You Should Have Made Me Do It!

Lana now enjoys a business career, in which her success is built on her ability to talk, engage people, and sell her ideas.   But back when she was in her early teens, she had a barely perceptible speech condition, a lisp.  When she was sixteen, she commented that she probably should have received the help of a speech therapist a long time ago.  When her mother reminded her that the one time she was taken to a therapist as a child, she cried and screamed so much that the visit had to be terminated.  Lana’s mom explained that, at the time, she thought it wiser to temporarily shelve the therapy than to put Lana through a traumatic experience.  Lana’s response was “You should have made me do it.”

I had come to expect the unexpected from my kids, all of whom were bright, articulate and not afraid to speak their minds.  Particularly Lana.  This precocious, witty and early-reading child was so bright that as a toddler she not only requested to always be told extemporaneous (not read from a book!)  bedtime stories, but also asked to be told puns!  But I was never prepared to hear her or any of my kids say that they should have been made to do anything.  It totally runs against the teenager’s credo and doesn’t square with their normal responses to parental direction: “stop nagging me,”  “give me some space,”  “I’ll get to it in time,” and that all-time favorite:  “it’s not fair to make me do that.” A basic tenet of youth is to always press for less, not more parental control.

Lana’s unusual comment wasn’t the first time I had heard this kind of rhetoric from my children.  Back in 1978 when Steve was beginning Eastern Michigan University, I tried to interest him in becoming a member of my fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha.  As a long-time member of the nation’s oldest black fraternity, I had long tried to pique Steve’s interest by inviting him to fraternity activities during his high school years.  I would have been proud for Steve to share membership in the same organization that I had joined as a young college student, and my father had done before me.  It would have given us an additional bond.  I explained to Steve that many of our nation’s greatest leaders are Alpha men.  Men like Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King.  I told him it would serve him well to be a member of an organization that had produced such outstanding leaders, scholars and role models. 

For his own reasons, which I’m sure had a lot to do with independence and finding his own way in the world, Steve declined membership in Alpha and joined another fraternity, a local organization that had formed a few years earlier at Eastern.  Although he had grown up comfortably middle-class, Steve fancied himself as somewhat of a “street guy,” and said that Alpha might be too bourgeoisie for his tastes.  But maybe it had something to do with Steve’s own insecurities at being thrust into a group of heavyweight Alpha men.  In any case, I didn’t have a good feeling about his choice. But I wanted to respect his desires.  I wished him good luck, told him I loved him anyway and kept my mouth shut.  Unfortunately, Steve didn’t find his frat membership rewarding and soon dropped out, complaining of their drug use and lack of scholarship.

Some months later Steve asked me how I could have let him join such an organization instead of mine.  At first I took it as a joke but soon realized he was serious.  I reminded him of all the things I had done to spark his interest in Alpha, all to no avail.  And then he said it.  He told me that I should have made him do it! 

Reflecting on Steve’s and Lana’s admonition, I wonder just how these kids thought we could have made them do our bidding in these two incidents.  In Lana’s case, though she was a small child and could have easily been physically restrained to receive certain kinds of treatment such as a vaccination or some type of first aid, speech therapy is a more delicate matter and can’t be rendered under stressful circumstances.  To the contrary, it is known that trauma itself can sometimes be the cause of speech problems.  In Steve’s case, what kind of force should I have used?  Cut off his allowance because he wouldn’t join my frat?  Or should I have gotten physical with this moose, who at eighteen, was already six foot three and had me by ten pounds?

Now maybe all of this “You should have made me do it” business was just so much kid talk.  A lot of hot air and a convenient way to shift blame to their parents for their own mistakes.  But I don’t think so.  I believe they really meant it.

We know that babies and small children always believe their parents are all-powerful and that they can do anything, fix anything, solve all problems and make all hurts go away.  In their limited consciousness and experiences, they are correct, because their parents can pretty much solve all the problems in their lives.  But teenage kids have entered the age of reason and have a more realistic sense of what their parents can and can’t do.  When these kids who know better still invest us with more power than we really have, it is a form of high praise that reflects an attitude of great respect.  They’re placing us on a pedestal.  But the statement: “You should have made me do it” takes it to another level.  It not only invests us with power but also reflects their confidence and trust that we will use that power in their best interests.

I think I can live with this explanation.  In fact, I like it a lot.  But I’ll tell you something.  I’m glad I didn’t try to make these kids do what they say we should have.  What a war we would have had on our hands. I’m not sure I would have been strong enough for that.