Do As I...Oh Shit Whatever
Originally Published 8/4/2017
It's nearly 9:00 p.m. here in Baudelairestan, and my Precocious Daughter has just gone out for the evening.
Because she'll be a grown-ass adult in a few months, and she can do that.
Bestest Friend and I used to go out on the weekends - she would drive us in her sweet little orange Beetle because I didn't have my license, just as PDaughter's bestie is driving tonight for the same reason. We went to the movies, to concerts, to bookstores. We met Douglas Adams. We saw Julian Lennon on his first tour. It was the Eighties.
We didn't drink. We didn't do drugs. We didn't have sex.
Because she'll be a grown-ass adult in a few months, and she can do that.
I don't feel old at all, thanks. |
Apropos of nothing, Donald Trump had bad hair and a butthole-mouth even way back in the 80s. |
We were good girls. We waited until AFTER high school to do those things.
So anyway, I asked PDaughter what she and her bestie were planning to do. And it turns out they're going to Lake Lavon - a popular lake about 30 minutes outside the Dallas Metroplex urban sprawl - to watch the stars.
And of course I immediately assumed that meant they were going to drive out to the country to drink, do drugs, and have sex.
You guys. I worked in a video store in 1985-86. I know the lingo, aight? |
But I know better.
If my child - who is planning to apply to Columbia, Yale, and Berkeley in the next few months - and her best friend - who is younger than PD but has already completed her first year of college - say they're going to drive to the country to look at the stars, then I f*cking believe them.
Whatever they actually get up to, I believe them. Because they're amazing young women, and I choose to trust them.
Now, if she abuses my trust, and does something illegal/stupid/dangerous, I'll come down on her like bricks on whatever it is bricks typically come down on.
But I refuse to keep her on a choke chain simply because of the possibility that she might do things that other teens have done that have been less than optimal.
Her mother drinks, and her father smokes dope, and she has been pretty much openly contemptuous of both of us for those habits.
And even if she weren't, what am I supposed to do? I'm the poster child for Doing The Things Your Parents Said Were Awful, after all.
Literally all I want is for PDaughter to have a good time and come home safely later tonight.
She'll be legally an adult on November 24th. Advice on how to live with an adult child is sooooo welcome.
Thanks.
<3
The numbers on this countdown are pretty small now.
ReplyDeleteOne of the benefits of revisiting these memories is being reminded that PDaughter is now legally an adult and has been for months and is fantastic at it.
ReplyDeleteAlso Nichelle Nichols is 75 and also still fantastic.