The Teenagers Constitution

It’s only a matter of time.

We know this.

Our teenagers are going to sneak out of the house. If they don’t sneak out, they will utilize some other form of deception to not be in the place we assume them to be.

As parents, we take this truth to be self-evident.

My teenager has already told me such plans are afoot.

But since she only pretends to be the hardcore tough of her peer group, she figures that letting me know select details of upcoming tomfoolery will allow her to both save face and protect herself from the ultimate consequence every kid wants to avoid:

Our disappointment.

A part of me wants to feel snug and safe in my cocoon of parental philosophy, namely that a certain level of permissiveness leads to more open communications.

Of course, I can't control her. I can explain my expectations: “of course you can go out with your friends; of course you can stay out later than usual; of course, I trust you.”

But – and there’s always a but – “I don't know if I can trust these NEW friends, but I don't want you getting in cars with boys, but I don't want you going to unfamiliar places, but I don't want you to drink or do drugs.

None of these regulations will come as a surprise to her. Just as I understand my teenager may not be persuaded by any verbal restriction to forgo any newfound power of freedom.

I know she's going to make choices that I would prefer she didn’t make.

I know the possibility exists that by asking for the freedom to rebel, she’s actually free to rebel.

It’s a forthright way to tell me just enough of what I had hoped to hear.

I can’t think that way. I have to remember that she’ll carry my face with her… and my thin-lipped expressions of unhappiness … as well as a fully-charged wireless tether that is her cell phone in her pocket that seems to have become a different kind of umbilical cord.

Maybe she'll even check in from time to time with a note or a line like: “I'm having fun. Be home at 10.”

I know she’s not me. She’s not even “the me” I was at her age.

The truth is I don't know precisely to what I'm agreeing. I don’t know what schemes are under the surface.

But I have to worry all the same.

I'm her mother.

I have to add this to the list of choices I have to make as a parent.

Not to hover … or helicopter … or snowplow … or become a doormat.

Have I set enough boundaries? Or too many?

We the parents, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish curfews, ensure consequences, provide for some educational trips, promote the general upkeep, and secure the blessing of not breathing down your neck for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Untied State of Adolescents.