Parents and Children
by Dale Neibaur
The summer after my senior year I worked at Lagoon. I routinely didn't get off work until 1:30 am or so, and I was often too keyed up to just go home & sleep. I used to walk the streets of Farmington for a few hours several times a week; sometimes I'd go to Kaysville and wake up Thane Perkins. He'd sneak out of his house without waking his parents and we'd cat around town. I even spent a few nights in Debbie's company, not returning home until the dark was fading to dawn.
Mom hated it, of course. She didn't understand my restlessness, or didn't trust it, or both. Sometimes I'd come home to find her waiting up. We finally agreed that she'd just go to bed and I'd check in when I came home. Usually I'd let her know I'd returned, though sometimes it was so late I just didn't want to admit I'd been gone so long. Of course she worried about me, and knew all of the troubles I might have been skirting much better than I did. But I felt alive at night in a way that I never did during the day. How could I sleep away the best time?
The rule was supposed to be that I'd come home after work. If I wasn't working, then it was supposed to be 1:00 unless there was a special date and prior arrangements had been made. I didn't do very well at keeping the rules. Of course I was the sixth child; Mom was pretty tired of fighting the battles. If Dad disapproved he never said so. He seemed to trust me to find my own best path through the labyrinth.
Do you remember the intensely private time of deep night, when the sky is alive and the world has ceased to exist? It has a magical lure to a boy just beginning to hope for the independence and power of manhood. Yes, sexual temptations are sharper and inhibitions weaker after 11:00, whatever we tried to argue when we were young. But really that's the least of the lure. Adults seem to shun the night; we hide behind locked doors in lighted caves or zip from place to place entombed in metal bugs. We abandon our hold on the public places, on the streets and buildings and mountains. And the moon and stars work magic metamorphosis on the mundane world. A boy can begin to dream what it might one day be like to move, to own, to control such places. Here is a world abandoned by its creators, a vast empty canvas waiting for him to fill. And however wild or silly the imaginings, there is no one to laugh or mock. Only the most trusted friends will be invited to share this mystic space. It's a secret space, the first physical step away from home.
I was a night owl until I married Terry. Then I finally found a reason good enough to go to bed.
I write this only as an attempt to remind you of things you probably already know. But your problem is different: you are the lone adult. You know of the dangers of the night. You rightly fear it as a place more likely dangerous to your son than the daylight world. You know that temptations are stronger at night. And you know that your influence over your son is weaker at night. He is walking in dangers; what should you do?
My first advice is to pick your battles. You know much better than any of the rest of us how much you need to win this one, and what the other battles are. Your son is moving to independence. If he were going away to college then in a month he'd be living beyond your rules and making his own. When he goes on his mission he'll be beyond your gaze. Is there room here for some negotiation? Will he live by rules he helps set up?
My second thought comes from personal bitter experience. Don't make demands you can't back up; don't make threats you can't keep. Make sure your rules are enforceable. Make the punishments clear and reasonable; don't fall into the trap of waging an escalating war for power. My personal belief is that as an adult I have the final right to set the rules for my space; as long as my kids are living from my resources and occupying my space then I request from them the same courtesy in obeying those rules as I would a visiting adult. But ultimately the only choice I will really have is to physically restrain my child (which vanishes as they grow), to withhold rewards or mete punishments as incentives, or to excommunicate my child from my society. And how many offenses really merit excommunication? So whether I tell my kids or not, I know that it is their needs and their love that ties them to me. My love and my hopes tie me to them, but it does not automatically evoke a reciprocal bond. As their independence grows, it will be only their love that keeps them from trampling on my garden while they explore their own borning worlds. And sometimes they just don't know what they're stepping in. But there is an awful, inevitable cure for youth. Our parents took it, we took it, your son imbibes it with each second's tick. He is starting on the trip away from you. It's inevitable. You've taught him what's right and wrong, what's expected and what's forbidden. He knows what he should be; you've taught him well. But he's impatient to begin his voyage, and in looking for his horizons he's overlooking you. Now you have one last message he needs to hear. Somewhere in the years ahead, in some emotionally faraway land, his heart will turn back and he will yearn for home. Make sure he knows now that he will always be welcome when he returns home, whether he was gone an hour or a night or uncounted years. He will still be a dependent boy when he leaves; he will become your strong loving adult friend away from your gaze. But he will long to return. Make sure he knows you long for him too. Love ties knots we seek to strengthen rather than sever.
It's easier to raise someone else's kids because they are insecure; they know that the good things you give them are theirs by sufferance and not by right. They are more aware that their needs are met by your good graces and not by their inalienable rights of heritage. A child of any age severed from his or her parents has suffered a deep blow; the world has become unsafe. So it would be easier for me to raise your son; it would be easier for you to raise my daughter. Ironically it is because we gave our children deep unconditional love that they feel so secure they dare to spurn our rules and walk over our wishes. But a child secure in his parents' love becomes a more loving and happy person; or so I believe. If the price I pay for raising a strong-willed independent adult is living with a strong-willed independent teen, then so be it. I have to go gray from something.
Has any of this helped at all? Probably not. But know that you have my love, and my sympathy. Don't forget that 5 years from now this will most likely not top your list of worries.
Love you!
dale
[While reviewing my files I came across this letter written several years ago. It contains advice I need to hear and remember; my sons are now well into their independent teen years. What an awesome, never-ending adventure life is!]