I’m going to the bris of my old roommate’s son this week. Said old roommate is now a Conservative Rabbi.
A large chunk of my college friends have bred by now, with some of the kids approaching their double digits. Which leads to the question –
At what age can I tell the Rabbi’s son about the time the Rabbi threw a blanket with a silk-screened horse on it over his head and galloped around the room, just to amuse me when I was tripping? Or the time I took the tripping Rabbi to go see Stop Making Sense, and he thought it was a live concert? Age 10? Age 16? Never?
And do I ever get to tell Amanda’s daughter that Amanda and I got caught having sex at the Jefferson memorial?
The teenage years are never a good time to reveal a person’s wild side to their children.
Firstly, their tender little minds don’t have a strong enough transmission developed to handle the paradigm shift involved. In one instant, their parents have gone from lame-o losers to insidious party animals. In other words, they’ve become human - and teenagers just aren’t equipped to entertain that point of view.
Secondly, knowing those kind of things about one’s parents invariably lead to the “Well, if they could do that and turn out OK, I should be able to get away with more.” Kids are always gonna try to get away with stuff, which is just fine and dandy, but they shouldn’t be able to rationalize it with their parents’ past behavior as justification. Not to mention the friction that can arise when the parents find out what their kids are up to and try to stop it. “You guys did all that stuff, why can’t I?”
As for Amanda’s daughter… no, you most certainly do not. Sex lives of family members are right up there at the top of the TMI list. The only thing worse than knowing about parents’ sex lives is coming up against incontrovertible evidence of it. :eek: shudder
Some things are best kept from kids. Eons ago, my dad introduced me to the woman he dated before he met my mother. He said something silly like “Just think - she might have been your mom!” Completely freaked me out. I didn’t need to hear that, and it was just a meaningless, offhand comment…
I personally think it’s not horrible for teenagers to know about their parents’ “past”. There are many caveats to this theory, of course, such as the nature of the relationship between the kid in question and his/her parents, and the personality of the kid. (Some people, for example, although they know logically that their parents had sex (mine did, at least 5 times), prefer to think that it never happened. These are not the kind of people who should hear about Mom having pre-marital sex on Abe Lincoln’s lap.) Overall, though, I think that such knowledge is not bad per se, and that the age of the kid can be arbitrary in such situations.
That said, I also think that it should be the choice of the parents (who presumably know their kids well enough to know what they can handle) to reveal such information to their kids. Even if they’re being TOTALLY hypocritical now, and lying their asses off about how Mommy and Daddy did nothing racier than peck each other on the cheek before they got married, it’s their right, and their kid.
Now, when the kid turns 21 and you take him out for his cough “First Beer”, all bets are off.
I’m going to straddle the fence yet again.
On one hand, children do need to know that their parents are normal, average human beings who once necked in parked cars, had one too many beers and hung out with their friends.
On the other hand, you have to know a child (or any person) fairly well before you can dump on them the details of your life as it intersected with their loved one’s. Really…I’m pretty good friends with several of The Devil’s Grandfather’s ex-girlfriends, but I would freak out completely if they felt a need to discuss their relationship with him with me. I know other people who are perfectly comfortable discussion details of past relationships, but I’m not.
So, if you are the favorite “uncle” of the rabbi’s son, you may at some age-appropriate time give the child selected details of dad’s misspent youth. If you are a distant family friend, seen only on the occasional holiday, you may not. The probable wig-out factor is just too high. :eek:
I could be mistaken gobear, but I get the distinct impression that Olentzero was alluding to a more- how shall we say?- “visceral” experience rather than cool deductive reasoning… shudder
No one wants to hear about their parents’ sex life. I know quite well that my folks enjoy their togetherness, and that is great, but that does not mean I want to hear about it in detail.
All else probably depends on how well you know the kids and how well they’re equipped to handle the information. I think it would be pretty great to see the looks on their faces…
No, I walked in on my parents once. Fortunately, it was dark and I quickly averted my eyes, but…shudder. I still get the willies when my parents kiss (mostly because they’re usually arguing, and it’s so inconsistent with who they are).
My mom also tried to tell me about when and where I was conceived. I ran from the room, screaming (and this was only 3 or 4 years ago).
And I agree with Fairychatmom about telling kids about a parent’s ex-partner. A few years ago, I introduced an Indian friend to my parents. My Mom suddenly blurts out, “Oh, I was engaged to an Indian man once.” This sent me into a tailspin for the rest of the night, as I suddenly realized that I could have been Indian. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Indians…it just disturbed me that, but for a failed engagement, my life and identity could have been completely different.)
Looking back on it, I’d like to say I can laugh about it, but really, I wish I’d just closed my bedroom door and cranked up my Walkman. It would have been so much better that way.
Heh. I was in my early teens when my mom told me how close I came to being Austrian. At the time, I was mildly put out that she had even thought of marrying anybody who wasn’t my dad. (Nowadays, I must admit, there are moments when being Austrian doesn’t sound half-bad…)
See, here’s the funny thing; I grew up knowing that kinda stuff about my parents (well, not having sex at the Jefferson Memorial, exactly, but you get the idea). I knew Mum was the more…uh…socially restrained (read: never got arrested) of the two, while Dad was certainly brought home in the back of a divvy van a time or two in his wild youth[sup]1[/sup].
Knowing about this meant I knew I could talk to them about typical teenage stuff; they’d been there and survived it all. Being a pretty grounded person who behaved like my mother than my father, on the rare occasions when I did eff up, I could say that at least I hadn’t punched a cop[sup]2[/sup] and, in comparison, being half an hour late was nothing. I didn’t go back to this well too often, but it helped the folks keep some perspective.
[sup]1[/sup]Not exactly arrested. This was a small country town. Several times, the police picked him up because he was drunk, carted him home and handed him over to his parents, saying “You deal with him. He’s going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.” He wasn’t a bad person by any stretch of the imagination, just a bit of a wild child, and he grew up to be the pillar-of-the-community sort (although still with a larrikin streak a mile wide).
[sup]2[/sup]Accidentally. Dad was aiming for someone else, the policeman stepped in to try and cool the situation. Mr Policeman was very understanding, once his nose stopped bleeding.
My 'rents had a king-size water bed until after I left for college in the late 80s. It was one of those 70s model beds with a full motion, no baffles mattress.
The waves crashing on the sides of the bed could be heard down the hall.
I thought First Rights for the release to the children of information about general childhood/teenage misbehavior by the parent belonged to the grandparents.
But I can see if upon reaching adulthood the child becomes accepted into a common circle of friends with the parent ant the Friend-Of-Parent, that FOP may then regale the now adult child with lurid crime-and-impunity tales. But I’d then prefer to do so with the parent and a few other old friends present in the room, roast-style, and allowing the parent to retaliate with tales of their own.
As to Amanda… better let her share that one, if she wants to…
… and let her hope her daughter had NOT already found that inconspicuous corner in the Jefferson Memorial herself
