“My 14-Year-Old Isn’t Socially Distancing. What Should I Do?” (NYT, May 22)…
Karen the reader:
My 14-year-old daughter (who knows that I check her phone) went on what was supposed to be a socially distanced walk with her pal. Afterward, I found a TikTok draft of their attempt at a “social distance” dance, which ended up in a pile of giggles and bumping into each other. I’m disappointed, and am wondering what I should do when she asks to see her friends again.
Karen the NYT therapist:
Given this, when your daughter next asks to see her friends, you might say, “I’ve thought it over, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll be able to stay at least six feet away from your friends, especially when you miss them so much.” You might also let her know that, even though she might plan to respect the social distancing guidelines, you don’t feel good about putting her in the likely situation of needing to rebuff a dear friend’s spontaneous and enthusiastic hug.
For example, if local restrictions and the health factors in your household permit, you might see if she wants to invite her friends for an outdoor “six feet a-party” at your home or while you tag along at a public location. They’ll need to be where you can see them, even if at a distance or through a window, so that your daughter can blame you for her good behavior while enjoying the company of her friends.
Beyond coming up with practical, albeit frustrating, compromises, we can offer empathy. This often goes farther that we think. You might say, “I know that this is not what you want, and I cannot tell you how much I wish things were different. We’ll do the best we can with the options we have, but I get it if you’re really unhappy about it.”
Given that it looks like we may be in for a long haul with Covid-19, we parents will need to get accustomed to coming up with creative solutions when possible and providing generous support and compassion for the painful situations that are beyond our control. It’s not as much as we want to offer, but it’s likely to be enough to get us through.
Reader comments are almost all from like-minded Karens. If we assume the questioning Karen is the mother of the 14-year-old rebel-without-a-mask, nobody points out that anyone young enough to be the biological mother of a 14-year-old is unlikely to herself be seriously victimized by Covid-19 (if the family formerly visited elderly/vulnerable relatives in a nursing home, presumably that isn’t possible now regardless of the 14-year-old’s vigilance).
I find this interesting because parents used to be worried about 14-year-olds risking the teenager’s own welfare, e.g., by drinking alcohol (legal in much of Europe), having sex (legal in much of Europe), and taking drugs. Since 14-year-olds are essentially invulnerable to Covid-19, what we now have are parents who aren’t even bothering to try to hide the fact that they’re primarily interested in themselves (i.e., reducing an already extremely low risk of a serious consequence from an encounter between the coronavirus and a middle-aged person).
Therapist says the NYT. Then she would know that keeping a 14 year old girl socially isolated is mentally unhealthy. I don’t think these middle aged women are worried about their own health, they are 100% virtue signaling. Wonder if they would let their 14 year old daughter go to a protest. Does fake social justice virtue signal higher than fake pandemic rule following?
Report from California:
> Wonder if they would let their 14 year old daughter go to a protest.
Yes
> Does fake social justice virtue signal higher than fake pandemic rule following?
Yes
Well you got shot down by Barb (and three others who recommended her rebuttal) right away! You don’t have any friends in the comments section of the New York Times, either, you sexist!
The amazing thing is that I found the therapist’s answer riddled with sexism and assumptions about gender identity. Lisa Damour said:
“Either way, consider upping your hugs, casually rubbing her back as you pass by where she studies or attempting some other way to make physical contact that fits with the context of your relationship — maybe in the guise of something like doing each other’s hair or nails.” <—! Makeup!
Why is that appropriate advice? If a man had posed the question about his daughter, what would Damour's advice be? "Take her to the parking garage and show her how to change the oil on the Lexus?" "How dare you violate your daughter's privacy by snooping on her phone?" Also all the acceptance about hugging? Why not say: "Act like a boy and don't hug your friends like a girl!" I know the last thing I wanted to do when I was 14 was hug my male friends. But maybe for girls it's a bonding thing.
And this was downright sneaky: "You might also let her know that, even though she might plan to respect the social distancing guidelines, you don’t feel good about putting her in the likely situation of needing to rebuff a dear friend’s spontaneous and enthusiastic hug."
Why resort to that kind of psychological manipulation? Why not just say: "Well, honey, now that I've violated your privacy by looking at your phone, I want to tell you something. I think you're better than this. In this unusual time we're in, we all have to think a little harder and try to behave a little differently than we normally would. You're my daughter and I'm proud of you – I raised you to have good judgment. Next time you're with your friends, you should be the leader and tell them that the hugging isn't safe. Can you do that for all of us?"
Anyway, I thought some of the advice in the comments section was good. This shouldn't be a huge problem for someone with good parenting skills. She could easily try to impress upon her daughter how serious COVID can be by showing her frightening news articles about others who have contracted the disease and say: "People die from this! I'm not doing it to punish you!"
Now is a good time to go study to be a therapist!
All these teenagers traumatized now will need so much therapy in the few years that it will be possible to rake in a fortune!
It always amazes me when I see parent are concerned and care about their kids this way, after all they could die from COVID-19 in a heartbeat thus they go out of their way to seek advice and protect them.
On a different topic, have you seen how concerned and caring parents are about their kids when it comes to their education? Who their friends are? If they are well mannered? How much time they spend on electronic devices? Et. al. No, because none of this will kill them in a heartbeat, it will kill them in an agonizing, slow and painful death spanning over their life time.