My oldest daughter is a good kid. She has not given us very much of the teenage angst we were expecting to get from our teenage kids, but I guess there's still time, she's only on her way to 15.
She get's A's and B's although last marking period she did get a C. We actually really came down hard on her because of it, and not because she got a C really, but because it coincided with a trend of general "I don't really give a fuck" we had noticed. Honestly though, she's a wonderful daughter, sister and person.
This weekend she had one of her life long friends stay the night, another girl who my daughter has known since they were both in preschool. Where my daughter doesn't wear make up regularly, has never dyed her hair and prefers jeans and t-shirts this girl's face is thick with make up, she wears flowing dresses, often with skulls on them and currently her hair color of choice is lime green. All of which is fine. I dyed my hair when I was a teen and wore skulls and all of that, we're ok with artistic punk rock kids, we can relate. Her friend also doesn't have a lot of parental supervision. Her dad always seems to be away on business and from what I can tell her mom works a day job AND is in a wedding band on weekends. The girl has a 3 brothers, 2 younger one older, but she often seems to be "on her own", which again, both my wife and I can relate to.
So I was in the breakfast nook area and my daughter and her friend were in the kitchen, I won't get into all the details, but at one point I heard my daughter's friend say, "that would make an AWESOME drinking game, could you imagine?". The good news is my daughter's only response was to laugh nervously, and NOT to respond with a wholehearted, "HOLY SHIT LET'S GO INTO THE BASEMENT AND PLAY RIGHT NOW!". Either she knew I was right around the corner and realized her friend's slip up, or she was genuinely uncomfortable with the comment but didn't know what to say.
I didn't say anything. I didn't burst into the room and scream, "AH HA!", I just filed it away and went about my day with the intent of bringing it up when my daughter and I were alone.
So last night my daughter needed to return some stuff her friend had left over our house. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to have some alone time with her and bring up the topic. It went great. I had her crying, or more accurately sobbing, within minutes of broaching the topic.
She didn't drink. She didn't know if her friend drank. She wouldn't drink. She doesn't want to drink. No drinking whatsoever is going on. So I pressed further. Pot? Cocaine? Prescription meds? No. No and no. But she kept on falling onto the fact that she didn't know if her friends were doing these things. She didn't BELIEVE they were, but if they were, they weren't telling her they were or doing it in front of her.
Now, I didn't attack her, I talked. I tried the "I know what it's like" angle, but she instantly burst into waterworks. So then I took her own words and used them as the basis for my next approach. She's too nice for her own good. If her friends aren't telling her they're smoking pot or drinking beer, or popping pills, THAT in itself was bad enough to get her into trouble. If she's in the car with someone who has a dime bag on them and they get pulled over, guess which one is going to the police station in hand cuffs? ALL OF THEM. It didn't even need to be her, it just needed to be in the same car and if she didn't know if her friends were holding, she better damned find out.
I let her know that if she tells us she's staying the night at her friend's house, but they secretly sneak out, get in a car and drive 20 miles away to Westland to see a boy and then it turns out the rest of the kids are also going to get high while they're their...she needs to feel comfortable calling me. Waking me up at 2:30 AM to have me come pick her up from god knows where even though she knows I think she's at her girlfriend's house 2 blocks over.
I told her tales of me getting arrested for trying to be the sensible kid who would go with my friends on their errand just to make sure they don't get themselves into trouble, but then ended up ALSO getting into trouble just being there. Being the nice friend doesn't always work out. She cried a lot on this car ride. I must have said, "pot, beer, blow job, cocaine, prescription meds, sex and fuck, fucking and fucker" about 3-dozen times each. I most definitely raised my voice. I told her I KNOW all of those things are going on all around her, I'm just hoping my daughter is smart enough and self confidant enough to not make bad decisions.
I didn't outwardly accuse her of anything aside from being too nice and being afraid to stand up to her friends. I let her know that unfortunately tears no longer convince me she's being honest. This was a big event to me as a parent. I hope it was for her too. I hope she was scared shitless a little bit, her hyperventilating / sobbing / crying would suggest she was.
About 35 minutes. That's how long this lasted. I love my kids more than life, but at the end of the day, this is really all I have, 35 minutes and a car ride to protect them from the outside world.
