Respect...to or not to?

Back in the days when I grew up, children were taught to respect adults. It wasn't an option to not respect an adult. Maybe I didn't always respect them but I never let on that I didn't. It just wasn't done. I could have been unique to this theory but based on recent conversations, I'm pretty sure I wasn't.

Today kids do not feel the need to show respect to adults. Often times they do just the opposite simply because they can. Any time my children have been disrespectful in my presence, I make sure to call them on it when appropriate. In my book, disrespecting adults is just wrong. (So is putting your elbows on the table while others are eating but that's an entirely different post.) I find it sad that today so many parents have not felt the sense of urgency to teach their children about respect.

Case in point: (I love writing that. It makes me feel official, like I'm the respect expert!) My 17 year old daughter has a boyfriend who my husband and I do not feel is a great choice for her. He's not a bad kid in any way, he's just simply not a good choice for our daughter. They have had some issues, as do most teenagers yet their relationship has survived almost two years. He's always been good at following the rules we've laid down for our daughter. She has a curfew. She needs to let us know where she's going...things most parents should expect from their child. We have always appreciated that respect for our rules and have expressed that to him from time to time.

A few months ago my husband totalled one of our cars, leaving us with two for three people driving. Shortly after that I stopped working full time, my mother got sick and my husband was laid off. The decision to buy another car was put on hold. My husband has since started his own business (www.abs-e.com) and since he's not traveling, we decided the extra expense without any income wasn't a good idea. Our daughter drives to school daily because our county redistricted us and she's now out of district. When necessary, my husband will use the car she's driving. It was purchased as a convenience to us for her use at our discretion. It is not 'her' car. Regardless of what she thinks! She works close to 30 hours a week at Starbucks (see previous post, it's one of my other locations!) and often until 11:30 at night so having this car for her to drive makes our lives much easier.

HOWEVER...because we're down to two cars, with five people in our family, it's a juggling game. Obviously. Our daughter's boyfriend is now in college about 30 minutes away from us and due to college rules, is not allowed to have his car at school. We made an agreement that she could take the car to see him every other weekend (not for the full weekend, just for one of the days and to return home that night) and that the other weekends he would have to come back to our area to see her. If of course, that's what they wanted. It was by no means a requirement on our part that he come back to see her.

We felt the need to make it clear that on the weekends he was here, she would not have access to the car. We're busy on the weekends with sports, errands, etc. and thought it was reasonable to accommodate their desire to see each other twice a month but the other weekends were his responsibility. After all, his car is at his parents house close by.

Apparently they did not feel our decision was the right one. She attempted to talk with us about it and we wouldn't budge so she called her boyfriend to let him know. A few minutes after that call, she came to her father with the phone, saying her boyfriend wanted to talk to him.

Oookkkaaayyy....first mistake.

He felt it was important that we understand his situation. He didn't have a job (quit his job this past winter and never got another one). He is paying for his own college and had to take out loans and is trying to sell his car so he doesn't want to invest anything else into it such as gas and mileage. How nice for him. He felt that we should allow her to use the car on the days that he's here because he believed we told them that before. They must have had something stuck in their ears during that conversation. Needless to say, my husband explained that while he appreciated his situation, it was a mute point. His family has four people, three who drive and three cars. We have five people, three who drive and two cars. Do the math. It would just be easier to have his parents pick him up at the bus station or leave his car for him but we were not going to allow her to do it. Maybe we were standing firm on something that we could have given in to but it would have been an inconvenience for us to plan around their schedule and we felt we were already doing that enough on the other weekends.

This did not go over well with the boyfriend. He got heated, quickly and proceeded to tell my husband to "F**K off." (Second mistake) I've never seen my husband jump out of his seat as quickly as he did. I'm certain if that 18 year old boy were standing in front of him instead of on the phone, he would have been on the floor, unconscious.

Really. Did his parents teach him that was acceptable? Way to win points with the parents, buddy.

I decided to write him an email because I wanted to do right by my daughter and since he would not give my husband any true opportunity to explain our situation (even though we didn't think he had to, he wanted to to be nice), I wanted him to understand. When I wrote him, I signed it "Mrs. Aspenson". He wrote back to "Carolyn". (third mistake) He commented in the email about "Jack" my husband, instead of "Mr. Aspenson". (fourth mistake)

He also continued to discuss why he felt we were wrong and how he is so incredibly independent but he just needs our daughter to help him with this one thing. Would he ask his parents to help? No. They raised him to be independent. Would he ask his friends for a ride? No. He doesn't want to use them that way. (???) Yet he will be the dependent boyfriend who finds it totally acceptable to rely on and use his girlfriend and her parents to help him be independent. (fifth mistake)

I should have stopped after my first email but I admit, I like to have the last word and continued. Apparently so does he. He continued to tell me that we have to earn his respect. (sixth mistake) Here comes a plethora of mistakes so don't lose count. That his parents taught him to be independent and make his own decisions and mistakes and that false consequences (ie: grounding) don't work and that my husband thinks of him as nothing but an inconvenience to his life and just wants what he wants. Here is an actual excerpt from one of his emails:

" Aside from that, Jack only views me as an inconvenience to the family, and there is nothing that I can now or ever could have done to change that. The fact is that, regardless of my tone with him, he will treat me generally the same way. He's impossible to talk to because all that he cares about is proving that he is right. I think that attempting to talk to him at all was the mistake that I made. I'm not trying to insult him or anything like that, these are my observations."

MY TONE WITH HIM? What tone does an 18 year old boy deem acceptable for a conversation with an adult?

Eventually I got so incredibly disgusted with his idiotic comments and sheer blindness to his stupidity I just said, enough. You're done. You are no longer welcome at our house and while I will not forbid my daughter from seeing you (we know how that works), I will no longer support her efforts to do so and she will no longer be allowed to use MY car in any way, shape or form to visit you. If you're so independent, show us that by figuring this out on your own.

It's been a month now and he's seen her once. He is coming home again this weekend and couldn't find a ride from the train or bus and she asked if she could pick him up. I told her no. I told her he created this situation and Mr. Independence there has to figure out a way to make it work.

I've also informed her that there is now a GPS tracking system placed on the car and that if she does decide to go against what we've said, she will be spending the remainder of her senior year at the school to which she is districted and take the bus. She will no longer have use of the car. I do not want to punish her and I explained that. I do, however, what her to understand that his actions have consequences that have impacted our family and her life and I am not going to allow him to continue to do that.

F***k off? Gotcha far, didn't it buddy?

Someone needs to tell his parents what a fine, respectful boy they're raised.