Independence

[pegkerr]

I have had some interesting talks with my sister Betsy over this past holiday season about parenting. Betsy has always been my parenting mentor, and she has talked a lot about transitioning to the empty nest stage (she has four boys, the youngest of whom is sixteen).

I have been thinking a great deal, as a result, of the fact that Fiona will (hopefully!) be leaving for college in just four short years. When I think of it, it just seems so hard to believe, but Betsy assures me that the time will fly by. Fiona is on the smaller side, compared to her peers, but the top of her head already reaches up to my eyebrows. When we got together this past holiday, I was thunderstruck to realize that Leigh, my brother Chet's daughter, six months younger than Fiona, is already taller than me.

So I talked with Betsy a lot about what is involved in helping kids getting ready to leave the nest. Betsy said that her husband Greg is particularly good about this, pressing her kids to become independent decision makers as quickly as possible. In her experience, (with boys) when they are getting ready to leave, they do it by becoming extremely withdrawn, barely ever even speaking to her (the closed oyster stage, she jokes). She has heard from her friends who have girls that conversely girls as they get older sometimes enter the getting-ready-to-leave-stage by continually picking fights with their parents, so by the time their senior year of high school rolls around, parents are sometimes just relieved that they are leaving the house, just to get rid of them.

So I asked Betsy what she has done to move her kids toward independence. She answered that by this age, all her kids were doing their own laundry. I've talked with Fiona, and we're going to institute that, too. She said that all her boys had to get summer jobs at the age of sixteen, and we will be doing that, too. I have opened an account for Fiona for depositing her babysitting money, and I've showed her how to balance her statements; this account is what she will be using to start saving for college (half of everything she earns now goes into this account).

We will probably give her a quarterly clothing allowance when she gets into high school, so she will have to budget and make decisions about what to buy herself.

[One thing I really appreciated about growing up in Illinois was that by law, I had to take a course in high school, a basic consumer awareness course: how to balance a checkbook, what the fine language on credit card agreements meant, how to analyze a commercial, how to read the ingredients list on food packaging, and what I particularly remembered and appreciate, how to recognize a scam. How I wish that other states were enlightened enough to require all students to take such a course. I will probably look for something like this through a community ed program for Fiona.]

What started me thinking about making this entry last night was that we had a situation arise where Fiona got invited to a sleepover by a friend, and then later learned that a confirmation retreat was being held that same weekend. The confirmation teacher has said that if they miss the retreat, they have to make arrangements to make up the work. I was mindful of my conversation with Betsy, and so instead of ordering Fiona by fiat, "You're going to the retreat," I told her that she had to talk with the confirmation leader, telling him of the conflict, and decide on her own what to do.

This is your chance, friends list: for once I am genuinely asking for advice here! Grab the opportunity! Or at least, tell me about your own personal experience, both growing up yourself or (if pertinent) your experience as a parent. What lessons do you think a kid needs to know before being ready to venture out into the world? How do you teach them? What did your parents do when you were moving into high school to help you become independent to leave for college? In what ways did they not prepare you enough? Parents, what are you doing now to ease the transition of your highschooler kids into adulthood? What did you learn on your own despite your parents?

minnehaha K.? cakmpls? Anyone?

Comments

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

I had a similar question when K was fourteen and people gave me many good suggestions: http://wilfulcait.livejournal.com/110246.html. I would like to note that K now knows how to clean a bathroom. :)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Excellent list, thank you! *bookmarks*

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I was so ready to leave, at 1 when I went off to college. I'm not sure my parents did much on purpose to foster that, aside from making sure I had a bank account and put money in it; my parents are more intuitive types, less prone to conscious parenting decisions.

The two things I want to say, though, are that spending a whole summer away when I was 16 probably helped - I was a junior counselor at the same camp my grandmother, my mother and I all all attended (in my case, at ages 7 and 8, so it's not like it was my home away from home).

And second, I didn't learn to do my own laundry until right before I went off to that camp. However, it wasn't because I was spoiled and useless around the house, but rather because my chores happened to be other things. I could clean a bathroom or a living room and I knew some basic cooking skills. With that background, doing my own laundry wasn't traumatic.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

I think one of the more important things a parent can do is to force themselves to allow their kids to live with the consequences of their mistakes; to resist the urge to jump in and solve their problems for them.

This was a big problem in my family, as my sister would often make unwise decisions regarding school or her social life, and when things started to turn sour my mom would swoop in and try to set things right. The result was that my sister felt like mom was trying to run her life, stopped telling us about her problems, AND failed to develop any damage control skills until she was most of the way through college.

Not a fun time, I'll tell you.

[eeyorerin]

I totally agree with this. The best thing my parents did as I got older would be to say, "Well, we could handle this for you, but you could do it yourself. We'd be glad to talk about it with you and to give you advice, but you need to handle this." The result was that I genuinely wanted to talk about my life with my parents and usually appreciated their perspective, but I also didn't expect them to jump in and fix situations for me.

That and basic housekeeping skills -- laundry, cooking, cleaning -- were the best things my parents did for me.

[loup_noir]

Money handling, but you're already starting that with Fiona. How to repair things. If there are any "how to" classes offered, like how to do minor electrical repairs or basic plumbing, enroll her (and maybe yourself). Basic auto mechanics would have been good. I got taken so many times before I got married. A basic first aid class would have been good.

My parents didn't prepare me. My mother wanted me to live at home through college and probably from there, settle into the house across the street. I remember the weirdness of having to do my own laundry, but each box of detergent gives you directions, so that wasn't too awful.

So, how to cook simple foods, how to estimate how much food to buy from the market (put her in charge of every other week's groceries and maybe preparing a meal a week), what to do when you're sick, how to repair a bicycle tire (bike mechanics class), how to reset breakers, how to read a map and how to mend clothing.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I added this paragraph to my original entry:

One thing I really appreciated about growing up in Illinois was that by law, I had to take a course in high school a basic consumer awareness course: how to balance a checkbook, what the fine language on credit card agreements meant, how to analyze a commercial, how to read the ingredients list on food packaging, and what a particularly remembered and appreciate, how to recognize a scam. How I wish that other states were enlightened enough to require all students to take such a course. I will probably look for something like this through a community ed program for Fiona

[sheryll.livejournal.com]

Aside from the obvious (making sure they know how to cook, clean, do laundry), let them make their own decisions and live with the consequences of said decisions. Don't over protect.

I was always considered the reckless parent in our neighbourhood. I was the first to let Nyssa walk to the corner store alone, the first to let her go on her own to activities, to let her walk alone to and from friends' houses. She never got allowance, but had a job by age 13 and hasn't stopped working since. In fact, her place of employment closed last week and she was only unemployed for 2 days before starting a new job at a higher rate of pay (no mean feat over the Christmas season in retail!).

She moved out the house while still in high school, held down her job, paid her way and still graduated. Oddly enough, we're now her landlords - she rents the apartment upstairs from us. She knows she may have to go away for her year of Teachers College and is already working on a decent sublet so she can still have the place when she gets back.

She's smart and doesn't act foolishly even when she's out partying with friends. She cabs home or waits for a ride. She knows enough to step out of bad situations (someone spiked her drink at a recent club outing and she left immediately and caught up with other friends at a safe location) when she can't avoid them in the first place. She considers her education her first priority and dumps friends who would distract her from that.

Not sure how she learned all that, to be honest. I mean sure, we taught the basics, but she's the one with the common sense to apply them in all situations. Maybe it helped a lot to let her be so independent at an early age. Being very poor early on might have something to do with her insistent focus on getting where she wants to be in life. Personally, I think it's all a crap shoot. I know people who've done everything right in raising their kids (as far as I could see) and still them turn out other than expected. I think we just teach them everything we can then cross our fingers and hope for the best.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

I'm a random stranger, but I would have appreciated the chance to do things I was good at, be it languages or numbers or art or teaching or physical work. If I had found something I was good at by the age of 18, I think my twenties would have been easier.

[dragonpaws.livejournal.com]

I guess, from my own experience, one thing I would not do is say "Well, you're growing up and we want you to be independent, so we're going to make you do X, Y and Z." This both sends the wrong message about growing up AND undermines the person's independence. My parents made that mistake, and it was very confusing for me to be told on one hand that I was growing up and should start taking on adult responsibilities and doing adult things, but on the other hand I had to do all these adult things because my parents were telling me to. Explaining why certain things (a job, a bank account, saving for college) are important, laying out the steps to achieve them, and then letting the child make the choice seems to me to be the best way to encourage both the beginnings of taking an adult place in the world, and taking responsibility for oneself. Of course, if the kid has no interest in any of this, you may eventually need to move on to more robust "out of the nest" techniques, but there's no reason to start with them.

I think kids naturally want to start achieving independence (not all, but most) and the important thing for parents is to pay attention to their own reactions to their kid's behavior. Because the child will behave differently as they reach for independence, but if you don't behave differently as well, you're sending contradictory messages. That seemed to be the most difficult thing for my parents-- their mouths said "grow up" but they responded to my moves toward independence as though I was still a kid. This doesn't come up as much in the "getting a job, saving money" area, but the first time your child comes to you with a thoughtful, considered decision or opinion and you find you completely disagree... it can be very easy to just swat them down with "Parents know best." And you may be right! But you can't ask a child to start taking on adult responsibilities and growing in outward independence without also allowing them some freedom to make their own choices and giving them the VERY important experience of doing something Mom and Dad Didn't Agree With. That way, you're teaching them to trust their own judgment AND that it's safe to be honest with you even if they expect you will disagree with them. You're also clarifying the difference between "Behaviors and ideas that we disagree on" and "Things that are actually really bad to do," which can be very helpful since, as a young child, these things are not so well differentiated since the parents are the guiding authority in both realms. And, of course, the child then gets the valuable experience of dealing with the consequences of an action that seemed like the best thing to do at the time, and for which they are entirely responsible since they chose not to heed parental advice.

This is all from the perspective of someone who just graduated from college last year, so it's fresh in my mind! One last thing that I'd like to add, is that especially for your oldest child, it's important to realize, and have them realize, what leaving for college means. I don't think I, or my mother, really realized that when I left for college, I was essentially leaving home for good. I came back for breaks and some summers, but I didn't live there anymore. You may have a better handle on this, since you went to college and had that experience yourself, but I still feel a strange lack of closure, like I left home one day on an errand and came back to find that everybody had moved away. It's a hard thing to learn, but it can, paradoxically, make a person perform even better in college and work even harder to establish the important relationships and develop the important skills they'll need for later life, because college isn't a temporary change in life circumstances... it's the start of something totally new and the end of something older.

Just my two cents. :)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

These are two good cents :-) The sort of - transparency, I guess - that you advocate would have been useful to me. We had a rapist in the area when I was about 14, too. My mom said years later that they were just starting to give me more freedom when they had to limit it because of him. But I never saw the "more freedom" part (maybe I blinked), just the rules about not being out alone after dark, even to the mall three blocks away. It wasn't horribly onerous because they were much more relaxed about things like letting me stay out late at parties (if they knew the parents and knew I had a safe ride home) but still, if I'd known the reasoning and seen the changes, I would have been more inclined to believe them when they said that they "trusted me, just not everyone else".

[megancrewe.livejournal.com]

Some things my parents did that helped me become independent (though I lived at home during most of my university education, so I didn't need to be independent quite so fast):

-Helping out with all the chores. Everyone was assigned their own chores for the whole family (e.g., my dad did the laundry, I folded and put it away, my mom cooked dinner, I washed dishes, my brother dried them, etc.), but at any given time I could be asked to take over or help with someone else's, because they were extra busy or it was their birthday or whatever. So by my late teens I knew how to cook some basic dishes, wash and dry dishes, do all steps of laundry, clean the bathroom, vacuum, dust, etc. My parents also made sure to show me the less frequent home maintenance type things, like how to reset the fuses if one burnt out.

-Financial independence. I had my own bank account from when I was ten or so. My mom set up a pattern of saving 50% of my earnings toward university, and when I had enough set aside, placing that money in GICs. By the time I had my first summer job (16) I was using it on my own, other than a little prompting from my mom to keep up with the GICs. (Granted, I was a very responsible kid, so I never considered *not* saving all of the 50% and lying about it.) Around 17, my mom started giving me a clothing allowance on top of my regular allowance (the latter was dependant on the chores I did), and only bought major clothing items like shoes and coats for me--the rest I had to look after myself. As I was working more, my parents also started expecting me to pay for more things in general by myself. When I was 16 I paid for half of a laptop I really wanted; when I was 18 I bought a new computer system with all my own money.

-Social independence. I was never a wild kid, so this was probably pretty easy for them to do. But in any case, my parents were always pretty flexible about my social life. I theoretically had a curfew, but I rarely wanted to stay out that late, so it rarely came up. If there was a dance at school, they would happily let me stay until the end of the dance, provided I had arrangements to get home. I could go to any friend's house, regardless of how well my parents' knew that friend, as long as I left contact info. They knew I'd been responsible, and they rewarded me for that by giving me quite a bit of freedom, which I think led to me feeling confident and independent. They also generally kept their less positive thoughts about my friends and boyfriend to themselves, unless they thought it was really important or if I brought it up.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

It may sound silly, but... I don't think I got enough chance to deal in adult social situations.

We came from a large extended family and once I got to about 14 I was one of the people but in charge of "the kids" at picnics, at Christmas and New Years, -- whenever the adults wanted their space. Same on non-celebrations when there were family funerals and the like at traveling distance.

This is more than not knowing which fork to use... I didn't even know what Feta cheese was when I moved out.

[eal.livejournal.com]

Hey, this sounds like me.

I'm *still* the designated kid wrangler and I have one of my own now.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I still have issues with my mother because she had tons of ideas for things I should do, but never asked me about the things I wanted to do with my life.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

That is to say, I'd recommend engaging her in conversations about the things that she thinks are important to accomplish and things she deems important to take responsibility for in her life.

[naomikritzer]

My parents honestly didn't do that much in terms of teaching me to cook/fix/do laundry, and I went off to college with pretty minimal real-world survival skills.

Laundry was no problem. I did e-mail my mother for an explanation of how and why to sort stuff. I also found my checking account and credit card to be pretty easy to manage, in part because I wasn't buying major necessities (I lived in a dorm) or managing a really tight budget. (I paid the card off in full every month, and still do.)

The thing I struggled with the most was menu planning and cooking. My parents are very good cooks, and cook together, but didn't include me at all in the process -- I still am not entirely sure whether they plan out their meals or whether they just buy a bunch of stuff and come up with meals, or what, exactly. The process of planning, budgeting, buying, and cooking were all a total mystery to me, and took a long time to learn. It would have been very useful to learn in a pretty specific way the process of planning a meal, making a list of the ingredients I'd need, checking to see which of them we needed, turning that into a usable grocery store list, shopping, cooking, and cleaning up. (And by "planning a meal" I don't mean an elaborate seven-course thing, just, "okay, with baked chicken I'm going to want a side vegetable and maybe something like rice pilaf. I'll write down "side veggie" and buy something green that looks good and isn't $5 a pound. Or we could have a salad. Do we have dressing, or do I need to write that down, too?") An introduction to What Foods Are Almost Always Pretty Cheap would've been really useful, too.

One thing I'd wished my parents had taught me ...

[bonkabonka.livejournal.com]

When I got out on my own, I knew how to do some stuff (laundry, cooking) and knew how to balance my checkbook but I didn't know about budgets or all the ... opportunities, afforded by credit. I live comfortably enough now, but I expect that the sins of my 18-year-old self will still be lurking to annoy my 36-year-old self when I get there in a couple of years.

I'm not sure what resources are available, but there's got to be SOME way to teach kids how to handle credit. I can only wish that nobody else has to learn the credit lesson the same way I learned it.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

I actually talked with my parents about this, because when I was 16, they let me live in Boston for a summer at a supervised but curfew-free program at Tufts, spend 10 days in London (same kind of thing) at 17, live in Manhattan with a roommate in a doormaned building when I was 18 and spend 5 weeks in London when I was 19.

I can't imagine letting Harry start this sort of thing in *nine years*. He's my ickle woobie baby!

But I know I probably need to give him the independence and stability to be able to - I don't want to hold him back but I want him to be mature enough to do all these things.

Time away from parents and with different people and their expectations is probably a bigger deal than I imagined with I was 15 or 19. I like your sister's idea about laundry - it might be a good collaborative experience, actually, for the girls to do it together?

I'm going to watch what you do, and learn from you. Zat okay?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'm going to watch what you do, and learn from you. Zat okay? Perfectly okay! I am so aware of how much I've learned from watching my sister and others.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

My dad would rant about the value of money, but never did a lot to teach me. Earning your own money is one part, but knowing what things cost is another. I had to teach myself to budget, compare prices, etc. Have her read "Your Money or Your Life" by Joseph Dominguez and Vicki Robin, to learn a long term perspective on money, although now might be too soon. Among other things, it talks about subjects like, when faced with a purchase, how long does it take to earn that much money? Spending $100 when it takes you two days to earn it means something different than when it takes you a week to earn it. Or the actually net profit of a job, when you calculate all the hours, including commute time, and all the costs, like maintaining a "professional" wardrobe, as well as money earned.

Giving Fiona a gradually increasing allowance that has to cover more and more over the next four years would probably be helpful. By the end of high school, she should be buying her own clothes, and paying for them, for example.

And yes, teach her to avoid scams. There are so many out there. One of them is easy credit cards for college students. It's bad enough to get into debt for tuition, but for clothes and music?

[cliosfolly.livejournal.com]

Having a basic kit of tools has been helpful. My dad bought one for me after I got out of college and lived on my own, but it didn't come with a lot of explanation, and I'd never watched him do much household repair. Having some basic education about common tool types and what they can be used for, beyond just having a kit, would have been helpful. Knowing how to manage a drill is useful, too. Assembling furniture on one's own is possible with a monkey wrench, but it's tremendously easier and faster with a drill.

Knowledge of not just cleaning, but also repairing could be useful. My mother was firm about chores and made sure that, by the time I left for college, I knew how to clean a house. What I didn't know because we almost always moved into newly-built housing--and what I have since found is rather common in older apartments aimed at students--is how to deal with things like a clogged shower drain, or a kitchen sink, or a toilet.

One big thing I was puzzled by, as I left college and become fully independent, was how to project budgets in advance--beyond tracking what's already been spent. I'd had the usual balancing-checkbok instruction, and I'd managed my monthly/semesterly expenses at college, but I was sort of clueless about planning forward. How much does it cost to feed a family for a week, or a single person for a month? My mom had said in passing how much she spent on food each month for the two of us, and I knew I had to adjust that for a higher-cost region and inflation, but it was tremendously useful to have some approximate idea. How can you extrapolate what income you'll need, at minimum, to meet expenses, and how do you figure out how expensive an apartment you can afford to rent? I think grocery shopping is a good way to start; I think it would have been useful to have had some idea what the rules of thumb are for these kinds of things (like the apartment ideally costing 1/3rd of one's monthly income or less).

Also: what should one look for in selecting an apartment to rent? There are lots of checklists on the net that can help with this now; when I rented my first apartment, I was very glad to have had a lot of experience moving as a kid (every two years through high school, pretty much) because I knew how to look at an empty space and evaluate for light, space, neighborhood, kitchen counter space, closet space, access to transportation, etc.

[gjules.livejournal.com]

That Illinois informed consumer class sounds like a damn good idea -- I wish one of my various schools had offered something like that. I had health classes and drug-resistance courses galore, but nothing about the practical aspects of, say, investment accounts. (I often feel like I'm still playing catchup on financial management skills, actually.) I took basic home ec in junior high, and learned how to pick out a diamond in a college geology class, but otherwise nothing on practical daily skills. And it's silly to assume that all parents will (a) know those things, and (b) be able/willing to teach them.

(Apologies for the random commenting, but I found this via friendsfriends and found it fascinating.)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Not at all, you are welcome to comment any time!

Great question

[skg.livejournal.com]

This made me think a lot about what my parents did and didn't do, and also to compare how they treated my younger brother differently (and some of the results). I will be a first-time parent to a daughter in only a couple short months, so I'm reading the responses with interest!

Some of the critical things that were already mentioned: financial responsibility (esp money management and knowing the evils of credit card APRs!), learning to make mistakes and live/handle the consequences, having a job, having the freedom to make social choices, etc. My parents (father esp) were very strict with me as far as these types of things--I learned to deal with the consequences of my mistakes very early on (bounced check, etc) while my brother was regularly bailed out. I can't definitively say it was causation, but I became a financial conservative very early and never carried credit card balances, bounced checks or overspent while he bounced checks, couldn't make car payments, had to move home several times.

I think one thing I wish my parents had more strongly instilled in me was the concept of looking at/thinking about things more critically for myself and questioning/challenging authority when I didn't understand or was confused. I grew up with a strong deference to authority figures and a near reverence for rules, etc, and I can think of several instances where adhering to the spirit of the law rather than the letter would have benefitted me (without causing harm). I wish that I had been more confident in college and early adulthood, and had questioned things more. I think my experiences would have been richer.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

my mother made sure I knew how to cook nutricious food in a small kitchen with a total of 2 pots and one skillet and a dorm oven and apt. kitchen. "the healthy college cookbook" is a good aid, even for picky eaters. If you want a copy, I'll get you mine. I don't need it anymore.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Start letting her make decisions that might be mistakes now. I think you're very wise on the confirmation thing. But we, with much consternation, stood back and let our daughter decide which high school, to drop an AP class, and so on, because we felt better to let her start making her decisions while we were there to catch her. (None of these were decisions that might keep her from living a happy life; we certainly wouldn't have supported her in dropping out.)

She's pleasantly surprised us by trying her own wings when ready. I'd been gently nagging for a couple of years that she needed outside interests; last year she, on her own, auditioned to join yearbook, something I'd never even considered, and has blossomed -- she's doing graphic layout and photography, something I didn't know was an interest.

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

When I think about it now, what my parents did would never be accepted under US sensibilities *g* When I was 13, I went for 12 weeks to Europe - I saved up for half of the costs, and my parents matched whatever I'd saved. I'd been saving for about 2 years, so it was a really big deal, and my first major trip alone. They put me on a plane in Vancouver, my aunt collected me in Amsterdam, and then I was passed from relative to relative - taking the train from one to the other more often than being dropped off, though!

You might not want to drop Fiona off in Europe and let her figure out train timetables on her own just yet, but I guess the lesson I learned was that I was ready for that sort of independence. Since then I've spent summers at university camps in Canada while my parents were in Asia, backpacked across North America (I was 17), backpacked in Asia (18), travelled all over the place since getting to college, often on a shoestring and having to figure out buses, trains, and budgets on the fly. The most valuable lesson I ever learned was not to be afraid of taking risks like that, or travelling. Giving children independence to travel on their own and learn on their own can be passed over in favour of teaching them what parents think they have to know, but once they have that independence, and the willingness to learn, they can usually figure out whatever it is that would have been taught! I know my mum never really taught me how to cook, and I spent my first year of uni eating stir-fries because that was all I knew, but with a bit of adventure, I learned how to cook quite well!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was an extremely self-propelled child, and I wanted to make my parents happy. I have no idea how things would have gone without those two things, in that order of importance to my behavior at the time.

My mom did a great job of teaching me the basic elements of cooking. I do wish she'd let me go off-recipe more when I was cooking for the family: I was bored by it and disliked doing it, whereas I loved cooking pretty much the minute I was allowed to do it on my own ideas. Having someone else cook means that you don't always get to have things exactly as you like them; this is a good thing for everyone to remember, I think, including teenagers.

My school required a similar Consumer Skills class. I tested out of it. The test was much, much harder than the class. The test asked about mutual funds, the class dealt with balancing a checkbook -- that level of discrepancy. But I have no idea how I picked up that stuff, since I know my parents never sat me down with it in my teen years. I think a lot of the stuff they taught me was by osmosis over the years. If they were fixing something, I'd get, "Punk, c'mere, I'm fixing the snowblower," or whatever.

I've talked on my own lj about how much it meant to me that my dad gave me A Brief History of Time when I was 12, but among other things, it really freed me to pursue my own interests on the adult level. It was a quiet vote of confidence that I was ready to go as nuts in the adult nonfiction section as I had in the children's, and I never looked back.

My parents did not interfere with me dating someone really fairly horrible for my first boyfriend and someone vastly unsuitable for my second, and I'm glad. Them stopping me would have been much worse for our relationship in the long-term, and they had given me the resources -- both intellectual and emotional -- not to make long-term damaging decisions within those short-term unpleasant relationships.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

My parents did not interfere with me dating someone really fairly horrible for my first boyfriend and someone vastly unsuitable for my second, and I'm glad.

My parents were also very hands-off about who I dated. Overall it's worked well, but I do kinda wish that one of them had said to me at some point, "You know your intended better than I do, of course, but I'm a little concerned about X that I've observed about them. However, I trust your judgement, and this is all I'll ever have to say on the subject." On the other hand, I don't have to worry about them criticizing my partner or spouse either; I know that as long as I'm happy with the person, even if my folks don't like something about them, they'll keep quiet about it.

I don't exactly know how to phrase this

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

You have done a superb job of being a reasonable, involved, responsive parent, and have interacted with their teachers to ensure they had positive experiences there, and worked hard to make sure that the instructors in their activities matched your level of caring and fairness and time-taking and such.

All of that will give them a great deal of self-confidence and strength. But I wonder if you have surrounded them with too many reassurances. One of the things I was least prepared for--and am still learning how to deal with--is that the world is not made up of calm, responsive, fair, unprejudiced people whose goal is my happiness and education. The world is mostly made of people with their own agendas who may or may not be cooperative, reasonable, or even pleasant; some are even hostile.

While you've probably told them this, all the experience and people you've surrounded them with have not given them any real experience with it. Knowing is one thing; experience in dealing with it is another. It's a definite skill, and I'd try to find a way to sharpen that skill in them while you are still immediately available to help them with it.

I can't think of a good way. You can't do my way. I don't think you've ever said "Tough" or "Because I said" or "End of discussion, I get the final word, shut UP" or "Too bad if you think it's unreasonable, I'm the mom" or "Life isn't fair, deal with it." I do this partly because I get frustrated, true--but partly because they will have to learn to deal with being frustrated, right-but-not-recognized, oppressed, etc., in a positive way. Jan and I can control the "oppression" when it's coming from us, and work to explain what's happening, what they're feeling and why, appropriate responses, and ties to real experiences we've had. They can't always influence the decision. Sometimes they can't even participate. That's the way it is.

The sooner my children stop expecting life to always be fair, and expecting others to give their desires more preference than their own, the more capable they will be of independence and strength.

~Amanda

Re: I don't exactly know how to phrase this

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

After 12 years of public school (or any other kind, I'd expect), can anybody *really* think life is fair and everybody has their best interests at heart?

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Our kids are 19 and 22, both out of the nest and currently in post-secondary programs.

This is a good time for you to be thinking about the long-term goals. It's probably a good time to start talking to Fiona about them too. (What parts of independence does she feel ready for? what parts make her anxious? what would she like to try out with help?)

Some things that others haven't mentioned: In doctor/dentist visits, moving from mum doing the talking, to mum listening while the patient talks, to mum rehearsing the questions ahead of time and then waiting in the waiting room. Moving from having parents hand out the Tylenol etc, to keeping ordinary medicines in the kids' bathroom and asking them to tell you when they take one. Gradually taking on their own advocacy with teachers and other school people (explaining a learning disability, asking for an extension or querying a mark politely, etc). Moving from parents making all the decisions about whether a certain activity is too much time, money, or family resources, to having the young person who wants to do the activity being in charge of finding the rides, money, and time. (It could still be parental rides & money, but instead of saying 'can I do jazz-dancing?', the questions become more specific.) Doing their own negotiations with friends, camp leaders, etc about special needs such as allergies and quiet time.

With your supertaster/vegetarian girls, they should already be developing the ability to explain their eating difficulties politely to a friend, friend's parent, or camp leader without your intervention. (Learning how to do that in a way that doesn't invite bossy advice is also helpful!) And as/if they start thinking about attending university, you should make them aware of the various eating/living options that they will have -- they may not be good candidates for living in a dorm environment with meals provided, particularly in a small college with limited food choice - make sure they know that not all cafeterias are the same, and that apartment living and living at home are also valid options.

A lot of our transitions were things that I don't remember very well. That may mean that they happened smoothly and at the right time. We were lucky to live downtown, with the schools and many of the kids' friends and pastimes within walk or bus distance. We were also lucky (or blessed or something) that our kids mostly didn't have dangerously-bad-influence friends. We had one kid who loved to go on sleepovers and be away from home, and one who never did. Both have happily made new homes for themselves as young adults.

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

Very little philosphizing, some concrete examples from my own experience:

Like most upper-middle-class kids in my country (Singapore), I was pretty sheltered from chores and jobs and things like that - they were unheard of since our "job" was to focus on going to school and doing homework and studying and taking extra math/Chinese/etc classes - work and chores were perceived as distractions that would have gotten in our way.

Hence, my first time doing laundry was in the basement of my college dorm, when my mother did my first load with me. It was ridiculously simple, and ever since then I've never let anyone else do my laundry (they always muck it up).

I am now an expert laundry doer, but I stil can't iron. It looks so simple, but I always iron creases into my shirts and I take forever. If Fiona doesn't yet iron, it might be worthwhile taking some time in the near future to teach her proper ironing technique. I have shirts I haven't worn since March because I don't want to iron them.

Other things I wish my mother had taught me:
- how to clean a bathroom. I don't clean my bathroom; I don't really know where to start.
- how to pick out produce. Take the girls to the store with you and talk about things like "look for oranges that are heavy for their size; they'll be jucier." "You pick a good watermelon by sound. Here, it sounds like this:" "Look for a nice orange tone and a clean white web when picking a canteloupe." "If peaches are squishy now, they'll be mushy when you bite into them." I've had to learn all this bit by bit over the years.
- basic cooking technique. I've often had to call home - international long distance! - for my mom to talk me through the basics like "sweat the onions, brown the meat, THEN put the liquid in". It would have been easier to watch her do it.
- someone mentioned this above: a basic sense for prices of staples. Is $2 a pound a good price for sugar? Rice is on sale for $1.50 a bag - is that actually a good price? etc etc. How much should a can of beans cost for you to not be getting ripped off? I don't really know this myself, still - I've only begun to figure this out over the past couple of years.

I don't know if this is relevant in Mpls, but I learnt to take public transport at age 12, when I went to middle school. I'm a fearless subway/bus/commuter train taker, any city I go to around the world. My sister is now at that stage and my parents still drive her everywhere. I wish they wouldn't.

Hope these help - as always, you're my model for how to raise daughters thoughtfully and with integrity.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: My father gave me a basic introduction to How Cars Work, and taught me how to change the oil and change a tire myself. I don't change my own oil these days (that's what Jiffy Lube is for, right?) but if I was trapped somewhere with a flat, I could fix it. Also, I know enough about the pieces of a car to understand what's going on when the mechanic explains to me what's broken.

[naomikritzer]

My father also taught me to change a flat. We did a summer/winter changeover from regular tires to snow tires, so one year he showed me how to do it and then had me change the others.

The last time I had to change a tire, though, I couldn't figure out how to get the wheel cover off. This simply is not a skill I use frequently enough that I can remember everything I need to do when I need to do it.

Fortunately, Dad also showed (by example) the benefit of an AAA membership.

(The spare tire was flat, too, and had to be inflated by the tow truck guy AAA sent.)