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The Troubled Teen Industry / Re: How do you feel towards your parents?
« on: September 16, 2010, 12:53:28 AM »
The best thing about being an adult, for me, is not having to attempt to depend on undependability. I like my parent as people, and I did prior to placement. They are affable, just not good parents.
Today, my mom and I see each other once every few years. We have a pleasant conversation over dinner, and then one of us goes back to our respective coast. I see my father a bit more often. I live in a city, so when he travels here for work, sometimes, we have dinner. He sees his grandkid, and I get a few laughs. My father is a great story teller. I am not close to either of my parents.
It is my opinion that parents who consider placing an adolescent in remote facilities with little-to-no safe guards in place have non-trivial mental health issues. In the very rare occasion, I am at a dinner party and I hear someone mentioning a student being shipped to one of those places, the next piece of information is always about how fucked up the parents are. Not because the gossiper believes the school is bad, but because of the commonly held belief that poor parenting choices lead to kids with problems. Even when I was a student at one of these ignoble institutions, I certainly recognized that nearly all the students could have benefited, including me, from parents who just tried harder to be good parents, or a least descent people.
Today, my mom and I see each other once every few years. We have a pleasant conversation over dinner, and then one of us goes back to our respective coast. I see my father a bit more often. I live in a city, so when he travels here for work, sometimes, we have dinner. He sees his grandkid, and I get a few laughs. My father is a great story teller. I am not close to either of my parents.
It is my opinion that parents who consider placing an adolescent in remote facilities with little-to-no safe guards in place have non-trivial mental health issues. In the very rare occasion, I am at a dinner party and I hear someone mentioning a student being shipped to one of those places, the next piece of information is always about how fucked up the parents are. Not because the gossiper believes the school is bad, but because of the commonly held belief that poor parenting choices lead to kids with problems. Even when I was a student at one of these ignoble institutions, I certainly recognized that nearly all the students could have benefited, including me, from parents who just tried harder to be good parents, or a least descent people.