A post-holiday reflection...

I noted that I garnered quite a few comments following my post on the Co-Ed Sleepover recently... Thank you, my darlings, for your honest and open remarks, contributions, and even the kind support that was forthcoming...

I know that, like Saz, we are mums who are very much working on the premise of trying to show respect to our Teens, even if they sometimes forget how to return that honour to us...

We are attempting to treat them as the young adults that they are... We recognise, I think, that if we pretend that our, (and by this I do not refer to 'all'), Teens won't be sexually active once it is appropriately legal to do so, that they will be 'out of sight, out of mind', but it might not mean that they are not somewhere else, doing 'It,' and running very similar, if not worse, risks...

'In vino veritas'*** on holiday in the Netherlands in the last fortnight, Grizz let slip that he'd had a friend pierce his ear-lobe for him while they were on that school art trip to Amsterdam in February... At the time, we hadn't been pleased that, without telling us, he'd gone into some (possibly) greasy Tattoo and Piercing Parlour in Amsterdam to have 'The Deed' done. However, learning that he had put himself in the less sanitary conditions of a hotel bedroom, crowded with Teens, having an ear-ring heated by a lighter forced through his lobe, sent a small shiver through my cronky bones...

I found some words I wrote earlier on my Blogspace, and I thought they fit well here...

" I want to say something deep and meaningful about having children, and knowing that they are only on loan to us, their parents, for a short time - and, that, like a peaceful dove, they will spread their wings and fly in an altogether different direction to that which we might ever have dreamed up for them in life, while we are distracted and looking away someplace else... In fact, just like when they were tiny, and we were so exhausted from the day's schedule of activities, and were thankfully tucking them in for the night, together with lop-eared teddies and favoured, scented blankies...

I know that their random acts of boldness, burgeoning maturity, and sometimes even licentiousness, should only serve to remind us that we do not own our children, nor their bodies - That they are theirs to do with as they wish, in actuality..." And there is very little we can do about that, except hope to the Higher Powers that we've raised them right, and that they'll turn each corner, meet each obstacle in life, and make the right decisions...

I haven't got all the answers, I'm still finding my way in Parenting Teens, as so many of us are... And Saz and I, well, we're trying to do our best... And back then I wrote, "And then I go and wibble on about tattoos and piercings, changing the subject until I am able to cope with the temporal nature of love, life and art again..."



*** Legal Drinking Age in the Netherlands is 16, so at 17, he was permitted to have the very odd beer with us, seated in the hotel lobby over our evening meal a la Francais...

I know that won't be everyone's 'cup of tea', but we have never condoned under-age drinking with him, but now he is almost 18, we try to encourage responsibility, and (so far - Touch Wood!) he has not let us down...