The vanguard attitude

Once, as a child, I overheard my father saying casually to guests assembled at dinner: "If you have sons, you wait up for however long it takes until they get home safely; but if you have daughters, the only thing you can do is pray."

Incomprehensible as it was, I tucked it away in my mind and slowly, in gradual increments, its meaning revealed itself to me only when my daughters hit their teens. Thankfully, the three of us survived those turbulent years albeit with an assortment of nicks, scrapes and bruises to show for it. There were a few deep-cut bleeders, now turned to scars: testament to that well-fought battle against the teen-age years. In hindsight, I look at all that with a good helping of humor and regard it as collateral damage for the treacherous journey of raising children into adults.

I did stay up every night that they were out, ever mindful of the cellular phone on my nightstand until fatigue, tension and anxiety got the better of me and pulled my eyelids shut against my will on rare nights. When they left to attend university elsewhere I fought for my hold on them by being a cell phone vigilante and monitoring their moves via remote control, foolishly convinced that I could put a handle on their fate if I kept close watch. But the results I got from that were atrocious phone bills and irate daughters. Yes, those dreaded middle-of-the-night calls came bearing news of varying degrees of misfortune: minor car accidents; inebriation; allergy flare-ups; influenza; lost wallets; missed flights and train schedules; overwhelming school work; insufficient funds (mostly that); the rare attack of homesickness, and only then when I asked them if they missed me; dates from hell and sundry boy problems.

There was, after all, just cause for my worries; they were not entirely attributable to neurosis, entirely being the operative word!

When my two daughters, now 20-somethings, go out at night, I go through the motions of staying up to wait and summoning all the saints in heaven to please shroud them with protective shields, but I always end up snuggled in bed and off to dreamland long before they arrive. They insist that they catch me snoring every time they peek into my room at those late hours when they get home, but my take on that is, if I don’t hear it myself, I don’t believe it.

I am quite certain that there are a considerable number of parents up at night entertaining the same thoughts and assuaging the same fears. Whether it is sons or daughters that we have we count the minutes until they get home. But what my father said about prayer as the only recourse when raising daughters holds because even in this millennium when equality between the sexes is increasingly becoming a reality, that one substantial factor that puts women at a disadvantage is their vulnerability to sexual abuse and violation. Often, when such thoughts enter parents’ minds, the only lifeline to sanity is faith in a higher power. Assault of any kind is something out of the ordinary. It does not lurk in every corner that our children turn. But it is an omnipresent threat that fulfills itself without rhyme or reason. It is true that our sons and daughters are equally in danger when it comes to this; I feel that somehow women have a greater handicap by virtue of physical attributes. A man of the same height as a woman easily outweighs her by 20 pounds, not to mention his sturdier musculature and bulkier skeletal system. The woman may be an expert in self-defense and martial arts but sometimes a couple of pounds can be the determining factor as to who prevails.

The dating scene today is ever more precarious because the rules seem muddled if not totally nonexistent. Courtship is a word that is on its way to obsolescence. Youngsters prefer to use the term "hook up," which means literally that. Boys and girls meet in public places as opposed to good old-fashioned "boy-comes-a’calling-in-the family-home" practice. The Meet the Fockers evenings that my generation would endure have become something of a death sentence to present-day bachelorhood and are reserved for those "seriously dating" and "almost affianced" couples. In other words – not to press the panic button but in the interest of humor and irony – Jack the Ripper’s incarnation may be squiring our daughters around town and we will be among the last to know.

It doesn’t help that there is a proliferation of recreational drugs in their purest, most expensive forms: designer concoctions, synthetic mutations and much, much worse; the haphazardly manufactured clones of dubious composition and origin peddled by fly-by-night pushers. These, plus the alcohol readily available to youngsters who often miscalculate its effects on the brain have led to one too many vehicular tragedies, sexual indiscretions, drunken brawls and petty crimes.

Before we point our finger somewhere, let us find our bearings so we can navigate through this issue with a full tank of gas, an updated map and a working compass. I hail from that generation of yuppies that collectively labored to reduce life’s complications into manageable acronyms – concepts that had been compressed and labeled. We bought PCs, got our MBAs and our BMWs, started the health revolution, went to the gym and monitored our BMIs (basal metabolic indices), ran on treadmills to lower our BPs, went up in arms against MSG, used too much aerosol hairspray for the ’80s big hairdos, making the hole in the ozone layer bigger, discovered UVA and UVB, invented SPF to protect against them, got into hobbies like DIY, listened to U2, INXS with Michael Hutchence and REM, got married and moved into the burbs and into SDHs (single detached homes), became DINKs (double income/no kids) and after a few years had 1.2 kids on the average, fought for female empowerment and sexual liberation. It may have been started by the generation of the baby boomers, our parents, in the ’60s but it was during our watch that STDs evolved into untreatable strains like HIV, AIDS and HEPB and C.

We blame video games and MTV for bringing the culture of violence into our homes and our children’s consciousness but let us not forget that our peers were the purveyors of these phenomena. If this is the life we bequeath our children then it is our duty to arm them with the smarts to overcome it. Informing them of current social issues has become cliché; it is a given that we have taken the pains to articulate to them the basic concerns of teenagers in the 21st century but we might have to take the extra step of enumerating concrete measures that they can resort to when they come into a bind. And they will, at one point or another, like we all did. We do this not to instill paranoia that will paralyze them into locking themselves at home, because there is much fun to be had, but to send them out equipped and aware of their options and possible courses of action, bolstered by the knowledge that they have parents who are allies in their journey to adulthood and discernment.

There may be one less thing for parents to worry about if we all agree to talk to our children about adopting a "vanguard attitude" toward their peers, which means looking out for themselves primarily and then for others who may be too drunk to drive or for women who appear incoherent and in the company of questionable characters, or for someone abandoned by friends at the wayside. They need not interfere directly and endanger themselves but a well-intentioned phone call from a Good Samaritan may be a life-saving measure.

If, one of these nights, you find yourself awake and agitated over concern for your teenager out on the town, find comfort in the fact that you are not alone in your vigil and by some stroke of luck may even have your children under the safe eye of those whose parents have made it their mission to arm their children with that same vanguard attitude.

While we’re at it, may I please request that you parents of sons include in your agenda, if it’s not too much to ask, to drop in a word or two on chivalry: opening doors and pulling out chairs for the ladies, guiding them in negotiating staircases and main thoroughfares at no extra cost, because I have three more daughters yet to break into the teenage years. They just might bump into one of your sons. We can save the topic of roses, chocolates and picking up the tab for the next article, or is that pushing my luck?

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E-mail the author at clfortyfied@yahoo.com