Spying on Your Teen: Privacy and Parenting

Okay.

I always said I'd do it, if I felt it was necessary. In fact, when Sisi leaves the house, I sometimes say: "Act like I'm right there with you, because you never know when I'm going to show up." But I'd never done it... until yesterday.

Lately, Sisi, my high school freshman, has been calling me right after school saying "I'm going to stay after in the library... with my friends." At first, I thought "Great, she's going to get some studying in or work on that English paper." No problem.

Except the English grade was in the toilet-- "D" in an Honors class!-- and most of the other grades weren't all that exciting either. The low grades suggested one of two things: (1) she wasn't actually spending her afternoons in the library; or (2) there was more "hanging with my friends" than school work going on-- which means there needs to be an adjustment in the study routine.

How to determine what is really going on? Nothing like a "drop-in," right?

Or wrong?

The question of teen privacy is one that is much debated. There are parents who firmly believe that searching a teen's room, checking their text messages and showing up uninvited when they go out is the height of infringement. How can a young adult develop, learn to trust their own judgment and have confidence in their own decision with the fear of a parent helicoptering into their lives all the time? What does that say about the level of trust between parent and child? This view is teen-centered and puts the child's need to develop independence above the parent's need for information.

And of course, in the other camp are those parents who argue that, much as teen children might think they have the capacity to make adult decisions, they are, indeed, still children. And since they are children, parents have an obligation and a duty to monitor their conduct for safety and security reasons and to maintain awareness about what's happening in their lives. This puts the parents' need for information about the child's need for independence.

To be honest, I have always thought of myself as a parent in the second camp-- especially for a young teen, like my daughter. Fourteen is still quite young, and I have always said that the need to protect children outweighs all other considerations. Of course, that was before I had a teenaged daughter.

I see it differently now... or rather, I'm less certain and more conflicted about it.

I see, for instance, how much confidence young people get from opportunities to experience themselves without a hovering parent. I see leaps in maturity and decision-making. I see a young woman learning how to handle herself-to trust her instincts-- in an uncertain world.

But I also see the immaturity of those decisions from time to time. I see the misplaced priorities of using freedom to "have fun" at the expense of obligations like choir rehearsals, homework, studying for tests and honoring curfews. I see the temptations of peer pressure.

Just two weeks ago, on Ssturday afternoon, I gave Sisi permission to visit the county library with friends--with strict instructions for her to come home at a certain time because we had evening plans as a family. Not only did she miss the curfew, but her friends had talked her into leaving the library and going to fast-food restaurant a few blocks away to hang out. I might not have known about it except that her attendance at this family outing was expected, and since she had missed her curfew we now needed to pick her up on the way to the event. She had to confess that she wasn't at the Library anymore.

That mistake cost her a week of freedom.

It's also the reason I decided I needed to follow up on my threat to "show up" unexpectedly today when she used the "library card"-- pun intended.

And there she was, sitting quietly at a table with her books out, head down, working. Her friends were nowhere in sight. My daughter was quietly doing her homework, just like she said she was.

I tiptoed out before she ever saw me, feeling both proud of her and a little ashamed of myself. Maybe, a little more trust and a little less "helicoptering" is in order here. I found myself reviewing the whole library/fastfood curfew decision. Had I over-reacted? Or was my child sitting quietly in the library as explained right now because of getting caught somewhere else last time?

None of this is as easy or as clear as I once would have thought.

It does seem clear to me now, however, that I want to avoid extremes on either side of the parenting/privacy fence... which leaves me with a sort of Reagan-era policy of "trust but verify" double-speak. What does that mean exactly? I didn't know in the Reagan-era... and I don't know now.

I had intended to keep my little spying mission a secret, but my 5 year old (who was with me on the excursion) outed me at the dinner table. "We went to the library and saw Sisi!" she told Daddy proudly.

Sisi wasn't mad. "I felt like I was being watched!" she said, laughing. "You were there?"

I confessed. I told why and what I saw and why I left.

"I was finishing a make-up paper for English," she said. "The teacher said if I did a good job, I could bring my grade up." She gave me a searching look. "You really came to the library?"

I nodded.

"Wow." Then she just stared at me for a really long time.

Like I said, I feel conflicted...but it's done now. Operation "Trust But Verify" is underway, for good or ill... just in time for this weekend's Halloween festivities.

Roses and Thorns: Step-parenting in Mixed Families

Thanks to the Grim Brothers and their fairy tales, step-parents (step-mothers in particular) get a bum rap. I can't think of any stories right now where the step-parent stepped in and saved the day. Usually, in fiction at least, the step-parent is at best jealous of the prior relationship between the child and their new spouse. At the worse, well, we've all read Cinderella. And some of you have seen the horror movie, The Stepfather. In the lore of our culture, you're mostly like to see the word "step-parent" with the adjective "evil" in front of it.

As there is some truth in most of our stereotypes, I have to now allow for the fact that ARE some step-parents who seem unable to rise to the requirements of their role. I've known some men who were as remote to their step-children as the planet Uranus. I've known a few women who, when thrust into the role of step-mothering an adolescent girl found themselves reverting to the worst of their own high school behavior-- becoming competitive, back-biting, whining fifteen year olds all over again. As unattractive as either model might be, I can't entirely judge.

Step-parenting is very, very hard.

It's hard for reasons that sound ugly to admit, but are very true. Reasons like: it's difficult to love a child who is not your own, but who, because of the circumstances you're supposed to. Reasons like: the natural tendency to favor the children of your own relationships over the children of other relationships.

Children, I think, instinctively know this. They know on some level that no one will ever love them quite like their own parents. Hence they resist and reject perceived "interlopers"-- even when those "interlopers" meet them with an open mind and an open heart. The stepchild can't help being suspicious-- and the step-parent can't help feel frustrated.

I've been a step-parent. My first husband had three children under the age of 10 when we married. I did my best by those kids, but they didn't like me much. I had different ideas about child-rearing than their mother and while I would have happily deferred all matters regarding them to their father, he wasn't much interested in playing that role because he usually only saw them over the summers. When they were with us, he'd often disappear, leaving me to entertain them-- and to discipline them. It was a recipe for much resentment on all sides.

There was also a racial component in my efforts at step-parenting, since my first husband's ex-wife was part Phillipino. Her children had long straight black hair like hers that they were too little to care for and I had no experience with. My ex-husband's son's hair was a particular problem: he was about 8 years old and had a long wild afro that I really thought would have looked better trimmed a bit. His mother refused. My ex-husband refused. The little boy didn't like for me to brush his hair and his father didn't do it, so he wandered around looking like he'd been sleeping under a bridge. I sometimes felt the hair was a slap both racially and relationally. The hair said: "we're something you're not." The hair said: "you have no authority over me."

I may be over-sensitive, but I know that racial differences add a few more snakes to the alligator pit of step-parenthood. Kevin and Sisi have their moments when "You're not my father" is shorthand for "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand." There are moments when I see the light in his eyes for Lil Bit-- his own daughter-- dim when Sisi comes close. As much as I ache for Sisi in these moments, I understand them. Kevin loves her, but Lil Bit is his own. He was there when she was born; he met Sisi when she was 8. It's different by definition. I know because I've felt that difference myself.

I don't know what the experts say about this, but in our family communication has helped everyone to manage their expectations about their roles and responsibilities. Only in the most extreme situations is Kevin responsible for disciplining Sierra. We decided early on that this should be my role exclusively. He backs me up, and when I'm traveling or otherwise unavailable, he enforces our family rules. But otherwise, it's all me. For us, this just makes sense: he IS the interloper; she was nine when we got married. For him to come down hard on discipline so late in her life is a recipe for resentment. We just don't do it.

When Sisi feels unfairly treated as the step-child, I do my best to assess whether her gripe is legitimate-- or jealous. I explain: what she sees in Kevin and Lil Bit is what her father feels for her. He doesn't live near us, so we call. She visits as often it can be arranged. Is this adequate? Probably not. It is, however, the best I can do.

But I know she feels the lack of her own dad's daily presence. I know that deep in there are the fairy stories, casting her as Cinderella. I know that encompassed in her feelings of being the family outcast are issues surrounding Lil Bit's pale skin, curly hair and green eyes. When she asks about blue contacts, she's scratching the surface of this thing. It pervades our culture-- but having "whiteness in the family" brings a black girl into greater intimacy with it.

That makes it even more critical for me, as the mother of BOTH these girls, to treat them as equally as possible. But is that possible? Is it possible when the needs of a 14 year old are radically different than a 5 year old-- even if they had the same father, which they don't? That the expectations placed on oldest children and youngest children are different? That parents and some children have just a natural connection-- a harmony of personality that enable them to understand each other easily. And some don't?

As parents, we strive to treat our children--step and natural-- "equally"... but in the reality is far more complicated. It's painful to admit, but true. Hard as we might try, we will probably not treat our children equally, just as we are not all treated equally in the wider world.

Perhaps the kindest thing we can do is acknowledge this fact? I don't know. But in a way, it seems more fair than candy-coating our reality. As a step-parent, I always tried to stay conscious of my prejudices and to realize that these were children-- who bore no responsibilities for the adult tensions surrounding them. As a parent, I try to love my girls for who they are and not to burden them with my feelings about their fathers for good or ill. I know that the frustrations that Kevin and Sisi have with each other are colored by the fact that they aren't related, but day by day I see him struggle to help her grow up to be the best woman she can be in spite of how hard that is, sometimes. I see him take her resentments, swallow down his own feeling and do his best to be, if not her father exactly, as close a representative as he can be.

And being a step-parent has it's "roses" as well as it's thorns. One of my ex's children-- now an adult, told me that she appreciated the rules and expectations I set for her while she was in our house as a kid. "You were the only person who ever gave us structure. I hated it then--I thought you were mean--but I appreciate it now," she said. A beautiful rose... a decade later and after plenty of harsh years... but still beautiful to hear.

I hope for that rose for Kevin some day... and for all the step-parents in blended families, interracial or not.