I called Dr. Laura once.

“Bruce, welcome to the program.”

(I told the screener my name was Bruce because if anyone at school happened to hear me on the air, whining about my parents, I would have been toast.)

“Hi, Dr. Laura.”

I’m home alone for some reason, and as I speak I am nervously pacing around our entire house. I’m the kind of person who has to move when he’s nervous, and I was so nervous at that moment that I practically wore a path into the wall-to-wall carpeting. The family dog, Daisy, followed me around and the two of us must have looked like a pathetic, in-home parade.

“Hi, Bruce. What can I help you with today?”

“Hi. Um. I’m seventeen,” I stutter, my voice and my hands quivering with concern that she’ll yell at me like she did with the previous caller, who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. “I have a job and my grades are OK, but I just can’t seem to get my parents to treat me like an adult, you know? I mean, they won’t let me go out or go to parties or do the things all of the other kids my age get to do.”

(I neglected to mention that I had never been invited to a high school party or that the things I wanted to do with my friends included going to the drive-in movie theater, ogling Glenn Close’s lady bits in Fatal Attraction, and smoking pot out of a crushed Cactus Cooler can in the back of my friend Chuck’s pick-up truck.)

“OK, so what’s your question?”

“Well, I guess my question is. ‘How do I get them to stop treating me like a child?’”

“You don’t,” she said.

“Huh?”

“You are a child. You’re seventeen.”

“I disagree. I feel like—“

“And that’s exactly the point, Bruce,” she interrupted. “It doesn’t matter how you feel. What matters are the facts, and the fact is that as long as you’re living under your parents’ roof and as long as they are still your legal guardian—which they are until you’re eighteen—they get to call the shots.”

I was stupefied. I thought I had a legitimate gripe when I called her, but after thirty seconds on the air I was reduced to a sniveling little brat with too many feelings. (If you ask some people, I’m still that way.) And then they went to a commercial.

If you’ve ever listened to Dr. Laura’s show, you know you can truly read how she and her staff felt about you by what song they play as a bumper when they come back from the commercial. Well, I didn’t recognize the song I got, but I think the lyrics went, “Grow up, you childish little pussy.”

Or something like that.

Comments

Great. I just agreed with Dr. Laura. Now I feel dirty.

I love the fact that you chose "Bruce" as your alias, for no other reason than the fact that you look absolutely nothing like a Bruce.

Did that really happen?? I feel so sorry for 17-yr-old you!

Here is, in my opinion, a better response:
"I understand how you feel. Teenage years are a tough time as you are becoming more independent, but not *quite* fully on your own, yet. It's 7 years of push-and-pull. This must feel really frustrating to you - you're doing your part, but aren't being respected for it. Would you say that's the case?" [Wait for response]

"It's tough for parents to see you as anything but "their little baby." Do you have any pets? - if you've ever had a puppy who has become a full-grown dog, you sometimes still think of him as a puppy on some level. Multiply that times a million as you're their actual, corporeal, child whom they gave birth to, etc.

I would suggest having a rational, calm conversation with your parents. Sometimes, how you 'frame' a conversation can have a big impact. If you whine, "you never let me do anything!!", you'll come off as immature and your parents will be hesitant to allow you more adult freedoms. But if you approach them with an attitude such as..."What can I do so that you will have more confidence in me? How can I attend some of these activities but not worry or upset you?" That puts the conversation in a better "frame" to start rationally discussing things.

Finally, you need to accept what your parents' answer is to this. If you blow up or lose your temper at their answer, you've lost your credibility. Answer instead: "Ok, I appreciate your input. I will work on that and get back to you." (By the way, these are great skills to use in the workforce too - your parents aren't the only ones with authority whom you'll disagree with!).

I hope that helps, and as some final thoughts - congratulations on your great grades, and remember, it's not ok to do drugs! (I know you didn't mention it to me, but heard you thinking that)."

--It's this black-and-white-ness ("No! My rules! No opportunity for discussion or any sort of understanding!!!") that has contributed to so much polarization in this country, IMHO. We're teaching kids that only one person's opinion matters, when....that's not the case. Even if you're only 17 (or years later on a blog).

wait.

did you really DO that?

seriously?
because in my view you were always doing the shit that I wanted to do and wasn't doing and you had all the fun. Huh. Weird.

If you really did that, it would RULE!

Wow. Whenever a "therapist" says that it doesn't matter how you feel, you know you've picked a winner. I always knew Dr. Laura was a She-Tool.

You should have called Dr Joy Browne......wise AND kind!

So I completely agree with JB...and I want you to know that Stubble has been included in adult discussions of finance and other family matters for quite some time. So much so that he is incredulous that his peers (17-18) know NOTHING about finance, credit, investments, bank accounts, voting, etc. All things that they will need to participate in now or in the very neer future. SAD.
Also, Thanks for your advice to start writing when I met you at a book signing for Meshugenah almost a year ago. It took forever, but I finally did it.
Thanks.

Did you get all angsty with her? NO I'M NOT!!! YOU ARE DOCTOR LOOOOOOOORA!!!

Wow, you really were the brother I didn't know, separated by only 15 miles in the 80's.

In 9th grade, I was madly in love with my friend Kathy. She was going to go out to dinner with some guy. She told me she felt like she was going to have to kiss him, even though she didn't like him that much. (Now I realize the bitch was only trying to get me jealous. Kathy would become a whore who slept with lots of people, except me until we were in law school, but that's another story. At any rate, she had every desire to kiss this guy.)

In an effort to give Kathy moral support, and stop her from kissing a guy who wasn't me, I called Dr. Ruth and recorded the call. Dr. Ruth made clear that just because I guy bought a girl dinner, she wasn't obligated "to perform sexually." I almost died... I was talking about kissing, and "performing sexually" was light years away from what I was thinking.

Dr. Ruth was good enough to tell me that the rule worked both ways, and that a guy shouldn't feel obligated "to perform sexually" just because the girl bought dinner. Of course, I remembered that advice over the years on the countless occasions that women have taken me to dinner and attempted to pressure me into sex. Thanks, Dr. R!