Minutemen – Maybe Partying Will Help

For the past year, I have found it difficult to really crack the whip when it comes to my kids and things they should or should not be doing. I think they would say I am still a pretty strict parent and that I have high expectations. On the outside that is probably true. On the inside, however, I feel like there is so much we used to take for granted that is now in jeopardy and what good is it doing my kids to be told they can’t go here or do that? How important are good grades when financial aid budgets will be wiped out if the tax bill gets through?

I got really annoyed recently at something my daughter had done. I went to pick her up and she wasn’t where I expected her to be. Since teenagers now have their cellphones with them at all times it wasn’t like I was panicked because I couldn’t get a hold of her or that I was worried, really. She was with friends and they were nearby, but she had deviated from our agreed upon plan. And I had had to wait for her longer than I had wanted. I tried not to overreact, at least in front of her friends, because doing so usually doesn’t have the desired outcome. When it was just the two of us in the car I let her know I was annoyed and that I thought they had not been smart, but I restrained myself.

When I thought about it later that evening I realized that when I was her age, I did things that were pretty similar. Honestly, the things I was doing at her age were way riskier, much less smart, and I felt like they were perfectly fine. Of course parents are there to tell you why those things are dumb or dangerous, and kids are going to be clueless. The world was ever thus.

What’s different for me now is that I feel like there’s no way to predict what things will be like in another year or two. Everything feels tenuous at best and we’re all still holding on to this notion that what we are living through today is hopefully a blip. A really nasty speedbump on our way forward. The paranoid freaker in me is back there though, saying, live it up while you have the chance. Let the kids go to the football game on a school night without enough warm clothes on. Trump could insult Kim Jong-un on Twitter tomorrow and trigger a nuclear war. Life is crazy and stressful. Maybe partying will help.