Where Are the Adults?

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Kellyanne Conway’s 15 year old daughter has a twitter account, which she uses to mercilessly bash her mother and father. Why is this happening? How is this happening? First, why don’t her parents just take away her devices? Second, if her parents won’t take responsibility here, why doesn’t Twitter close down her account?

She is fifteen. She is not an adult, and she shouldn’t be treated like one. This girl will have to live with the stupid things she is saying at age 15 for the rest of her life. Those who allow this are engaged in child abuse. If her parents won’t stop this, then the rest of us should. Twitter is exploiting a child.

I don’t blame a fifteen year old for being stupid. I blame the adults who are allowing it.

When I was 14, I wanted to run with a crowd where drinking was commonplace. The kids in this group all had a curfew: they could go wherever they wanted and do whatever they wanted until midnight. They invited me to go out with them a couple of times. I told my father about this (not about the drinking, lol, just the invitation and the curfew.) I suggested to him that I should also be allowed to go wherever I wanted and do whatever I wanted until midnight. He rejected that idea. When I told him that all the other kids were doing it, and almost all of them were, he looked at me in disbelief and said “Where are their parents?”

I was not allowed to go anywhere unless my parents knew where I was going, where I would be at all times, and who I would be with. Needless to say, I didn’t hang out with the cool kids. From the ages of 14-16, I spent weekend nights talking on the phone, mostly with another girl whose parents were also hopelessly uncool. Our parents were totally unsympathetic to the fact that they were preventing us from ever having any chance of being part of the cool crowd. We didn’t even bother trying to explain to them that they were cutting us off from our peers, because we knew that they would not have cared.

I am so thankful that my father didn’t give one damn what other parents thought of him. I am so thankful that he refused to treat my 15 year old self as an adult. I am so thankful that he was an adult. I am so thankful that he said, No.

Why do so many parents find it so difficult to say, No?

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Published by Judy Campbell

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16 thoughts on “Where Are the Adults?”

    1. I know, but that is different. She wasn’t your child. She wasn’t a child. We often cannot enforce rules with other adults, but parents ought to be able and willing to enforce rules with children.

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  3. This was a question my mother asked. Why are other parents afraid to say no? It was not hard for her. When told that all the other kids were allowed, her reply was, ” I’m not their mother.” She didn’t give a darn what the other kids were allowed to do, YOU aren’t. It saved us so much grief. And the attitude saved us so much more: we were effectively innoculated against peer pressure. This is an ongoing gift I will always be thankful for because I can resist groupthink.

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    3. Hello, @madblog, welcome! I remember conversations like this in my family; when parents started wanting to befriend their children – prior to adulthood being reached – the trouble began, it seems to me.

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      1. I think thats part of it-if we can’t maintain our understanding that, no matter how close or friendly we are with our children, we are ultimately the authority when authority is called for.

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  4. Children need limits; to create a sense of manageability and security, while they’re learning/maturing. Goal is to make them internally self-limiting, independent. Enjoying this conversation!

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