Advice to Teenagers Part 2: Getting through Living at Home
Date Posted: November 11th, 2009
Your teenage years are a very weird time. You’re physically able to take care of yourself, but society all but mandates that you live with your parents. High school is mandatory. You don’t have the credentials to get a well paying job. You have no credit. You’re stuck. Functionally you’re mostly an adult, but you’re living under your parents’ rules. If you’re blessed with understanding parents your time in high school might not be that bad, but there’s no way to guarantee that. And even well meaning parents can have a hard time understanding that you’re almost an adult.
So what do you do if you have parents who are making your life miserable? Here are a few suggestions:
Act Like You’re Self Sufficient
Start doing the things you would be doing if you were living on your own. Do your own laundry. Fix your own breakfast. Wash the dishes. Clean the bathroom. Do these things independent of whether or not your parents ask you to. If you have a co-dependent relationship with your parents (i.e. you make your decisions based on how your parents will react), this is an excellent practice tool for working toward acting independently of them.
In addition you’ll get several other benefits from doing this:
- A feeling of power Honestly, as much doing household chores is a pain, doing them freely really does make you feel like you’re an adult. You are using your ability to take care of yourself. When someone tells you you’re incapable of taking care of yourself, you’ll know that in fundamental way you indeed are capable.
- You improve your quality of life a bit. A cleaner room is a nicer room. The food you cook is of as high a quality as you can make it.
- Your parental units may start seeing you as more of an adult. And not just any kind of adult: a responsible adult. The more responsible you are in their eyes the more privileges you get. (Usually) All parents are different, so I can’t guarantee this will be the outcome for you, but I can say that there’s virtually no chance that taking care of the house will hurt your credibility.
Even if you’re planning to leave your room a mess, never do your own laundry, and leave the dishes in the sink for weeks when you actually do get to live on your own, I’d highly advise you to consider becoming the kind of person who’s tidy all the time. Ask yourself if part of the reason you’re a slob is just to piss off your parents. If that’s the case, you’re being co-dependent. You’re better than that.
Follow Your Conscience
Adults are perfectly capable of giving you advice and then going about acting irresponsibly. Sometimes ideas you know are right will be shot down by people who are older than you. They’ll tell you you haven’t lived, that there’s no way for you to understand until you’re older. If you’re getting this response, it’s unreasonable.
I’m 24 now. I’ve had a fair amount of life experience compared to my high school self. There’s only a handful of things I don’t think I’d have understood prior to experiencing them, and those weren’t the things I got into arguments about.
I spent a fair amount of time in high school angsting about my lack of experience. Looking back, it was wasted time and energy. I’d have done a lot better to trust myself and fall once in a while than feel bad that I could convince the authority figures (and myself) that I was right. Alas.
Get your advice from people with real experience
Related to the last point, many adults will have no problem giving you advice which they’d never consider giving their peers. They’ll tell you about investing when they’re buried in debt. They’ll tell you about how to deal with your significant other when they’ve been divorced three times and had two affairs. It’s unwise to take advice from someone when the subject of the advice is an area in which the person continues to fail. Don’t call them on this though. More likely than not they’ll attack you for it.
Instead get your advice from people who have reached the goals you want to reach. Ask someone who appears to have a good relationship about how to deal with your significant other. Ask someone who owns a business about what it’s like to start one. Etc.
Don’t complain
This will get you a lot of the way toward a good experience in high school. Whining doesn’t win you anything, and even when it does it comes at a price. You aren’t respected. You’re seen for the dependent child that you are.
Instead, acknowledge your situation, and try to find ways to work within it. If there’s injustice, accept it. It’s really hard to convince parents that they’re favoring one of your siblings, no matter how obvious it is to an outside observer. Same thing with a parenting decision. It’s not worth fighting since you do not have real power. The faster you accept it, the less hurt gets into your heart. Take heart that the situation is temporary.
Acting independently will help you in this endeavor.
Be Judicious in Your Openness
This is entirely dependent on who your parents are. There are some that will actually help you be your own person, who will reward openness with helping you think through the problem. If you have one of those, feel free to be fairly open with them. Let them know what you’re doing, what your beliefs are, what you aspire to do. They’ll help you get there.
If your parents are still believe they can “mold” you into their version of the ideal you, your openness will not be greeted with happy things. The best advice here is to give them only what they can handle hearing. If every time you talk about your dreams of traveling you’re dreams are shot down, don’t talk about it. They haven’t earned the right to your openness. Find other people to share it with. Lots of people, less attached than your parents, will be able to support what you want to do.
In short, they aren’t entitled to your openness just because they’re your parents.
Like the post on getting through high school, if I’d done these things while I was a teenager my life would have been a lot more pleasant. Such is life. Don’t repeat my mistakes.
