Your daughter’s 12yo friend posts some “suggestive” photos of herself up on facebook. Naturally you (fill in the blank)
It’s tricky enough policing your own tween and teen daughters. Teaching them the difference between wrong and right, pretty and slutty, and enforcing your own family’s rules gets ever so much more difficult right around the time their friends get so much more influential.
We all have different standards.
Some of my children’s teen/tween friends are allowed to wander around theme parks all day, without an adult. Some are not allowed to have sleepovers. Some are allowed to watch soft porn. Some can’t see a film that is rated PG 13. Some of them dye their hair and some are not allowed to use a blow dryer without adult assistance. In short, there is no one right way to raise your kids. We fall somewhere in the middle. No soft porn, and you can blow dry your own hair.
People are touchy about their kids, and their own parenting. No-one wants to hear where they have gone “wrong” from a family with totally different standards.
I posted my latest parenting dilemma to twitter and was astonished by the range of responses I instantly received. I’m still not sure what the right thing to do is. But I’ll tell you the best answer I got to my question. It came from my friend Katherine, on facebook.
Naturally you…
“Pour youself a nice glass of Pinot Noir.”
I’ll drink to that!
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