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My parents, who were quite liberal, and I watched Risky Business together when I was probably too young to see it. I was never thinking about whether this would bring up questions or what my parents were thinking. I was simply too overwhelmed with embarrassment to think about anything them!
If there were remote controls back then - and we hadn't been in a movie theater - I would have changed the channels too. Not to avoid a prying conversation, but just to not be sitting there with my mom watching and hearing such things.
Truth:
When your older brother was 16, one of the businesses I (oops) was in, was making fake I.D.s
2nd business was selling beer $3 a six pack, (thanks to Dennis) Did you ever wonder why he always wanted to give me a ride to the friday night dance?
There were other businesses, but I'll wait for the your blog about them before commenting.
Hey, it WAS the 70's!!!
You made laugh!
You take this from a completely different perspective. is it the nosey parent or is it the protective parent? At what point do you let your children make their own decisions and trust that you have instilled good values in them?
I still laugh when I think about McLovin...
LOVE the "Shadow Knows" analogy!
I am quite sure he was terrified that I was going to get all "let's have a talk, son," mode... I like to think of myself as a Mom who he can talk to about anything. But, as he gets older, I realize there are limits. The truth is... I really don't want to know, and he shouldn't have to tell me. (Within... you know....reason.)
Khalid -- your point about nosey v. protective is a call I guess every parent makes for themselves and their own kid. But if you saw Superbad, well... all I can say is that it's NOT a movie I could watch with him without squirming myself.....
43 years old...tsk tsk...
My kids are still young enough (7 and 10) that their lives are an open book to me. I'm not sure yet what my boundaries will be in balancing privacy vs involvement (read: "prying") when they are teens. I guess I'll make it up as we go along.
Being in the 18-34 male demographic is hard work.
I don't have my own kids, but I'm a particularly involved uncle and godfather for a 12-year-old nephew whose father is erratically involved in his life. I think of him like a son. I'm very comfortable with the idea that he has a private life, one which will expand as he hits teenage-dom, and I'm not overly curious about the stuff he keeps to himself. If he wants to tell me, great; if not, that's cool, too. Maybe it's a guy thing. In a couple years we'll watch Superbad together, no uncomfortable subtext, and we'll laugh because we'll both know it's true.
Even though your instinct is more inquisitive, Ann, I'll bet more guys wish they had a Mom like you, one willing to leave it as a shadow on the wall, where everyone can at least pretend it doesn't exist.
* We saw South Park the movie together.
* Monster's Ball. (My Mom wanted to know why it won an Oscar. After that horribly long sex scene, my Dad says somewhat quietly, "Guess we know why.")
And there are a few more just like that.
The beauty of these kinds of movies is that they can open up conversations. The scary part is HOW you open them.
My Mom once read an article in People about something called "scarfing." I guess some folks get off by jumping off something with a scarf around their neck, and *then* doing their personal business.
Somehow, this translated into an immediate fear that she sprang on my brother. Neither he nor I had heard of this, so she had to explain it in detail. Awk-ward. But further, we were like, "What the hell do you think we DO in our rooms?" Answer: not with scarfs.
So, it's a great on-ramp to an important conversation, but it's HOW you take the next step that matters. Don't be too jokey, but don't be too "public service announcement Mom."
Knowing you as little as I do and yet as much as I do, I suspect you're a great Mom to handle these moments with tact and humor in equal parts.
I think you can see where this is going. The "Catholic High School Girls In Trouble" scene came on, and as a young teen, all I could do was face forward and turn red until my dad leaned over and said, "Tommy, why don't you go upstairs? I don't think this movie is for you."
Anyway...
Glad to see you're a MAD fan, Ann. I still have all my old issues of MAD and Cracked from when I was a kid. It's amazing how many of those jokes cruised right over my young head, and how many of those jokes I never got back then are funny now.
I credit MAD Magazine and Bloom County with cultivating my interest in politics at an early age. :-)
Actually I always wanted to be a Mad character. Wonder if they can make me a commemerative edition :)
Comment from blackberry btw so typos excused.
great story. I've got to tell you that when my hubby and I were first dating my Mom, who was at the time I think 60 something, came to Austin to meet him.
I rented this movie I'd kept hearing about from my VISTA/Peace Corp friends called, "Chasing Amy". For anyone who has seen that movie you will quickly understand why maybe it's a bit embarrassing to watch with your Mom and her husband. (It is a good movie though.)
And I love MAD and Bloom County to this day so I echo Mack on that one.
I always thought it was great that my son and I were able to talk about ANYTHING... until, yeah... let's just leave it at that.
BTW, my favorite part of MAD magazine was the back cover that you would fold to reveal a very different, but related cartoon.
When you and your shadow are one.
Not there yet. Little steps every day.
The question of "have you seen the movie" could be seen as prying -- he wasn't sure if it was OK to say yes or no, if there was a "right" answer.
As for how to turn this into a conversation -- I wouldn't ever want to have this conversation with a parent. I was caught with a fake ID 3 months before my 21st brithday (trying to get into a 21 and up music venue to hear Todd Snider). But they instilled other values in me so I never used the ID for alcohol. So, the lessons occur much earlier than in the moment.
"What do you think it means?"
"Where did you learn about this?"
"How do you feel about it?"
"Do you have any questions about it."
Everyone one of these seems better than what instinctively came out of my mouth:
"Well, don't tell your brother."
Warren -- On Facebook, we avoid each other: like we're somehow -- impossibly -- at the same party. When I stumble on him -- which I have once or twice -- I always close the door quickly, like I accidentally walked in on him in the bathroom.
p.s. Amy -- Your comment made me laugh out loud.....
Last week, after he asked me how my day went, I expounded on all my successes and failures of the day and how I would react to them in the future. Didn't take more than 15 minutes.
I looked at him and said, "Avery, you just asked me how my day was, and I really told you everything about it that is worth knowing (funny that it only took 15 minutes, but that's another matter). When I ask you how your day went, I want to know just as much as I told you."
He nodded and seemed to understand, but who really knows? He's almost 11, and I think I stopped hanging the moon in his eyes when he turned 9.