Do as I Say, Not as I Did (and had a REALLY good time doing!)

There are certain questions that every parent dreads.  The first one is usually "Where do babies come from?"  Now that I have a teenage son, that question seems like a piece of cake, a walk in the park, a big softball right across the plate.  The questions I have been asked recently are the most difficult I have ever had to contemplate answering:  When did you lose your virginity?  Have you ever tried drugs? Do you regret anything you did when you were a teenager?

*blink blink*

I feel there are three basic ways to answer these types of questions, and all three start with a generous helping of Xanax:

1.  Lying - I'm not going to judge anyone who goes with this strategy, but I would like to look back and know that I never told any (really big) lies to my kids. Also, I did not want a lack of ever doing anything to be used against me, as in "You can't tell me (drugs, premarital sex, skipping school) is a bad decision because you never even tried it!"

2.  Total Honesty - Puh-lease!  "Well son, remember the movies "Fast Time At Ridgemont High" and "Dazed and Confused"?  That was mommy. Except they left all the really good parts out of the movies."  And, just like with Lying, I didn't want my past to be used as justification, as in  "Well, you snuck out of your bedroom window and went to Georgetown with your friends and drank while you were underage and went to strange parties with strange people and ended up in strange and dangerous situations and experimented with stuff and things, and you turned out ok!" (BTW, if he thinks I'm ok, he should sit in on one of my therapy appointments)

3.  It's None Of Your Damn Beeswax - This is the route I've decided to take so far.  I've told him how I feel about drugs, sex and drinking and told him he needs to make his own choices and deal with the consequences of those choices.  (Unless he's really clever like his mother and doesn't get caught.)

One of these days I might tell him the truth about some of my misadventures.  But only when he has a teenager - and a therapist - of his own.