Doo Doo Jeans, parenting, and good cyber friends.

I have to give credit for this blog where credit is due. I visit the public forum at Ivillage.com regarding 'Parents of Teens'. It's a great area for people with teens and pre-teens and post teens to bond and get information and ideas on how to deal with the teens. WOOT WOOT to the folks I talk to there. You all know who you are............ :)

A topic today reminded me of how far we've come since being teenagers, yet sometimes, not so much.........when do you stop being a child to someone and a parent to another?

What happens when we punish our teens/kids for things that we find EGREGIOUS, but then turn around the next week and DO THE EXACT SAME THING? Can we laugh with them or do we have a double standard?

The topic was cell phones. Our teens can be SOOO irresponsible with them. They lose them, they wash them, the leave them at the gym and drop them in the loo........they can't seem to RESPECT the fact we have to PAY those bills and replace those phones, right?

What happens when the PARENT runs the phone through the wash? Of course the suggestion was made that of course as adults, when we run our BRAND NEW phone through the wash, the natural consequences are the fact we have to buy a new one or go without.....but if it was your teen, would you do the same thing? Would you make them pay for a new one and let it go? Probably not............maybe we ALL should be intropective and have the same expectations for ourselves as we do our teens. And vice versa

What happens when we become adults and our parents are not incapacitated? Am I the only 41 yr old (nearly 42) that still feels like a kid around her dad? And whose dad tends to treat her like a kid? Yes, I allow it.........

Perfectly's dad is an awesome guy---we have a great relationship. So good that people used to make FUN of Perfectly because I hung out w/ my dad so much. I dare say, if I shopped, vacationed and ran with my MOM on a daily basis, nobody would think it odd......but somehow people think I'm weird for hanging w/ my daddy.

My mom lives 300+ miles away and we are close too, but she's not around here--so I can't run with her. So, I have an extrordinary relationship w/ my dad. He's close w/my husband and boys, too. Which is a great segue into how the post regarding adults washing their cell phones is so funny and hits home.

Perfectly's dad has cattle. He'd been out dealing with them and was knee deep in mud and (as I said on ivillage) in.....um...........'doo' and undressed in his garage so as not to get the 'doo' in the house. After he had put different clothes on, he threw the doo doo jeans in the washer..........with the cell phone in his pocket. Of course, even though I'm 41, I found hilarity in the situation, because had that been ME or one of my boys, I'd have gotten the 'lecture' about checking pockets BEFORE inserting clothes in the washer.............It doesn't get much better............ As it turns out, one of the few male members of this parenting board did the same thing. He said that his daughter is jokingly using the situation as a 'get out of jail free' card so when SHE does something stupid, she can hold it over her dad's head to get out of trouble!

I agree......we all should let up a little on ourselves and our kids.......none of us are perfect parents, employees, spouses or even children.......

Perfectly's dad ended up buying a phone, which is his TRUE punishment. He' has to figure out how to USE it......man......just when he was getting used to his 1 1/2 yr old one!!!