, chores get done, homework is accomplished, she spends time every day chatting with me and spending time with her in-town friends. But she and Philippe talk. Every day.

I recall an occasion when her father came to visit me over Christmas break while we were still dating. We were in our early twenties, maybe even in our late teens, and had each gone to our respective families for the holidays. But ten days was too long for our love-struck hearts to be separated, so he drove the hour between our family homes to visit one day.

After spending some time with my family, we were desperate for some time alone, so we went for a drive, chatting idly about this or that thing out the window, and ended up having a coffee in a roadside diner somewhere. We sat on opposite sides of the table ... and the conversation shrivelled. We had nothing to say to each other. Nothing.

He held my hand. We smiled at each other. But we had nothing to say.

Why did I go ahead and marry this man, when conversation is so desperately important to me? Well, at the time I didn't really know that of myself, nor did I understand it would be absent in the marriage. I didn't know a lot of things at 19 or 20.

It took twelve years of a conversation-free marriage to teach me how my soul craves conversation. Not just mindless words, words, words tossed out, cluttering the air -- though there's certainly a place for casual, idle, and functional chatter. But conversation: a steady flow of interest in the other, the exchange of ideas, the building-up of new ideas as a joint creative enterprise.

To me, that's the bedrock of a relationship. Fundamental, foundational, indispensible.

And for twelve years, I lived without it.

I married him because I was young and naive and "in love". We loved each other! Conversation would come, right? I didn't realize that "in love" would not create something that didn't exist. I didn't realize that "in love" would parch to dust and blow away in the desert of silence and strictly-functional communication.

Bekah, in her room, chatters away. There is no lack of conversation with those two. There are no arid silences, no unbridged gaps between two solitudes.

So, though the amount of time she spends with this one friend does cause me some concern, the quality of the relationship reassures. If he is going to become someone significant in her life -- someone even more significant -- they are going about it the right way.

But I'm still glad he lives in New Brunswick.

Launching Pad

By Nina Rubin
In an effort to save some dough (and because hotels were going for more than $300 a night) I recently spent two nights in my college son's D.C. "launching pad" over his graduation weekend.  My darling and personable first born (a.k.a. Jaws to MCMM readers)  has sublet a 2 bedroom apartment in a groovy Arlington, VA building that boasts a health club, party roof deck, a pool, and a concierge -- before he has actually landed job.

That's not intended to be a snarky comment.  Honestly.  Jaws is not a slacker and he will get a job.  I mean, he has to.  He's not being subsidized by his parents, his school loans are coming due and his savings are not endless.  He's a great kid -- a mensch as we Jewish parents like to say.  But I had to laugh when I compared his first digs with my first apartment after college.

My apartment:  $185 a month, divided by 2 roomates.
His apartment:  $800 a month...just for his room!
My apartment:  In an Italian neighborhood where old men played bocci ball and widows wore black for their entire lives.
His apartment:  Nobody over the age of 50 in evidence.

His apartment came with a flat screen tv and a refrigerator that makes ice.  Jaws and his roomate each have their own tv in their own private bedrooms.  They don't have a car and they don't have silverware.  But they have cable and TIVO. They have granite countertops.  I have formica.  They have stainless steel appliances.  And here's the real rub...they have a Harris Teeter supermarket and a dry cleaner in their complex.  Jealous?  Moi?

We were all back together again in New York over Memorial Day weekend celebrating Grandma Isabelle's 85th birthday. Hanging out in my mom's kitchen yesterday, Jaws asked lots of sweet cooking and grilling questions, having recently discovered that if one cooks, one has copious leftovers, and one saves money.  He asked his grandmother for a few of her recipes and she sent Jaws flying back to Washington  loaded up with a flank steak, flatware for 12, a box of home baked brownies, grilling tools and a bottle of teriyaki marinade.  As I've said elsewhere, they don't make 'em like my mother anymore. Her care packages are, legendary and eclectic.

When I got back to Atlanta last night, I was dying of curiosity so I called the launching pad.  I heard the sound of happy young people in the background and beer cans popping. "How was the steak?" I asked.  "Fabulous," Jaws said.  "But we kind of incinerated the burgers...the flames got a little out of control out on the balcony." 

Yup, it's happening.  He's out on his own.  With two interviews coming up this week.  You  live, you learn, you launch.

Curfews?

My twins are not yet 16, but they both have very active social lives. More active than I can ever remember having at their age, but that was when dinosaurs roamed the earth and really, who wants to hang out with dinosaurs?

Tonight both kids were out with their respective sets of friends. They were both 'hanging' at someone else's house, both told to be home at midnight, as it isn't a school night, and both got home at a reasonable time. One was 15 minutes early, one was 15 minutes late. I'm not thrilled with the late kid, but he's relying on someone else's driving so it is a bit harder for him to get home than my daughter, who got a ride home from a mom. Moms are more reliable than kids, for the most part.

We haven't had a lot of trouble with curfews in the past. They're pretty solid, 12 on weekends, 11 on weeknights IF their schoolwork and chores are done. Since it's very rare that anything is done, they don't go out much on school nights. Another brilliant ploy from Mom!

But we're reaching a new situation. Summer vacation. Ugh.

My kids absolutely positively refuse to do anything over the summer. My daughter will be in summer school due to some incredible screw ups at her school, but that's during the morning. She'll be home most of the day. My son will be doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. He will not do any type of program. Nor will he consider camp, something he's failed at spectacularly in the past. This will be his 3rd summer home with nothing to do.

Now summer schedules are very lax around here. I work from  home, mostly at night. The kids sleep in till fairly late, and their friends sleep even later. Most social activity doesn't even start until 3 or 4 in the afternoons, sometimes even later.

So planning curfews becomes more difficult. Our town has a curfew that I plan to follow, not that it's enforced or anything, but it makes my kids much more limited than the other kids. Since my kids don't drive yet (or ever if I have my wish!) they have to rely on either me, friends, or other parents. So I'm now sure what a reasonable curfew is for almost 16 yr-old kids who are just 'hanging out'. If they have someplace to go, then they have a half-hour after the movie or concert or whatever is done to be home. That's easy. It's the 'hanging out' that I'm not sure of.

Anyone have any great suggestions? What curfew have you set for your kids?

He didn't learn that from me...did he?!

My cell phone rang when I was at the Walgreens picking up tylenol. It was Amigo's teacher. My blood pressure and pulse rates rose immediately. "Do I need to hurry home? Is it an emergency?" No, it wasn't, but she advised me to check his jump drive for a persuasive speech he was writing. His notes contained some racist statements, she said, and I would be shocked, and the associate principal wanted to meet with us. Soon.

I bought the tylenol and didn't even bother looking for the rest. I went home, started supper, and felt the pain as my jaw stiffened with tension waiting for my wayward teen to arrive home. 

The statements in his notes were negative, but vague. We had a painful but productive discussion, resulting in tears (his) and a request to go back to counseling (also his). Among other statements, I managed to read between the lines that he was still in pain from his ongoing illness, schoolwork is difficult this year, and he is exhausted. A teen with Asperger's has two strikes already in communicating: teens don't talk to their Moms (if they can help it), and teens with Asperger's have a hard time identifying their emotions, much less communicating them accurately. When he's upset, I see Amigo struggling with these two strikes magnified.

I made the appointment with the administrator. Husband and I did our homework, checking out Amigo's Internet history (yes, we do monitor his computer use) and talked with him again. When we arrived at school, I told the staff that we were afraid of being blindsided, hit with more bad news without warning. Their response? "Oh, no, no, it's just the speech and the appropriateness of the topic." Gee, people, you could have been more forthcoming on this. Our past experiences with the district have unfortunately led us to this type of paranoia.

Eventually, we discussed how difficult it is for him to filter information on a hot topic such as discrimination, disabilities, and race, no matter how much help he gets, and helped him choose a different topic for his persuasive speech. But really, the racism? I have no idea where he got it. At 6, we could ask "Where did you hear this?!" At 16? It's a lot tougher.

SOUNDTRACKS by Jenny Gardiner

My teenaged son was hit by a car exactly one year ago today.

I was driving home after having dropped my youngest at a school right across the street from where my older ones attend, when I found out about it. Looking back I realize that probably right about the time I was dropping off one kid within shouting distance, the other was being launched across a parking lot by a Jeep Cherokee.

That morning, lost in thought, having no clue what I would soon learn, I almost didn't answer my cell phone in time when it rang, and luckily caught it before it bounced to voice mail.

"Look, Mom, don't worry, I'm fine," my son said, his voice jagged and hepped up with the high of adrenaline. "But they're loading me into the ambulance."

I've had my share of heart-stopping parental moments, including the time we put one of our kids to bed only to find her---out of nowhere---in the throes of a seizure twenty minutes later. That episode led to all sorts of eventual angst and trauma, things that have contributed to making me a stronger person, no doubt, albeit a stronger person with a more acute fear of all that could go wrong in my beloved children's lives.

The minute you hear such words uttered, what flashes before you is all that might be wrong that you don't know. That he won't make it to the hospital before he dies, and you'll never have the chance to impart those last important words, the I love you's, because who knows? Maybe there are internal injuries and then what?

Last week in our small town that's exactly what happened. A sweet, friendly, athletic 16-year old girl was leaving her neighborhood en route to school. She turned left when the light turned green onto a busy four-lane highway, not realizing that an 18-wheeler was barreling down on her, its driver in such a rush to make it to his destination that he ignored the laws and the fact that he was manning a moving missile and just kept on driving right through a red light shattering the lives of so many people instantaneously. They say this girl died in the blink of an eye, upon impact. Of course her parents and her twin brother will have all the time in the world to die slowly from the heartache hoisted upon them.

The tragedy of this story has revisited me again and again since last week. Perhaps more so because but for the grace of God, it could have been me getting that same phone call that child's parents received that morning. Those parents who, if they were lucky, only a few short minutes earlier had kissed their girl goodbye and wished her a good day.

It resonates too with me because this is the sixth such accident in our small town in half a year's time. Two teens we know were nearly killed right along that same road by red-light runners, in one case a drunk driver. And yet it keeps happening, no one seems able or willing to stop it.

We were so fortunate. While my son was pretty banged up, had lots of cuts, scrapes and bruises, and even ended up passing out in the ER once the adrenaline wore off, he did live to tell about it, even sort of becoming a legend for a few days at school: the boy who got hit then run over by a car (by a girl who was text-messaging and speeding and who has since had additional moving violations yet still has her license). He, at least, was able to garner a few laughs over it.

I, however, remain haunted knowing that he was all alone at that moment of impact, when the front end of that Jeep met his backpack--laden as always with 30 pounds worth of textbooks that probably absorbed some of the force and likely saved his life--and sent him flying. And he was alone precisely at that moment the car then drove over his foot, the added insult to injury. This knowledge just kills me: that he was there---and I was probably right across the street--- and I couldn’t help him in such a lonely hour.

These thoughts often plague me when I hear of others’ tragedies. Innocent victims, people just going about their lives when poof, it all changes. And all ultimately alone when they most needed someone---or something---to sooth them.

I realized something interesting shortly after my son’s accident, though.

We were at a party with several families, watching a slide show of our vacation on somebody’s laptop, with an iTunes playlist on as a backdrop, when the song Wonderwall by Oasis came on.

“Dude, that’s the song I was hit by!” My son blurted out to his friends with a chuckle. Because he was listening to his iPod when he was hit, he has a personal soundtrack--a theme song--to probably the worst thing to ever happen to him.

A soundtrack. We all have those songs in our lives that bring us back to good times: that first kiss, the prom, graduation, a wedding day. But in this iPod generation, where most everyone tunes in whenever and wherever they can, songs probably link to more and more unexpected occurrences in our lives.

That my son had a theme song to the accident sort of creeped me out at first, but it didn’t bother him. In fact he was happy to hear it playing that night, even though the last time he heard it was under, uh, less than ideal circumstances.

I can't help but wonder if that girl had a favorite song playing on the radio just before her life was snuffed out. If she was lost in happy thoughts, excited about a big game, or planning to shop for a Mother's Day gift after school. Was there something there that helped her when she needed it most?

I guess I’m glad that in his hour of need, music was there to comfort, and--like that backpack--to soften the blow a little bit for my son. For me, I don’t think I’ll ever hear that song again without my heart stopping for just a moment, recalling that most important time in which I couldn’t be there for him. But perhaps when he hears Wonderwall my son will remember to be happy he’s alive, comforted just a little bit by music.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards - Musings

As a first time mother, you don't know any  better.  The second time 'round, you're just too tired to care.

I hope that you had a happy Mother's Day!!!

Our dreams (plans) for our children change over the years.  A parent can keep those dreams until you get hit in the face that they must be modified.

Looking back, I can see that some of my hopes for Abe (17.5 yo, PDD, ADHD, NVLD, etc) were too expansive.  When he was born, I hoped for a wonderful kid who was going to have a wonderful life.  He's a wonderful kid (when he wants to be) who has had a hard life in terms of figuring out how to deal with his disabilities.  I still hope that when he's older, he'll think that he had a good childhood.

When Abe first started at an out-of-district, special education  placement school in the middle of 4th grade, I had dreams that he would be back in the mainstream during the high school years.  When Abe went to a high school SPED placement, I had dreams that he was going to graduate "on time" and go onto a regular college.

Now my dreams look somewhat different.  I want him to repeat 11th grade so that he can have more time in the therapeutic environment of the residential school that he's starting at the end of June.  I still dream of him going off to college and living an independent life, but I know that he is years away from that.  Abe's going to get there, but it's going to take him longer than other kids.  But I have faith that he's gonna get there (ya gotta have faith, baby).

My dreams for Rosie (14 yo, NT, ADHD) were never different than mine for her brother.  Be a good person, be of good intelligence, learn at nice schools and have a wonderful life.  I never dreamed that I would expose my children to the harshness of both parents having cancer or to domestic discord; but that's some of my legacy to them.

A mother always has hopes and dreams for her children.  Those wishes have changed over time as to specifics, but the basics of wanting the best for your kids always stays.

Why is the World Round, and Other Imponderables by Jenny Gardiner

Me and my teen mom homies, we've been dealing with it all, and then some, lately. We're almost cliched, in fact, pondering as we are how much easier it was back in the days when we merely had to drag a tantrum-hurling 2 year-old from the grocery store, versus tackling the many heady issues parents of modern teens face as their offspring teeter on the precipice of adulthood. It's enough to make a girl go gray, stress-eat the ever-so-divine limited offer Indiana Jones Mint Crisp M&Ms, and cuss a blue streak to no one and everyone in particular. Not that I would be susceptible to the latter two...

I think in the world of raising children, barring unforeseen circumstances, you start out with the cake course. Parenting 101. You know, the diaper changing, the calming of an irrationally petulant child. The easy stuff (that at the time seems insufferably impossible to navigate). By the time the kids are teens, parents have unwittingly entered into the post-graduate phase of things. Everything becomes so much more involved, so much more complex. Black and white blurs into gray, with no necessary right or wrong, but rather a "hope I don't screw this up too badly" mode. At this point, I find visualizing into the future, to a point at which your kids are through with college, in the work world, happily dating, or maybe even married, is a vital coping tool. Because only then might we be secure in the knowledge that we were able to transcend the stressful makes-your-head-hurt stuff that is the domain of the teen parent.

Consider a few recently teen quandaries my homies and I have encountered lately:

*The high school senior, the one who can't yet seem to keep track of a permission slip let alone a passport, who wants to travel alone through Europe this summer. That same one will be off on his own by summer's end, so perhaps allowing this risk-taking venture is a way to encourage some necessary maturation before he cuts loose altogether? Or perhaps that un-street-savvy kid will end up mugged and left for dead in a gutter, passport, cellphone and wallet lifted, unable to contact his parents for help. Of course approving this venture for the boy then means his younger sister must also have this opportunity, and hey, like it or not, there is a double standard when it comes to females traveling alone abroad, especially at that young age.

*The high school sophomore who met a boy last year one week before he moved six states away. They've remained in cellphone/IM contact throughout the school year. Now he wants to come visit, staying at the girls house over a holiday weekend. Having this complete stranger under one's roof can be one of two things---a positive chance to spend plenty of time with him, to get to know him and trust his intentions. Or it can mean ready-made opportunities for him to hook-up in the middle of the night with the daughter while the mom sleeps (the dad will be out of town at a soccer tournament with one of the kids). To deny this certainly offers up a large platter of forbidden fruit, and we all know how much tastier that type is...

*The teen girl who insists upon booking her first Brasilian waxing. (clearly this girl has no clue what she's getting herself into, pain-wise!). Truth is, we all know why anyone chooses a Brasilian wax job. And it ain't comfort. So that in and of itself suggests there's reason behind this (trust me, it has nothing to do with swim suit season being upon us). So now that that mom knows what her 16 year old is up to, what's a mom to do?

*The high school prom, for which an alternate, unsanctioned prom sprung up after school administrators decided that grinding was far too scandalous and issued a 10-inch rule (get your mind out of the gutter, not that type of 10-inches!): a mandatory 10 inches of air must be sustained between a dancing couple. Is grinding mighty sexually suggestive? Sure. Is this much different than adults banning Elvis and the Twist? Not really.

*Then there's the high school senior who questions what it's all about---after all, why bother with any of it when ultimately we're all gonna die. Um, how do you truly answer that question? Anyone deep enough to ponder such things is not going to be satisfied with a pat answer. And who actually has a legitimate answer to this question?

Okay, some of these issues are far bigger than my head can wrap around. The we-are-merely-a-speck-of-dust-on-the-pinhead-of-some-larger-entity is far more than I can/will/choose to ponder with any success. It makes me too dizzy and slightly depressed. But at least I'll tackle the prom thing, and by extension, perhaps address my feelings and worries about the state of teen-hood today.

The pat advice to all parents is this: pick your battles. On the issue of dirty dancing, I do feel as if this is a battle best left alone. After all, teens nowadays have their wings clipped to the point of no longer being birds of flight. In our home we have a parrot, and when she was younger, we regularly clipped her wings (a practice akin to trimming fingernails). The idea was to keep her from flying around the house. But the reality was it caused her to fall off her perch and drop like a lead weight to the floor---her wings sans flight feathers sort of led to her fall from grace.

After our parrot fell enough times so hard that her breast bone punctured through her skin, our vet decided it was a good idea to let her flight wings grow out. And you know what? She doesn't fly around the house. Sure she still spreads her wings, flaps them vigorously on occasion. But if she falls, the amount of feathers she's got enables her to enough loft to land without such a violent thud.

I think society has gone way overboard in clipping back the flight feathers of our teens, particularly at a point at which they need to be spreading their wings and learning to fly, even if it means they fall hard and fast to the ground. The simplest of bad judgment errors for teens nowadays can result in a loss of all academic honors, membership to sports teams, hell, even college admissions. We don't allow teenagers the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. They're expected to learn vicariously from others' errors, I suspect, when in reality that doesn't quite work the same way. We have raised a generation of future adults with probably far less life experiences than we ever had, because most were never allowed to take risks, were clamped so tightly in their car seats and then strapped down with onerous activities and then just when biology started mandating that they stretch away from the weight of our protective shield, we further reduced their ability to take those important strides toward adulthood, errors or not.

I remember once reading about Eunice Kennedy, mother of umteen children, and she spoke of how she let her children fail, even when it meant they suffered for it. We parents---armed in this dreadful age of information with the myriad fearful possibilities of what could go wrong---cherish our children so greatly that we are afraid to allow failure to happen. We don't want them to be hurt, or even worse, killed. We don't want them to fall flat on their faces, to suffer the pain and/or humiliation of trying and faltering.

But have we really served them best in this regard? I know so many of my contemporaries look each other in the eyes when discussing our own jaded youth with that knowing wide-eyed gaze of "Damn, how the hell did we live to tell about it?" The sad reality of it is there were those of our peers who didn't live to tell about it. That's the sucky thing of it. For this, we are all so fearful that our kids will be amongst that unfortunate group. Thus we keep our birds caged, wings clipped, hoping they can get to adulthood injury-free. Yet truly, probably, sorely untested, and lacking some important life experiences that they need to become complete adults.

All of these ponderings lead to me to wonder what is the answer to these teen parent dilemmas. Of course I no sooner have these answers than do you. I'm just muddling through it the best I can, trying not to eat too many of those Mint Crisp M&Ms. After all, they are a limited edition, and when they're gone, they gone.