When I received the news via a Viber message from a dear friend and co-mother last week, I tried to pretend I hadn’t read it. I wanted to believe it was one of those many hoaxes that are passed around, and desperately searched the net for proof to proclaim the news as false.
To paraphrase a saying about wishes: Be careful what you look for, because you just might find it. And find it, I did. In a search that took just 0.3 seconds.
The news was real. And devastating.
A rave party attended by 14,000, mostly youths and yuppies. Five deaths – not even 24 hours after. Horrifying details emerged in the news, passed along feverishly on social media: Pathologist findings of exploded organs and blackened hearts, positive testing on drug abuse in minors as young as 12-15. Suddenly we found ourselves face to face with a terrible monster: Rampant use of recreational and party drugs.
Behind the scenes on private phones, Viber thread discussions grew in direct proportion. On my phone, I had numerous Viber threads discussing the disturbing event, and if all the conversations on those threads were mixed and shaken together, they’d come out as one unified compound, its elemental properties a seamless blend of shock, disbelief, calls for prayer, terrible sadness… and a very real and present parental fear.
Suddenly we parents were sitting up, thrown out of the inertia of our everyday routines. In the midst of trying to answer the hows and whys, we struggled to deal with our broken hearts, mothers grieving over other mothers’ losses and then inevitably wondering, “Could that have been my child?” Because, much as we’d like to think it’s something that happens to others but not ours, let’s get real here: It could very well have been our own child. And that’s where the greatest fear stems from.
We go back in history as we try to understand. Young once ourselves, we know that every teenager goes through a stage of experimenting with the forbidden. Back in high school, a group of my friends and I got into deep trouble after we took a puff from a cigarette. A cigarette! But somewhere along the way, the Forbidden morphed from Naughty Small Stuff to Dangerous Don’t-Go-There Evil. Today, some kids start smoking earlier than we did. By the time they reach our age back then, many of them have smoked not just cigs but weed. Back then, we knew the few kids who were doing drugs, and we felt sorry for them as they hid their clandestine activities. We tried to help them get help. Today, these kids don’t hide their activities from each other; these things have become commonplace. Now Coke and Shabs and Ecstasy are known to our kids, and they’re affordable and available in ways that weren’t to us. They may not use it, but they know of it. That’s the world our kids live in now.
Our kids today are exposed to drugs, whether we like it or not. There is rampant drug use among their peers. The parties they go to have people already high, in the process of getting high, or about to get high. They KNOW about this. They see it around them. This is not a shocking thing for them. Our kids and their friends know things that they may or may not share with us. The “prudest” girl may not be as prude as you think. Double lives exist.
Let’s wake up and smell reality. It hurts terribly to take a hard look at the desolation that night left in its wake. But we parents need to move beyond the shocked “Diyos ko, ang kabataan ngayon!” stance and meet our children on a stable, nonjudgmental but firm and moral ground if we want to help them maneuver that path to adult maturity without falling prey to the many dangers and temptations dancing in front of them.
They’re not going to open up to us if we act scandalized. They need to know that they can tell us their stories about their parties and their friends, and they need to know that we will listen to them without freaking out. Only when we can discuss reality with our kids in a calm, straightforward manner will we be able to help them discard the curiosity that leads to dangerous experimentation. Opening the channels of communication lets them know that they can run to us anytime for advice and we will be there to answer their questions, to listen, and to guide them. Without judgment.
And then somewhere in between their sharing their lives with us, we will find a way to gently but very firmly impress on them what is right and what is wrong. What is acceptable and what is definitely not.
We need to educate our kids not only on the medically-proven dangers of dabbling with drugs, but even more, we need to form their values. Yes, our kids need to know that drugs burn brain cells and alter personality, that they change their appearance from beautiful to horrific, that drugs will kill them and the people they love. But it’s just as important for them to know that drug abuse really is doing harm to their own body, and whatever the reason for it – to escape, to fit in, to have pleasure, to relieve stress, whatever – does not change the fact that it goes against the Fifth Commandment. Thou shalt not kill – not others, not yourself, not your body, not others’ bodies. Harsh? Maybe. But they need to know this is the truth.
We need to be able to tell them: Honey, this is the reality – someone will probably offer you drugs at one point or another. And this is also reality – using drugs is evil. It is a big lie: It might make you feel good for a minute but it will make you feel like crap for the rest of your life… or until you get your next fix. It’s a tie that presents itself like a merry maypole ribbon but then wrings itself around your neck till it becomes your noose. Just say no. Run fast and far away. Because you only live once, really, so make sure you live a good, long, healthy, wonderful once.
But we won’t be able to just tell them that, because our children’s ears at this stage in their life have a natural allergy to stern lectures that fly at them out of the blue. If we want to withdraw a positive, well-adjusted, fortified adult, we need to deposit the proper values and formation early and consistently. Many of us think the most important years for us to form our kids are when they’re zero to seven. But it doesn’t stop there. The teenage years are highly important years for us to be visible, present, and available, precisely because our kids need us to help them navigate the treacherous tides of teenage angst and insecurity, even if they push us away.
So how exactly do we achieve that? What can we do to ensure that our kids not only survive this tempestuous stage of their life but come out of it victorious and unscathed?
1. Let’s teach our kids to be responsible. Let them know the world does not revolve around them. Giving them chores to do in the house, even when you have household help, lets them know that they have something valuable that they must contribute for the good of the family.
2. Let’s teach our kids to be accountable. Train them to always think of the consequences before they do anything. Let them know that there is always a choice, and that choice is one they and only they can make. They can think of excuses and they might try to pin the blame on other things, but let’s not let them get away with it. Let’s teach them to own their actions. They have the power of choice; let’s teach them to use it properly.
3. Let’s teach our children good values and principles. Let’s not leave it up to the school and religion classes to do that. We are our children’s first and primary teachers, and we have the duty to bring them up to be the best people they can be. That vocation and call to duty does not end when they don their uniforms, and neither can we pass the baton to the school. Our kids’ schools are our supportive partners but we hold the reins, and it is we who will be answerable to God for how our children turn out. And that immense responsibility we have is an enormous gift and honor bestowed on us by a Loving Father who trusts us enough to put His precious children in our care.
4. Let’s not overprotect them. Let’s not wrap them in a plastic bubble. Let’s not shield them from the realities of life, and let’s not turn them into soft marshmallows. When they’re of proper age, let’s not shield them from the ugly realities of drug use. Let’s tell them the horrifying stories. Let’s show them photos of people who have deteriorated into skeletal versions of themselves, decaying teeth and all, because of substances that promise false and fleeting pleasure. In fact, let’s not get them too used to the pleasures and comforts of life. Let them fix their clothes and tidy up their rooms, even if there’s a yaya who can do it. Let them carry their own bags on their backs. Let them fall and dust themselves off and stand again. Then they’ll learn from an early age that not everything good is pleasurable, and not everything pleasurable is good.
5. Let’s make sure they hang around good friends. Because birds of a feather flock together, remember? Let’s get to know their friends and the places they like to go to and the things they like to do. Let’s have the strength to say no when they ask to go to places that are risky, when they ask to hang out with people who aren’t going to be good for them. It’s our responsibility as parents to do so and let’s not be afraid to exercise it. Let’s give them curfews and hold them to it. And let’s wait up for them till they come home. Because we care. It’s as simple as that.
6. Let’s get into their world and make the effort to know what they’re into. Let’s get our own phones installed with Snapchat, Twitter, and all the other apps that our kids are into these days, even if learning the ropes may seem daunting at first. The more present we are in their real and virtual worlds, the more our kids will know that we can meet them on the same playing field. We bridge that generation gap just a little bit more and make it easier for them to come to us when they need us.
7. Let’s get down on our knees and pray. Every day and every night. Let’s ask their guardian angels to guide them along the right paths, make them strong against temptations, and help them make the right decisions. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help them to choose wisely. Let’s ask our Loving Father and our Blessed Mother to keep them safe in their embrace, no matter where they wander. Because at the end of the day, even if the world has terrible temptations and dangers in every corner, it is still a beautiful, wonderful world created by our Loving Father, and there is no evil force and no bad influence that we and our children cannot defeat when we have divine help on our side.
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