When Life’s Consequences Overtake Parental Punishment

I like to watch television shows on DVD with each of my kids. So does Amelia. Right now I am watching Season 1 of Glee with Chloe. The show has just about every high school subplot, stereotype and neo-stereotype the authors could squeeze into a single television season of forty-three minute episodes of what Philip calls High School Musical: The Series. Chloe loves it. I enjoy it. And most importantly it launches us into important daddy-daughter conversations.

I was not surprised to learn that one of the subplots revolved around a teen pregnancy. And when the teen’s right-wing stereotype parents found out about the pregnancy they fulfilled their roles by giving their daughter thirty minutes to pack her clothes and leave home. “Hold on, Daddy. Hit the pause button.”

That was my daughter Chloe speaking: Not one of the characters on Glee. Up until that moment, we had managed to shelter Chloe from the concept of parents kicking their kids out of the house. In fact, Amelia and I are still helping Chloe fully understand the concept of other kids’ parents getting divorced and its affect on Chloe’s peers like Jasmine.

For years, Chloe had been hitting us with questions we didn’t feel she was ready to have answered. We promised there would be a day when we would answer absolutely everything. That day came last May a few days ahead of her fourth-grade class getting the first round of what is taught in public schools on the topic of human sexuality. After ensuring everything Chloe could possibly learn in her public elementary school classroom was first taught at home, Amelia and I granted Chloe her blank check on questions we had previously left unanswered. For those who might be interested, Chloe’s first order of business last May was for us to give her exact definitions for the words whore and slut.

With Glee paused, I knew what was coming. Chloe was about to exercise her rights under the Askins Family Freedom of Information Act. “Daddy, if I got pregnant in high school, what kind of punishment would there be? Would you and Mommy kick me out of the house?” The answer to her first question took some effort to convey correctly.

Let’s be clear. I don’t want Chloe to get pregnant in high school. I don’t want Philip getting someone pregnant. I don’t want either of them doing the deed that risks pregnancy until each is a consenting adult firmly attached to the other party who is also a consenting adult and prepared for at least the possibility of pregnancy. I don’t want either of them getting too close to the hookup crowd. I don’t want Chloe hanging around with boys whose behaviors and attitudes are the slightest bit predatory. Erica’s story really scares me. In fact, I think marriage is the ideal time to begin engaging in such activity. While I am an advocate of public educators talking about protection and not just abstinence, I would really like Philip and Chloe to exercise abstinence. Amelia and I also want Philip and Chloe to know about the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), how widespread HPV is, how traditional forms of “protection” do not protect against the spread of HPV, and the health dangers [anal and cervical cancers] associated with HPV. There is a lot packed in here, and the public school only goes so far. So Amelia and I pick up where the public schools leave off. I have good reasons for wanting my kids to live a certain way and to protect themselves from participating in the hookup and highly sexualized culture that is widespread among teenagers in Hermes and elsewhere.

Chloe knows where I stand on these issues. In her mind, if anything would deserve the most severe punishment, this would be it. But even for Chloe at her young age, there was something intuitively wrong about how the fictional rightwing parents on Glee reacted to their daughter’s pregnancy.

I owed Chloe her truthful answer, and my mind quickly crafted exactly how to deliver it. She really already knew the answer to her second question. But my answer to her first question surprised her. “We would never kick you out of the house if you got pregnant Chloe. In fact, there would be no punishment.” Chloe was very relieved to hear me articulate the answer to her second question. But she was visibly shocked by my full answer. I paused for effect and then continued. “If you got pregnant, you would have enough to deal with simply being a pregnant teenager. Mommy and I would do everything we could to support you. But you need to know that we would not be able to protect you from all the consequences of getting pregnant as a teenager. There would be no point in adding some kind of punishment to those consequences.”

Every once in a while a teenager crosses a line intentionally or unintentionally over which parents cannot protect them no matter how much they would like to protect their kids. A beautiful recent graduate from Conquistador High School was in a car accident late one night that now has her paralyzed. A healthy, athletic member Philip’s lacrosse team at Hermes High School was arrested during school and eventually convicted of a felony and incarcerated over what he had done the night before with two so-called friends. For those parents, the time for punishment is over and the time to help them deal with real life has begun.

I am glad the parents on Glee are fictional, even if there are some real life parents who think the same way. Chloe asked me a few more qualifying questions and I answered them. The conversation lasted about five minutes before she said, “OK, Daddy. Hit the play button. I want to see the rest of the episode.”