Advice to my 13yo Daughter

I took my 13yo aside a couple weeks ago and gave her the following lecture (copied from the one my father gave me back in the day):

There are three rules in this household plus a few simple words of advice:
1) Don’t ride with anyone who’s drunk (or drive drunk).  Ever.  Call home and you get a free pass on the punishment you think you deserve for getting in the situation in the first place.
2) No heroin.  Ever.  (Expanded for 2008 to include no meth.  Ever.)
3) Do anything else and I’ll pretty much let it slide so long as you never get less than a B+ mid-term and an A- in any class.  Your grades go down and your ass is grass so do drugs, sneak out and party accordingly.

The advice is: drugs and/or alcohol lead to real stupid decisions about sex - don’t mix ‘em until you’re old enough to fully appreciate the importance of this advice.

Posted by 'mouse on 03/07 at 06:04 PM

  1. I wanted to say something effusive and ebullient and gently cheeky, but I can’t.  I keep getting stuck at I just love this, so that’s all I will say.  I just love this.

    Posted by bakerina  on  03/07  at  06:16 PM

  2. I have a 13yo daughter, too, so I found this advice both compelling and pertinent.  Is the drugs/drink/sex talk already necessary where you are?  Life may be tamer in the English countryside, or maybe it’s the all-girls school setting, or maybe I’m just kidding myself . . .

    The latest advice I’ve been giving is more along the lines of:  Just because you’ve gotten into the top set friendship-wise, don’t alienate or forget the friends you had when you weren’t quite so “popular”.

    Also, when I give this talk (and I’m sure that I will) I will probably add (4)Love your body; love food; don’t abuse either.

    Cheers!

    Posted by Beth  on  03/09  at  01:46 PM

  3. makes me remember a little one my good ol mum gave me that’s coming round to haunt me these days:  when i was around 17 and partying heavily and getting more popular (consequently), she said “a nice ass will only get you so far, eventually you’ll have to have a personality to go with it”.

    Posted by goliard  on  03/13  at  08:45 AM

  4. Your daughter is one lucky girl. I know that, had I called my parents to come pick me up because I wasn’t OK to drive, they would’ve done so, but my ass (and personality) would’ve been grounded. As a result, I was a very good girl until I got to college, where no driving was required to get from the on-campus pub (legal drinking age was 18 in Texas then) or the party to the dorm.

    Posted by Kimberly  on  03/14  at  08:14 PM

  5. Those are pretty good rules, but I’m not certain about the grade thing. Throughout high school and college, I got very good grades in general, but there was always an occasional class that I couldn’t manage no matter how much time I spent studying or asking for help. Ending a semester with three As, three Bs, and a D- was common for me. I suppose I’m a cynic, but if I had a child who consistently got straight A minuses across the board, I’d be worried.

    Posted by tvindy  on  03/23  at  04:00 PM

  6. When I was still married and had a step-daughter, my only advice to her was “Don’t ever lie to me.  Anything you can even think of doing, I’ve either done, watched done or heard about being done by someone else who did it.  Eventually, I’ll know you did it and then, I’ll be mad that you lied to me about it.”

    Sadly, I haven’t seen her in more than three years, thanks to her mother, so I don’t know how well that advice panned out, in the long run.

    Posted by Network Geek  on  04/02  at  02:19 PM

  7. Hindsight is 20/20 and the best advice is given too late…Love, love, love your parenting style!

    Posted by JadedBeauty  on  05/16  at  02:26 AM
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