Teenager Truism #5

I'm sure I'm going to put a lot of people out of joint with this one and piss off some people but when has that ever stopped me. Check out the title of this blog.

My parents, and parents of my generation, didn't have to deal with the same things that I, and other parents currently raising teens, have to deal with. Sexting wasn't even a term let alone something we could do. Nor was cyber bullying. Online porn. Television that has programming so questionable that it needs a rating. Umm. Two and a Half Men. Hello! I have to make decisions, with the Mister of course, that my parents could never have dreamed of when I was a teen.

• Do I get my teen a cell phone? If so, how do I monitor it? 

• Is my teen allowed to have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, etc.? If so, how much privacy do they get and when do I cross the line into invading their privacy?

• How do I make sure my teen isn't sexting or taking/sending inappropriate photos of themselves to others or receiving these things??

Monitoring TV, music, and movies is almost impossible anymore. It may be rated TV-14 or R, but that hardly even means anything anymore. Some things just get a "not rated" warning like XM channel 36. That's our favorite channel on XM and it's not even the music that I find questionable but it's the DJs, specifically, Madison. We had to turn the channel the other day because she was talking about "ball sack piercings". Geez. Really? Is that necessary? And I apologize for putting that in your head.

Things that are said and done out loud and in public nowadays would have been considered terribly inappropriate when I was growing up. And on top of all the new stuff out and about, I still have to worry about all the traditional crap like sex, eating disorders, drugs and alcohol, bullying, grades, bad friends, teen driving, etc etc. At least these things are pretty cut and dry:  No sex, drugs, alcohol, bullying, puking up your dinner, bad friends. Yes to good grades. And California has taken all the fun out of being a teen driver and neither of mine have their driver's licenses yet.

Teenager truism:  It was easier, I'm sorry but it was, raising a teen 15-20+ years ago than it is in the new millennium. Like I said, I know that'll piss some people off, but until you've raised a teen in this day and age, you don't know.

You know, neither of my kids' schools have lockers because of rampant drug use. The Oldest Child's school has a contract with a drug sniffing dog company that comes in periodically to search for drugs. And you can stuff your "big city crimes" argument up your butt. It doesn't apply. What would your argument be if I told you that 75% of the kids at her high school are military brats from all over the world? It's just plain harder to raise teens these days and I'm sure it will only get harder. Maybe this post was more about the downfall of society that it was about parenting teens, lmao.