TThere are many styles of parenting teenagers, but sometimes it feels like there are only two: cool and uncool. Often, cool, liberal parents are nice: they just try to let their kids breathe. Then there are the other kind who do the “cool parent” thing. The ones who are complacent and tiring. Who make you feel old-fashioned and hysterical if you raise concerns (their attitude: “What’s the weather like in Daily Mail Country?”). Those who often seem ill-informed and outdated. They can be many things, but I have come to believe that they can also be dangerous.
Cool parents are out and about in large numbers these days. But so are the uncool ones: the anxious and wary ones. TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp is making headlines for letting her 15-year-old son go Interrailing with a friend, sparking a debate about children and parental permission.
While we are still deep into Brat Summer, the post-GCSE/A-Level party season is already kicking off. It has been obvious for some time that, just like American kids have their spring break, British kids refer to the time after exams as summer break – their thing, their moment, whether their parents like it or not.
They rock up to parties and music festivals (Reading, Leeds etc.) and do all sorts of things. And then the cool parent mantra rings out. Just like us, right? Don’t be hypocrites. Don’t be a spoilsport. Stop Catastrophize. Well, exactly. And you might agree with me to some extent. Worrying about your children might feel like parental karma – retribution for your own youthful excesses. At the same time, it starts to feel a lot more complicated.
The teen/young adult years are the true “red zone” of parenting. Babies keep you awake, messing up like little animals. But babies aren’t trampled by festival crowds or thrown at with bats in nightclubs. Nor is there a parenting culture urging you to hold back, stay out of it, and keep your mouth shut.
This is part of the difficulty of youth hedonism. It’s not just about the generation of children, but also the generation of parents. The protective, controlling “helicopter” style that dominates in Britain today is incompatible with greater freedoms. It’s also about different generations of hedonism. Is your child’s partying behaviour comparable to your own wild youth? Is it really the same out there?
Catastrophising never helps but we should be aware of the dangers young people face. Stabbings, rapes, assaults, drug poisonings (not just with drinks but with needles too). Let’s forget bottles of urine being thrown around festival campsites (stay classy, Reading), problems with crowd safety (there was a worrying ‘crowd collapse’ incident at the Cornish Boardmasters Festival recently). Drugs are plentiful, potent and, when amateurishly cut, much stronger than the dealers intended. Weed has long since left its cheesy hippie status as a ‘starter high’. Ketamine, the drug that killed actor Matthew Perry, is firmly in the mainstream.
I’m not saying that this is all new, I’m just saying that the situation seems to have gotten worse. That there are legitimate concerns and that ignoring them could itself become a problem.
One element that seems different is the young people. In my own wild youth, chaotic people like me were chaotic full-time. We lived in a whirlwind of drugs, danger, predators and helpful backstage passes. In our own chaotic way, we (sort of) knew what we were (sometimes) doing. In contrast, many in these crowds don’t even seem to qualify as what used to be called weekenders (part-timers). They’re just kids who’ve had their exams. In purely practical terms, do they have any experience with drugs – do they know their tolerance level? This is exactly the moment when cool parents might say: well, they have to start somewhere. Really? On a festival site in the early hours of the morning with their equally clueless mates?
Please be clear – this is not an attack on festival culture: I think that’s brilliant. Nor is it an attack on the freedoms of youth: young people, and particularly the pandemic-battered Generation Z, are absolutely entitled to a great time. It might even be a sign of good cultural health that they finally seem to be rebelling against the suffocating ethos of safe rebellion (Glastonbury with Mum and Dad) and want to roam unsupervised and free.
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The problem lies in some parents’ refusal to accept that things may have changed (and become more problematic) since their rosy memories of cool music and half an ecstasy tablet at sunset. They sneer that discussing it is just scaremongering. They fail to acknowledge that they may have ill-informed, outdated ideas about what is happening.
There might also be a hint of arrogance, even narcissism. When I read about Allsopp’s son Interrailing, I didn’t think she was trying to be cool (she made it clear she was worried about other scenarios), but I did think 15 was too young. I also wondered if some parents have a romanticized view of their children’s life paths. By viewing them almost like coming-of-age novels, they help them write – by portraying themselves as wonderful, progressive, open-minded characters. The cool parents in excelsis.
Sorry, but that’s not the job. Boundaries tend to get stretchy. If you give them pre-stretching boundaries, kids will stretch them even further. If you see risky behavior as “cool,” they’ll find riskier behavior that you don’t approve of. So no, don’t lock them away like Rapunzel, but don’t throw them to the wolves either. Tell them they’re not safe if you have to. Spank them if necessary. Always tell them the truth. As some of us have learned the hard way, parenting is not your opportunity to be cool.
