Crystal Meth -- Is it really surprising? — Page 5

I am 52 years old so I’m a product of a time in our social history when the conservative values of our parents were rejected, when the concept of “constraint” was considered contemptible and backward, and when indiscriminate sex and drugs had no apparent consequences. We believed that rules didn’t apply to us. My peer group believed that what came naturally had to be right, what felt good couldn’t be wrong, and that the most important thing in the world was self-realization. Oh, we mouthed platitudes about social consciousness and environmental responsibility but basically we were just immersed in the “it’s all about me” perspective that everyone kids each other about today.

Naturally, economic realities, inevitable maturity, and watching friends die tempered how I look at the world, but nothing has forced me to face the demons of my past more than parenthood. My son and daughter tested every resolve I’d ever made about raising my kids to be free-spirited experimenters. As a father, my most basic gut instinct was to protect them from harm…and there was no way I could ever bring myself to let them hurt themselves for the sake of “experience”. I realized that my job as a parent was to at least try to draw from my experiences and give them some framework within which they could make good decisions about the many temptations they would face. I found that the most effective way I could parent them was to make sure that they understood that there were consequences attached to every decision that they make and that they owned the consequences.

My daughter is now 25 and my son is 19. I like to think that we made it through the most challenging years because my wife and I took the time to talk to them openly and honestly, because we did every thing we could to make them feel “safe” talking to us, because we made sure that they knew we respected their ability to make good decisions, and because we challenged them to be accountable for what they decided.

Now, I’m not stupid or naïve. My kids are just as curious as I was. Do they experiment? I’m sure. Do they tell me everything? Of course not. Do I have confidence that they have the tools to make good decisions? Totally. Do I think they will always make the right decision? Nope. Am I concerned that they could still get tied up with deadly drugs and dangerous sex? Still terrified but I think I’ve done everything I can as a parent to prepare them for the decisions that they will own.

Sorry for the long post, but there are a lot of young people here who also have decisions to make and live with. Threads like this are message boards at their best even if we do get side-tracked calling each other names a little. There is such a great cross-section of age, experience, and perspective here to draw from if we’re willing to sort through and find what speaks to us.

"Sorry for the long post"

Please don't be - at all! Besides being beautifully written, your perspective is one that I, as a gay man without children, can only guess at. I do think there is an extreme difference in attitudes and opinions based on experience versus intellectual theory.

Certainly, something this thread makes glaringly obvious is that there are no easy answers. But I think anyone who is actively engaged in the process of living has to realize that.

Eye, great post. Why couldn't you have been MY parent!

Anyhoo, let's go split a plate of nachos and talk about the state of the world and just what the hell we're going to do about it! You'd enjoy talking with the person Elphaba calls, "just about the most unintelligent and misguided individual I have ever seen on a message board anywhere........"

Excuse the 8 elipses. They aren't mine.

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eyeonbroadway's post should be required reading!

Thank you for an intelligent, well constructed message which speaks to all of us on many different levels.

Refreshing!

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I hope the young people on BWW who don't feel comfortable being open with their parents will read it and realize that there are adults they can turn to...even if they are not at home. As someone once said, 'it takes a village...'

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Updated On: 6/22/05 at 10:20 AM

Namo, then why didn't you just say that?
That I can agree with. It's all the gobblygook around it that gets your message lost....and yes, I know "gobblygook" isn't a word..... ;oP

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You're ignoring me, Elph, but I'll reply. It is what I said. Obviously, with my first long post, I showed my connection to and interest in this issue. I mean, Christ, a Harvard researcher, for goodness sake, was able to give me a real look at the pulse of what's going on with certain drugs and certain segments of the population. What you call gobbledegook (I suppose if it's not a word I can just type that and not check for consistency) I call DEEP background. I gave it to show that I wasn't just having a reactionary response to a specific topic based just on my own personal drug experience or my "thoughts on how things should be."

[Which, incidentally, is why DARE is such a failure. Who wouldn't think, on a gut level, that it works? That it doesn't, and has been PROVEN to not, is a minor technicality that can easily be ignored when there's as much money as there is in the DARE budget involved.]

I do think personal "drugalogues" have their place in discourse and drug education. But I don't think any individual's story is the centerpiece of serious discussion of drug use, the pleasures or the dangers.

And I see that people got hung up on phraseology like "it's their job" and "it's what they do." But really, for most people who do drugs, they do in fact have a part of their lives with experimentation and limits testing. Most move past it. Some do not and have perfectly productive lives anyway. And some, alas, are destroyed by addiction.

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Speaking of DARE's failures, those abstinence contracts kids are signing these days are leading to even higher incidences of other high-risk forms of sexual contact that are everything but intercourse.
So the parallels exist there in sex education, too.

well.....obviously I am no longer ignoring you, silly.
I realized that was just stupid. But I do believe less is more, and that one sentence truly said what you wanted to say.

I don't think there is any one "correct" way in this issue.

I would not want to be a teen today. It's got to be tough to be growing-up in this world, and I salute those who make it. I didn't have to worry about sex possibly killing me, or planes flying into buildings......

Oh God, now I am sounding like an old "fuddy-duddy"...So be it.

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Instruction at home for me was non-existent. But I think my parents were stymied because they knew I was a little gay boy. How do straight parents discuss gay sex...when the kid is so far away from the self-discovery and acceptance of his attraction to other boys. I mean...there were the obligatory references to safer sex...but what I learned, I learned on my own.

When it came to drugs, it was just taken for granted that none of us would do them...cause it would simply shame my family. And, my dad being an attorney, my mother LOVED to tell us that if we did anything like that and it brought harm to someone else, they'd revoke our father's license to practice law and we'd be poor and destitute and have to leave Bergen County for Passaic County. That fear (and the fear of her deadly flying shoe and her brilliant aim) kept us on the straight and narrow for quite some time. As an adult, I decided to engage in behavior that I considered acceptably risky. That's a conversation that NO ONE ever had with me till I was in my late 20's. My whole life it was drugs are bad and people who do them are bad. Any form of physical touching must be accompanied by latex. But...fact is...there's plenty to do before latex becomes involved and there are some risks with altering substances (I include alcohol and cigarettes in with that) that I was willing to take. As an adult. I fully support children and adolescents under the age of what is considered a legal adult to do their best to focus on school and other activities while putting off adult decisions until adulthood. But the conversation about those decisions must start early.

When I was in therapy, I was seeing an addiction specialist. I wasn't dealing with addiction (other than cigarettes), but he was a wonderful therapist who really helped me put parts of my life in focus. He know I did drugs rarely and recreationally. I had no shame about it, and he did not feel the need to tell me what I was doing was wrong or bad. He knew I made an informed decision as an adult and that, since drugs were not being turned to because of some emotional scars or psychological issues, I was perfectly capable of handling it. I miss him. I think I'm gonna go back to him. But goddamnit he had cats and I'm allergic.

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It doesn't surprise me to hear stories like yours, bwaysinger, but it's still pretty sad. We keep saying that each successive generation is better informed than the last, so why don't we get better at parenting?

I don't think it's a "lost" recipe because I sure didn't feel like my parents or grandparents had it figured out...but we haven't done much as a society to teach people how to be better parents.

Namo did bring up an interesting phenomenon -- that of gay men starting their dance with Tina in middle age (which, in gay years, could very well mean by the age of 25). That bears some discussion, I think. Could be very interesting.

I think it could be because of the gay gene that causes some to continually chase the best orgasm. We hear of something that will enhance pleasure -- badaboom, we're THERE and we're DOING it. Poppers? Yup. Autoerotic asphyxiation? Yup. Tina? Why not?

And before you start pointing your flame throwers at me, I'm certainly not exempting the straighties from this. I'm just speaking from the psyche I know best: the horny gay man.