(this one's got 'i'm going to give my mom hell' written all over her face)
(when i was a teenager, my mom cursed me and said, "i hope god gives you a girl exactly like yourself." translation: i hope your teenager will be a belligerent, argumentative, pain in the ass.)
1. 11pm curfew in high school
2. midnight curfew in college (they wanted to protect me from car accidents with drunk drivers)
3. no sleepovers in high school (they thought a friend's dad or brother would molest me)
4. zero love life in high school thanks to the no talking to the opposite sex policy (they deduced that conversing on the phone is like the gateway drug to having sex)
5. living at home with my parents for all FOUR years of college, thereby resulting in:
6. no dorm experience ("vaay live in dorm when you live ther-tee minutes from es-kool, makes zee-ro sense taraneh jan.")
7. no apartment living experience in college (see above)
8. no study abroad experience in college
9. no frat party experience (come on - i had seen the movies and had always dreamt about getting really drunk at a frat party and making out with a dreamy, blonde frat boy - i had also imagined myself with really big boobs in this scenario, you know you did too!)
my little sister should really shower me with gifts on a monthly basis or at the very least remind me of my awesomeness on a daily basis - for the nice, easy, smooth road i paved for her with my very own blood, sweat, and tears (literally).
1. my little sister slept at a friend's house every weekend in elementary, middle, and high school! ("have a vonder-fool time dar-leeng!")
2. she had a plethora of male friends, who called the house, and had full on, pleasant conversations with my dad. [this is the same dad who barked, "don't ever call here again" to one of my guy friends who called about a homework assignment once and nearly made him shit his pants]
3. she lived in the dorms her freshman year ("it is not safe to de-rive home late after studying at de libary all night")
4. the cool apartment style dorms her sophomore year ("it is good to not have roomate")
5. she lived in a sorority house her junior year ("dis is good for resume and so-ro-retee do good tings for community, yes?")
6. studied abroad in spain her senior year ("dis is very good ex-per-eeyence for you!")
as you can see, my parents evolved. (hmmm...or maybe they felt really bad that my sister has a dairy allergy and overcompensated with freedom and no discipline. that can't be it! i had asthma dammit - i couldn't breathe! she couldn't eat ice-cream. which is worse??? strike that.)
yeah yeah - i know the oldest always goes through hell. and parents have either come to their senses or have given up the fight with the second and third born. but i'm still very bitter. (shocking!) i will admit this - when you have your own kids, you kinda start to understand where they were coming from. you start to realize that your parents were not the crazy, heartless, cruel people you thought they were. you start to understand that the world is an unsafe, unpredictable place filled with lunatics and rapists.
i wasn't allowed to get my license until i turned 17. i thought it was the end of the world and that god had dealt me the shittiest hand when it came to being born. i think about dina driving around in 11 years at the tender age of 16 and i'm like, oh hell no! i open up the metro section of the washington post and am obsessed with reading the little blurbs that describe accidents involving teenagers who have lost their lives. it happens almost every day! should 16 year olds really be on the road? blaring their music, texting their friends, and talking on their cellphones?? i think not.
despite the world being a scary place, i know that if i raise my child to be a mature, responsible, smart, and sensible person - it's ok to let them go. dina can go to stanford and live in the dorms. (she just better know that i will move to cali with her and buy a place within a 5 mile radius.) i know that my parents were concerned for my safety and well-being and thought they were doing what was best for me. but when you become too restrictive and suffocating, you run the risk of your kid turning into a crack whore. they were lucky i didn't rebel and turn into a slut. that's because they had done a good job of raising me. (and because i'm a people-pleaser - ahem. not in that way - i like to please authority - you know be teacher's pet, my parents' favorite, etc.) so i will try to remember the hell i went through when it comes to the battles that are sure to come my way during my girls' teenage years. i will try to be more open-minded and less controlling. i will try to be less oppressive and more tolerant. i am an over-bearing persian mom (it's in my blood), but i'll make sure to let the cool, mellow american side of me shine through.
akhmmm...do i still sense some resentment for the fact that you had to live vicariously through me? :) i doubt that this all happend bc you paved the way. overall, i was just a much better negotiator. i would prep them years in advance about my plans;)
ReplyDeletei still think it's the milk allergy. come on - if your kid couldn't eat the best things in life, you'd feel a slight sense of guilt and be a little more lax and send them off to spain - no worries. :) you have to admit, i definitely took your side when these situations arose. but yes, you were telling them how you'd get your license at 16 when you were in diapers. i do remember that. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, being the youngest does definitely have it's perks, sometimes, but it also sucked often enough. Alex would always con me out of what little hard-earned money I had by selling me his broken toys. Ahmad would eat all the cereal and would disregard any ownership rights I thought I had to my own property.
ReplyDeleteThat is, of course, until I grew bigger than both of them.
Haha..oh Ahmad and his cereal! Is this Blueberry Morning or peanut butter Puffins that we're talking about here?
ReplyDeleteGreat post, T!! I can relate to so many of your points, especially about the curfew. And about boys. I remember being asked to prom in the 10th grade and my parents were so flipped out about it that I had to call the guy immediately to let him down. And what do you know...come 10th grade, my sister is staying out with her friends after midnight, going to prom, driving around with [gasp] older high schoolers. I think in her case, she kept breaking the rules so often that eventually the parents gave up. I swear, the life of the youngest sibling...
:-)
P.S. What your dad said - #2 of Part 2 - totally cracks me up!!
Oh how I can relate. I think your Persian parents had the same rules as my Chinese parents!
ReplyDeletebeing the youngest is the BEST. :) :)
ReplyDelete-shadi
mohsen - alex was crying from laughter after reading your comment. was this healthy granola flax cereal a la bird food we're talking about here or did ilze actually buy non-healthy cereal once in a while??
ReplyDeleteinga - it's comforting to know that you suffered too. :) did you go wild in college?
momisodes - if only the asians and persians had united and started parties at noon. why is it that people in college would not go out until 10pm??
shadi - you're so spoiled!