Bad Parents, Bad Kids
Let’s unpack the judgments we’re so quick to make about today’s parents and their children
I was a good kid. I followed instructions. I sat still when I was told to sit still. I did my schoolwork and mostly did my chores.
It’s true, I got in trouble once for starting a hate club against a girl I was jealous of in the fourth grade, but that wasn’t my fault. The getting in trouble part, I mean. If our careless secretary hadn’t left our meeting minutes on her desk for anyone to find, no one would have been the wiser.
And yes, I fought viciously with my younger sister, but that was only because she didn’t accept her place in the sibling hierarchy — that is, beneath me — and it was up to me to keep her in check. That bloody scratch on her back that I convinced her not to tell mom and dad about? It didn’t scar, and to my knowledge, there was no lasting trauma.
I’ll admit, I drank a bit too much on more than one occasion during the second semester of my senior year in high school. I even threw a few parties when my parents were out of town. But the house was always clean when they returned — maybe, I worried, suspiciously clean — all the vomit scrubbed away and beer bottles dutifully deposited at the recycling center down the street.
