Quote:
Originally Posted by YuMart
Interesting thought experiment: If you found yourself having to parent your teenage self, how good/bad would it be? Would you be very difficult and such?
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I laughed out loud at this one. I became me in spite of my parents, so how could I be anything other than a total prince to me as a dad!
My father was born in 1911 into a rather poor working class family. He was a real wiseass in school and left at age sixteen to great applause from the school. He was a lousy father. He wanted a carbon copy of himself and didn't get one, never said he loved me or was affectionate, he became glacial at home because he was unhappy with his marriage and he commanded rather than ask or told. (Outside the home he was more than halfway decent, a hard worker and well-liked.)
My mother was born in 1910. Her father & mother immigrated from Canada with their four young daughters. He was a staunch Presbyterian with prejudices, his wife was (I heard from my three aunts) extremely strict, very concerned about social appearances, given to screaming outbursts of anger and irrational reactions. My grandmother died when my mother was just shy of thirteen, and my grandfather had spoiled her terribly - she was the youngest. She never grew beyond that age...what was the point, being thirteen got her everything she wanted all the time. My father appeared in her countryside as a seasonal laborer, she knew him six weeks and sneaked off and married him secretly. My mother changed badly starting when I was eight - no, it was not menopause. I was the only surviving child, she resented my increasing independence and academic interests that I developed in Jr. and Sr. high.
Both parents had zero interest in anything "academic." They had no curiosity about anything and like teenagers were certain they already knew it all, even when they were totally ignorant about something.
I was academic, I was curious, I worked while I went to school and I learned to deal with and like other adults on my own as a teenager. I had no love for my father at all, and went from loving my mother as a small child to having no respect for her as an adult.
I am great with other people's kids and I relate very well to curious young people. Contrary to the smart ass opening above, I am afraid that I became such a loner growing up and even as a young adult that I have to seriously question whether I might not really chafe at the intimacy of raising my own teenage self. I am a very outgoing guy, but I am another guy who goes his own way without the slightest desire to involve other people - and this was showing as a teenager; and these guys change roles as fast as Clark Kent and Superman did. I think this is not the stuff of a great parent. Somehow I think as a parent to my teenage self I might act more like a "nice guy" type but sometimes strangely remote older brother more than a father. On the other hand, that would be better overall than either parent that I did have probably.
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