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Get off my lawn!
Barmymoo:
--- Quote from: Darkbluerabbit on 10 Mar 2008, 12:48 ---when I was fifteen years old my mom or dad went with me on my first dates
--- End quote ---
Wow. I was about to say that I found that really weird, then I realised that my first date did in fact include my family. Said first boyfriend came to a dance with us. So it's not as odd as I thought.
Might be a good idea actually, in some ways. I mean, a guy who is prepared to put up with the presence of parents is more likely to be a keeper than one who isn't.
A Wet Helmet:
--- Quote from: 0bsessions on 10 Mar 2008, 12:26 ---you just had two really damn high maintenance employees who both needed to sack up and learn to motivate themselves.
--- End quote ---
High maintenance is an understatement. I've never had anyone since who comes even remotely to either end of the spectrum. Thankfully.
--- Quote --- Honestly, it would seem that a good portion of all this has been a perfect storm of semantics, misunderstandings and poor wording/stubborness on both of our parts and I apologize for my end of it.
--- End quote ---
And I for mine.
Barmymoo: I took the next logical step with what you implied and probably could have done a whole lot better communicating my meaning from the get-go. For the record, I agree that there probably is an age/male dominance issue there. Why your mother puts up with it is beyond me. But why my mother puts up with some of my father's shit is beyond me as well.
In all honesty I think we get to a certain point in our lives where there are certain things we aren't willing to compromise about. There isn't necessarily any rhyme nor reason to why we chose these little battlefields to stand on. There isn't any logical reason behind it, and there is no 'good' justification. We're just sick of compromising and we draw a line in the sand. When you're in a relationship, you have to chose whether or not you accept the other person's lines. It's unfortunate that a dynamic that works for your mother impacts you.
Barmymoo:
The conflict is rarely, if ever, between my mum and her partner. I think, without sounding like I'm wallowing or being melodramatic, that I have a problem with connecting with father-figures. I had similar problems with my dad, which is why I don't live with him any more, and when I was living with friends I connected best with my foster mum and sisters, and not so much with my foster dad.
Maybe as you get older, you start to realise that the happy ending we're looking for as a child isn't necessarily going to work. The people I've fallen for in a romantic sense aren't the people I have connected with in an emotional or intellectual sense. Now is the first time when I've found someone who overlaps both groups. Sadly he doesn't seem to agree, but hey, that's teenagerdom for you. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that another thing that comes when you're older is relationships with a bit less drama!
Siert, I fully sympathise with your 90s cartoon-watching. Today's kids TV is terrible.
Siert:
--- Quote from: Barmymoo on 10 Mar 2008, 13:34 ---Siert, I fully sympathise with your 90s cartoon-watching. Today's kids TV is terrible.
--- End quote ---
thank you, you have no idea how many people think im strange for liking the 90s cartoons!
Perfect example, rugrats, they are a bunch of babies who imagine they are in a fantasy world, becoming indiana jones or egyptians crossing the sandpit, or avoiding the mosnter of the dentist, but... all there stories end hapy, the kids get their injection, they find their toys, they get lollypops, its all good.
These days, we have "Kids next door" who tell kids that adults are all evil and all a dentist wants to do is ruin your teeth!
I mean seriously...
RedLion:
Wet Helmet, you do realize that the way you described your daughter is the way most people her age are, right? People in their middle-teens tend to not be the most level-headed and rational people. You're absolutely right that teenagers who act like they know everything and are the shit are ignorant and in truth don't know much. But that's true of people of every age. There's always people who think that they know everything there is to know, that they're done learning and the way they do things is the only way things should be done. And that's mostly a quality that's attributable to the elderly and to parents.
The whole rebellion thing needs to happen. The child has to break away from the parental unit, no matter how "cool" the parent might be, and they often have to break away violently. It's a societal and, in many ways, a biological need. The alternative is the complete stifling of emotional and intellectual growth and the instillation of dependency. You can break a minor's back if you crack down on them hard enough and often enough, but the end result of that will be 100 times worse than the hot-headed rebellion and irrationality that you're dealing with.
Often--not always, but often--anger, on the part of a person who is coming of age, is a good thing, as long as they then mature and leave that anger behind in favor of acceptance and a calm determination. But until then, a healthy level of anger is necessary. I's needed. It provides the fuel that's required to move them forward into adulthood. No matter how maddening it is, it's something that has to happen, and you might as well embrace it and just do what you can to stop them from going too far, and working to help them facilitate that anger and channel it in productive ways.
Frankly, it's not really responsible of you to try to keep the "status quo" in place, when what you're trying to hold on to with your daughter is already gone. When anger and rebellion is used in a productive, rather than destructive way, it often leads to results that capitulation couldn't achieve. Witness the American Revolution, the abolitionist movement, every progress on the issues of Rights and Equality for races, sexes and sexual orientation.
The household has to be a democratic place, including many of the large decisions, within reason. With all respect, it sounds like you're just doing more harm than good right now in the way you're handling your daughter.
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