Grab a Towel and Dance

I have long held that once a child reaches 13, they should be given over to the military until they’re 21 or 22.

Most cultures have a rite of passage at some point during the teen years. They leave a child out in the jungle or dessert or wilderness to fend for themselves so they can prove to themselves and their community, that they are mature adults.

In America, we shower teenagers with gifts: cell phones, ipods, and in later teen years, cars, credit cards and lavish parties as they turn 16. I don’t know when this started, but I’d like it to stop now. If the past 40 years have been a social experiment, it has failed miserably.

I know, you’re thinking that YOUR son or daughter is different: No way! They have merely learned to manipulate you into thinking they are different. If you are a parent, they think you are totally UN-cool, and stupid, and they will think this until after College (and in some cases, beyond).

A case in point.
I have lots of stores about teenagers, but I’ll give you this one now:
Several years ago, my friend’s teenage daughter actually asked her mother and my friend and I to leave her house because her friends were coming over to pick her up and we would embarrass her (we were SO un-cool). Note: they were just coming over to pick her up, they weren’t going to stay there… So I responded in an appropriate way: I grabbed a bath towel, placed it on my head and started singing Proud Mary, at the top of my lungs, while standing on her front porch. I sang the whole song… and danced.
Her friends thought I was very cool, and funny. She didn’t talk to me for weeks. Delightful.
So if a teenager gives you one of those looks or rolls his/her eyes, or stomps up or down the stairs…
Grab a towel, put it on your head and DANCE!