Well, read on.
My Harlequin SuperRomance Out of the Depths is an August release (Yay! Soon … very soon!) One of the settings in the book is a cave, and in the Dear Author letter at the front of the book, I explain how I came up with that setting. Last week, I received my author copies, and I took the first one to my parents to whom the book is dedicated. They were very proud (note the use of past tense).
Two days ago, my parents came for dinner. Dad stayed on the deck where my husband was grilling, but Mother came into the kitchen to join me and to do a little grilling of her own. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey! (gave her a hug)
Mother: When did you go cave exploring?
Me: Back in high school.
Mother: I didn’t ever know it.
Me: Yes, you did.
Mother: No, I didn’t. You must’ve sneaked off without telling us.
Me: No, I didn’t. You gave your permission.
Mother: We wouldn’t have given our permission for you to do something that dangerous.
Me: Yeah, you did.
Mother: Who drove?
Now at this point, I was a little baffled we were having this conversation, and she was actually angry.
Me: I don’t remember. It was over forty years ago.
Mother: Well, teenagers are such bad drivers. You had to have sneaked out and not told us.
Me: (deciding it was time to change the subject) I’ve got to get these veggies out to the grill. (I pick up said veggies and hustle out. I greet my dad with a hug).
Dad: Your mom is mad at you for going cave exploring.
Reread first part substituting Dad in Mother’s role.
Anyway, you get the point. I was telling my husband about it later, and it hit me what was going on. My parents are afraid someone is going to think they were bad parents because I did something dangerous. Even at eighty-five that weighs heavy on them. So, to make peace in the family and allow them to keep their honor badge for good parenting, I’d like to set the record straight.
My parents never knew I went spelunking (I’ll put the real truth in parentheses. It will just be between you and me. Yes, they did and they gave their permission.) I sneaked out (no, I didn’t). No one drove. We hiked to the cave and back (it was fifteen miles away, so someone drove—maybe too fast). When I came home filthy after a day in the cave, I told them my friends and I had been planting crops to feed the homeless (oh c’mon—surely a writer could’ve come up with a better alibi than this).
And there you have it. The truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
If you run into my parents, please pat them on the back and assure them they’re still doing a good job. I mean, if it’s ninety-nine years of worry, we’re only a bit past half-way.
15 comments:
OMG, I guess it's not only my parents (well parent now that my dad is no longer with us physically) that do that! I'm 57 yrs old and still answer to my 83 yr old mother! My dad was actually pretty cool about stuff, but my mom was the worry wart. We did so many things that it's hard to choose just one. How about carnival rides in the guava trees... we'd climb 15 to 20 ft up in the tree and to the spindliest branches and let the top of the tree bend us down to the ground. Not sure how we managed not to have the trees snap on us! Or walking on vines growing on the tops of trees with a 10 to 15 ft drop if you fell through a hole or the vine decided to give, hmmm also jumping 20 ft off the house roof into a 4 ft deep pile of sawdust... I could go on and on, but I won't :) My sisters are 14 and 15 yrs younger than I am so it was usally me, my 3 brothers, my 2 male cousins and my uncle who was 7 yrs older than me :)
Pamela, I think I had too many siblings for my parents to worry about what we did in the past. They were probably happy we were all alive and safe. Snookie and I were probably climbing trees at about the same time, they were just different kinds of trees, but we had no vines. And bikes. We had a hill that was so hard to ride up and so much fun to ride down as fast as you could, and in the country where we lived, there were no shoulders on the road, the cars drove as fast as they wanted, etc. I laugh when I think about what I'd do if I had to do those things today.
dangerous thing I did when I was child hem .. I think is following my brother everywhere he go like as chased a broken kite even at middle of the road, catching small fish in the river and the boy's game that was forbidden by our parents, but we just a kid with great curiosity :)
Oh my, Snookie--you make my spelunking adventure sound quite tame! I'm a worrie, too--but I hope by the time my kids are in their 50's, I'll no longer about what they did as teens!
Boy, I'd like to swing on a guava tree just once. though ...
I understand, Mary. We used to ride our bikes in the street and do tricks on them--standing with one foot on the seat, towing one friend on the handlebars and one on the back bumper, running and jumping on by throwing our leg over--and we did it all with no helmets. What were we thinking? I guess we weren't--we were kids, huh:-)
Eli, older siblings can definitely be harzardous to our health. I have an older sister, and I tried to do everything she did. My 8-year-old self wasn't nearly as coordinated as her 13-year-old self--and I have the deviated septum to prove it:-)
LOL--Pam, I love that story. I'm sure there were things I did that my parents didn't know about, but for the most part I never had to be that sneaky. If I said I was going out with friends, driving, hiking or caving, I'm sure my parents would have said, okay, as well.
Ro, that was the interesting part--my parents were very strict, and I've often marveled that they allowed me to do something that dangerous. It wasn't like them to say okay. I suspect maybe I made it sound much more tame than it actually was:-)
OH, my. This has been a topic of conversation around my house..and my Sunday School class... for the past several weeks.
It has come to my attention that my kids don't know how to do kid-like things. They don't know how to survive - lie, strategize, fix spindles on chairs with glue or charge forth into the world without sunscreen, bug spray a full report given to every adult within 500 ft about where they're going, who they're with, when they'll be back and, yes, they have their cellphone.
Major light bulb moment.
So this summer, I've tried really hard to be hands off. I drop them off at the swimming pool and don't stay. I let them go off in the neightborhood with friends to fish, go frogging, play ball and chase girls. I leave them at home alone and refrain from calling them every hour on the hour. I only pack the sunscreen, rather than rub it on their faces. It's so hard, but I realized that I was doing every thing for them and they had no coping skills for dealing with real life. They need that. I had it. I survived and I'm mostly equipped to deal with the curve balls life throws at me.
Today's parents have enormous pressure to create a perfect childhood for their perfect children who should get perfect grades, throw perfect fastballs and live perfect lives. And we're screwing them up, people.
Okay, i could stand on this soapbox all day long, so I'll climb off. But thank heavens, you're parents gave you permission to explore your world. Oh, wait. Thank goodness you totally disobeyed, snuck out and explored caves. It brought forth a book and likely lots of good memories.
Yeah, yeah, the world is a dangerous place, but it's still the same world we grew up in. We just know more now and maybe that's not such a good thing. Great post!
I didn't really have to sneak out as a teenager. My mom worked a lot, so if I had a ride, I'd go. There were no cell phones to check in. Besides, I never did half the stuff she did. So I am hoping that my kids (the oldest is about to enter High School) will only do half the stuff I did.
I try to be a not-too-hands-on parent. I let my kids entertain themselves while I write. I do leave them home alone while I run to the store or excercise (they're 14 and 9) and the 9 year old gets to stay home when I run his brother to practice (about 20 min. round trip)he loves it.
We don't quite live close enough to town for them to explore on their own. The street they'd have to walk down has no sidewalks and people drive too fast. I have let them ride down to the park, but then I worry.
But I worry even more that they are not developing self-sufficiency. This next year is going to be a challenge, more for than my Freshman.
Thanks for your support, Liz! LOL:-) Glad to know you're letting your kids be kids. We really do have to learn to fight our own battles. We want to protect them from every harm--forever. But life doesn't work that way. Despite our best efforts, things happen. Or, like my case with the cave, things DON'T happen:-)
Kristina,
Those high school years are the tough ones. they need their autonomy, but we still need to be included. 13-16 were the most difficult ages for me with my kids. Once they hit 16, they became (almost) human again:-) I think that knowing those precious driving privileges can be taken away gives us parents a lot of leverage:-)
With seven children and six of them under ten, my working mom didn't have much time to watch over us or worry about us. When I was five I broke my leg jumping off a piano stool. The nearest doctor was about two hundred miles away and we didn't have a car. I don't remember anything until the doctor was putting a cast on my leg. What I remember most is my first taxi ride from the hospital to my grandmother's house.
As part of my job, I was informed how many known pedophiles lived in our small city. Shocking number. And I never let my kids out of my line of sight.
Wow, Linda! A broken leg from the height of a piano stool:-( You must have hit in precisely the right (or wrong) spot.
In today's world, we have to keep a close eye on the kids.
nothing really serious when i was young. just a little naughty me and my sister have broken radiotape with some needle and pin. whoa, we two got serious teach from my father.
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