A father passing by his son’s bedroom, was astonished to see the bed was nicely made, and everything was picked up. Then, he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, “Dad.”
With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.
“Dear, Dad.
It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.I’ve been finding real passion with Stacy, and she is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her, because of all her piercing, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am. But it’s not only the passion, Dad. She’s pregnant.
Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.
Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves, and trading it with the other people in the commune, for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.
In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS, so Stacy can get better. She sure deserves it!!
Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15, and I know how to take care of myself.
Someday, I’m sure we’ll be back to visit, so you can get to know your many grandchildren.
Love, your son, John.
PS: Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that’s on my desk. I love you! Call when it is safe for me to come home.
Thanks for reminding us to chill out about perceived problems.
I have a son about to do the “most important exams in his life” or so he keeps being told. We are fairly chilled about things and don’t stress ourselves or him about it, but he does know these exams are important and we expect him to do HIS best.
I know that many, many parents put a lot of pressure on their children to do well, when in reality, if they get into their course (or even their second or third choice) they are “in” and can make further choices down the track. They may not even want to go on to further study (gasp!!).
We went to QUT last weekend and a lecturer in the subject my son is interested in said to apply for the course of his choice with an OP 6, another similar course with OP 8 and to make sure he applies for something with an OP 10. He said my son will get into one of the courses and can do the first general year and then change horses mid-stream.
It was a real comfort to us, but I know other parents who are more stressed and edgy than their kids.
I have a feeling that it is a slight variation on “keeping up with the Joneses”. My John will be doing law, medicine whatever, what is your son going to do?”.
I don’t care what he does as long as he is happy, truly.
Wylie
Wew!
I've got a friend before who is like John.
I think parents put too much pressure onto kids for uni, grades, results, and try to make their lives happier or keep up with the Jones' through their kids results.
It casts my mind back to a tragedy many years ago when I was doing the HSC we had a lovely classmate that scored very well, was polite, a good young man, nice looking, into sports, music, surfing.
His parents pushed him so much and verbally abused him about his results as he didnt get high enough to go to Sydney Uni to do Medicine and how they felt shame, spent so much money on him, etc etc. This lovely young man went to near the Blue Mountains and hung himself. This was 20 years ago now but I think of it often, and just wish a lot of parents would chill out, have fun with their kids, communicate, go camping, spend more time together as a family, and realise that not all people are meant to be doctors, lawyers, accountants or have high grades, there are so many other options- business, building, trades, travel agent, teacher, fireman, painter, tiler, or maybe it is also good to travel and have fun, work a few jobs then go and study if this is what they want to do. Uni is not always the answer.
It is better to have healthy, happy, well adjusted, laughing kids/ teenagers that are alive than academic high achievers that are stressed out, taking drugs/ alcohol, unhappy in their relationships, and with their work and stuck in a money and pleasing the parents fascade.
Actually my friends that didnt go to Uni and had a lot of fun have actually turned out better finacially, have good businesses and have a more balanced life, than the highly educated, academics that work 15 hrs a day, are highly stressed, divorced by 35, and now trying to work out what is wrong with life, and deeply unhappy. Parents need to chill a bit and not live through their kids so much.
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