What do you do when your teenaged son--a child whose record in life thus far has not proven him to be an entirely trustworthy individual, let it be noted--is having trouble with an authority figure at his school, a man that you, in fact, suspect to be more than a wee bit off-kilter, if not completely unhinged?
I've always had trouble with this whole parenting--authority figures--respect thing. I'm a classic Good Kid. I instinctively obey. I'm rather in awe of those foks whose first response to a direct command is to question it. Except, that is, when "those folks" means my own kid, who dammit has never ever done anything I told him to do without first querying me as to the why, how, what for, so what, and what if. I spend my professional life teaching students to question the evidence, suspect the authorities, push the boundaries, be critical and inquisitive and ask the awkward questions. And then I come home, and my teenaged son treats me like some kind of iffy historical document. I do not find the irony in the least bit amusing.
But let's set aside the whole Parent-Child thing. What about Child-and All Those Other People? The teachers? The principals? The neighbor? The youth leader? All those authorities? My training and my personality both demand that authority be respected, even if the person in authority is a total dick. I remember coming to political consciousness in the midst of Watergate and demanding of my mother what she thought of Nixon. She looked at me in surprise. "He's the president," she said, as if that settled it. I pushed, I wanted to know, what did she think of what he was doing, of what he might have done. "He's the president," she repeated, and then she explained, in a tone that made clear that really, surely, I knew this already, "You respect the president."
But what if you don't? And what do you tell your kids?
When I was in my mid-20s, I dated a guy several years older, divorced, with a 7-year-old son. I remember vividly this little kid regaling us one night over pizza with stories of how utterly stupid and fat his teacher was. I couldn't believe that his father, this guy I then thought I would marry, allowed, downright encouraged, this kind of talk. "It's his teacher," I said, horrified. "You can't let him talk like that about his teacher." He was equally horrified by my response. "Why not? Why should he respect her just because she's his teacher?" I didn't marry this guy. I'm glad I didn't, for oh so many reasons, but that conversations is certainly one of them.
But now I have my own kids. And I struggle. How do you teach them to fight for what's right, not to settle, not to give in, not to be pushed down and around--and yet to respect what and who should be respected?
Hugh is a 16-year-old boy who still hasn't figured out cause and effect, who thinks time is elastic, who regards the truth as whatever serves his desires at that very moment. I have five older brothers. I find none of this all that surprising. But the thing is--we've had quite a tussle this past week with Hugh's "prefect," the guy in charge of his floor in his residence hall at boarding school. He tells me that everything out of Hugh's mouth is a lie. And I look at and listen to my son, and I know that this man is wrong. And in my gut, I believe he's bad for Hugh. So now what? Because he's there, and this man is in charge. "Keep your head down and your mouth shut," I tell him.
And I hate myself.
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