Toronto Affairs

Feb. 13 - I know that everyone means well, but what the city plans to do (Chief hunts ideas, not cash) about "teenage delinquency" is to keep doing the same stupid things that have never worked:

Mayor David Miller said he didn't hear anything new from Fantino during the 45-minute, closed-door meeting, but agreed with the chief that fighting crime will have to begin at the community level with initiatives like social programs.

Remember the lyrics to "Officer Krumpke" from West Side Story? We loved that song, because it pretty much summed up how all of us felt about Do-Good Adults Helping Troubled Teens back in the day.

Teenagers will not go anywhere near something that is a poorly disguised babysitting service. It might be useful for kids aged 12-14, but past 15? Forget it.

One of the more amusing aspects in my involvement in minor sports are the number of coaches who piously say they regard themselves as role models. (I usually manage to keep from retorting that kids tend to pick their own role models and how a coach may regard him or herself is irrelevant, but narcissism is a chronic disease after all and I've learned to shrug it off.)

Teens today are no different than we were: they prefer to keep their distance from adults and especially from Social Program-type Adults. Trust me on that one.

What to do? I'm actually not altogether sure. I still think a stronger parent role is the key, but I don't think you can regulate or legislate that.

Another aspect that we aren't looking at closely enough is the reduced role of men in the family. I do think that mothers guide the development of the girls and the fathers guide the development of the boys, but my evidence is anecdotal, not scientific, and questions some of the underlying assumptions of the latest incarnation of feminism.

What I do know is that my kids are now beginning to grant grudging respect to the fact that their father was such a hard-ass. I could lecture them stiff, but Dad could lecture them into an advanced state of rigor mortis. They still resent him, of course, but they've grumpily started to see that maybe Dad had some good points to make and wasn't so wrong and stupid after all. And it only took from half their lifetimes (the youngest are about to turn 21.)

Maybe if the schools and media stopped telling the males in this part of the world how totally useless, barbaric and worthless they are, men would be able to value the fact that they are men and rejoice in their maleness. Given that our genders are an important part of our identities, isn't it logical that how we regard ourselves as men and women an important part of individual self-esteem?

Posted by: Debbye at 11:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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