What advice do you wish you could give your teen but just can’t?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, what am I missing here? Isn’t part of parenting giving your children those nuggets of wisdom and advice?

Do you have teenagers? They are more apt to run from your nuggets of wisdom just because you, the parent, gave it.

You hit the nail on the head. My child's mentor - former teacher - has been amazing in helping guide and answer tough question my child would not come to me for in a gizzilion years!

[Anonymous]

That fun, exciting, magnetic friend who everyone is drawn to, who is an amazing friend to you, but can be incredibly mean to others? Someday it'll be your turn to be their target. Avoid befriending this person.

[Anonymous]

Smoke weed instead of drinking alcohol.

[Anonymous]

Your fake eyelashes look ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd like to advise my daughters not to kill the relationship on the hill of "But my career." When it comes down to it, work's not really all that exciting, even though it may seem so when you are in your early or mid-twenties. IN retrospect, I regret the years I spent apart from my spouse due to 'but my career', etc.

In general, I'd like to tell them to give less of their souls to the company store, but that so goes against all that bullshit that you get at your liberal arts college about 'making a difference' and your career as your identity, etc.
I suppose I"ve been thinking about mortality more than usual this week, and in the grand scheme of things, I"m feeling like most of the time it is just a job.

I will absolutely be talking to both my son and my daughter about this.

Balance. I have a good career but nothing means more to DH and I than our time with family. Nothing.

Nobody ever looks back and says they should have worked more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd like to advise my daughters not to kill the relationship on the hill of "But my career." When it comes down to it, work's not really all that exciting, even though it may seem so when you are in your early or mid-twenties. IN retrospect, I regret the years I spent apart from my spouse due to 'but my career', etc.

In general, I'd like to tell them to give less of their souls to the company store, but that so goes against all that bullshit that you get at your liberal arts college about 'making a difference' and your career as your identity, etc.
I suppose I"ve been thinking about mortality more than usual this week, and in the grand scheme of things, I"m feeling like most of the time it is just a job.

I will absolutely be talking to both my son and my daughter about this.

Balance. I have a good career but nothing means more to DH and I than our time with family. Nothing.

Nobody ever looks back and says they should have worked more.

People always say this, but I think it's simplistic and not really true. I know LOTS of people who look back over their lives and feel great satisfaction at a career that they feel like was interesting, rewarding in lots of ways, and maybe contributed to the public good. I also know plenty of people who look back and wish that they had been able to achieve a bit more with their careers, and that's their big disappointment in life. Plus there's the people who are unable to pay for their homes and medication in retirement because they didn't put enough focus into their career at the right time -- I'm sure a lot of them look back and think they should have worked more. And the women that are trapped in bad marriages because they don't have a career that will support them when they want to leave.

I think it's easy to say "oh, I should have worked less" when you worked a boring job and have a comfortable retirement. But there's lots of people not in that situation, either because their job was really meaningful, or because they really needed to have made more money.

[Anonymous]

The most awkward one I tried to have when there were rumors of blow job parties going around in 8th grade was "oral sex should not just be girls servicing the boys because sexual activity and intimacy should be mutually satisfying." No matter how you say that, it got pretty weird pretty fast. We are generally pretty open so now that she's in HS, can talk about almost topic (at least in generalities)

[Anonymous]

Don't sell weed.

[Anonymous]

Pro tip: the car or on a porch swing, or anywhere you can sit side by side, is the best place for these awkward convos. Not having to look each other in the face makes it easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Smoke weed instead of drinking alcohol.

OP here.
This is the kind of response I was getting at. Advice that you want your kid to know, but it wouldn't be right coming from you,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't sell weed.

Why can't you tell your kid that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That fun, exciting, magnetic friend who everyone is drawn to, who is an amazing friend to you, but can be incredibly mean to others? Someday it'll be your turn to be their target. Avoid befriending this person.

Wow of course you tell your kid this. I have and so to many other parents. Please have this conversation with your child.

[Anonymous]

Please have sex in the basement rather than in a car where you might be discovered by cops and ticketed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd like to advise my daughters not to kill the relationship on the hill of "But my career." When it comes down to it, work's not really all that exciting, even though it may seem so when you are in your early or mid-twenties. IN retrospect, I regret the years I spent apart from my spouse due to 'but my career', etc.

In general, I'd like to tell them to give less of their souls to the company store, but that so goes against all that bullshit that you get at your liberal arts college about 'making a difference' and your career as your identity, etc.
I suppose I"ve been thinking about mortality more than usual this week, and in the grand scheme of things, I"m feeling like most of the time it is just a job.

Plus 1000
They are under so much pressure and fear. And it starts so early. Like age 16. You are only young once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That fun, exciting, magnetic friend who everyone is drawn to, who is an amazing friend to you, but can be incredibly mean to others? Someday it'll be your turn to be their target. Avoid befriending this person.

THIS. I call them charismatic. Lots of ups painful painful downs.