Have you heard of this new show?
Even though all of our TV comes from Hulu, there are still a small amount of commercials and this is the newest one that has been cropping up. As soon as I heard the title my hackles were raised…
One of the hardest things about having daughters is constantly hearing, “Just wait until they are teenagers, you will want to…” {insert comment like “shoot yourself”, “sell them”, “go into therapy”, etc} Honestly I don’t understand how come people need to warn me about how supposedly awful my daughters are going to be as soon as they hit a certain age. It honestly pisses me off. I get that most of our society doesn’t value treating your children as friends, but I do try my best to at least strive to have an honest friendship with the girls. I don’t want them to see me as some ogre authoritative figure who is always bossing them around. And I certainly want them to know that they can tell me anything, ask me anything, and I will listen with an open mind and heart.
But it is shows like these that devalue the relationships that we have with our daughters. It tells girls that they can talk to their parents in a disrespectful way, that parents don’t know squat, and that as soon as they become teens they will be unlovable. Yes, I know that it is a comedy… but just because someone said it should be funny doesn’t mean it really is. If someone wrote animal abuse into a comedy, added a laugh track, and the characters made a joke of it… would that be ok with everyone? Heck no!!! Then how come treating our children, our daughters, with disrespect is ok?
I hate hearing people say how they keep tights reigns on their daughters, that they can’t be trusted, that their daughters are out of control… therefore my daughters are going to be out of control. Personally, I had absolutely no rules, boundaries, or curfews. I dated a lot, had co-ed sleepovers, went out without being specific about where I was going… and yet, I did not get into trouble of any sort- I didn’t even have sex until I was in college… and I had plenty of chances to! I didn’t sneak around because there wasn’t a need to and I didn’t show disrespect because I was treated as if I was capable of making decisions on my own. Of course suggestions were given, but they were shared not forced, so I was more apt to listen.
This is one show that I will not be watching, simply because I have enough on my hands fighting the media body image wars, the commercialism of childhood, and the rampant sexualization of young girls… the last thing I need is them having a complex that I hate them! I believe that raising daughters is hard enough without adding to it unnecessarily.
How do you feel about the show’s title? Is this something that bothers you or that you just accept as part of our culture, that we view teenagers with such horror, dislike, and dread?
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I have not heard of this show, but just from the title I don’t think i’ll be watching it either. It’s always been one of my pet peeves when someone comes up with ” wait till they’re … ” I’ve heard this statement countless times and honestly, I think the ones saying it are the ones who failed to raise their children properly. I understand that some teenagers and kids “rebel,” and it’s not necessarily the parents fault, but in most cases it is! Finding a balance between friend and parent, that’s what i’ll constantly be doing! Great post 😉
I think that the more that people try to enforce rules and helicopter, the worse off the child is. Of course they are going to rebel if they don’t feel like they are respected!
Phantastic post, thank you for your encouraging words. I couldn’t agree more with you.
Back in the days I dated a guy from California and one day we talked about what to do if our hypothetical daughter came, say aged 12, and asked for us to get her contraception because she wanted to have sex with her boyfriend. He all but freaked at the thought and stated he would prohibit sex for her until she was of age and other nonsense. As if you could tied them to the house to prevent natural things from happening. He wouldn’t listen to any argument (What if she is really mature and had been together with the boy for years? Would you rather she did it behind your back without asking and unsafe?). In short, it was the most unreasonable response ever!
Needless to say I am now married to a wonderful man (who got the answer right when I asked him the above question) and we are trying to raise our little boy in a way that reassures him of our unconditional love and trust. Jury is still out on how it will work out in the end 😉
Anyway, keep up the good work and don’t let the tendency of TV shows to grossly exaggerate for the sake of viewing rates deter you from your very sensible approach.
Lol, yes, my daughters are still very young, but so far taking the relaxed approach to parenting has worked out a lot better for us than when we tried to regulate everything and have tons of rules. Thank you for visiting my post and commenting!!!
Oh I hate that title. I look forward to my girls being teenagers…I don’t want to rush it but I know it will happen and I want to be the one they come to to tell me about their crushes. I want to be the one they want to go shopping with for prom, and homecoming. I would hate for my girl’s and I not be close.
Right now my oldest will be 11 in 4 days and she knows I’m mom and I always will have the authority and she respects me. She doesn’t have a ton of rules. She has to keep her grades up and stay out of trouble she gets rewarded with other things. We have a very open relationship with her and I love that she even tells my husband things about boys, and her friends.
I love having the relationship with all of my daughters. I felt the bond should be started early on in their lives so that way when they did get older it was so strong they knew they could trust me and felt comfortable coming to me.
That’s an awful title. I know they’re just characters and it’s supposed to be funny, but the thought of a child of any age hearing a parent say they hate the child? Ouch.