Tryin' to Make a Dollar Outta Fifteen Cents...
No, this post is not about poverty. This post is about our teenagers who (not all but many) have lost their Goddamn minds...
As you all may have heard, the popular television minister Creflo Dollar, was arrested for battery against his fifteen year old daughter. She claims that he knocked her to the floor, punched her, choked her and beat her with a shoe.
Now I wasn't there and neither were you - we don't know what actually happened. I am not a proponent of child abuse - but in the words of Chris Rock: "I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying I UNDERSTAND."
I'm sorry this has happened to Creflo Dollar - but this incident actually allowed me to the opportunity to talk about something similar that is going on within my own family.
But before I get into that, let me say this: I once had a fifteen year old daughter. Creflo Dollar is a wealthy man who I'm sure has provided his daughter with all he never had and all this child could ever dream of.
When my daughter was fifteen years old - I wasn't wealthy, but I had more money than my parents did when I was fifteen. I had a house and my daughter had her own room. Growing up, I had to share a room with three siblings. By the time my daughter was fifteen she was on her third passport. I got my second passport at age 28.
Now, I was not that parent who "gave" her everything she requested. I think that's ridiculous. I told my child if she wanted a new pair of sneakers every week, she would have to get a job and buy them herself. And she did. Remember when the first Ipod came out? It was about $400 dollars, right? She had to save her money and buy it herself. If I had of bought it, it would have been broken in under a month. Past history told me so. But when she spent her hard earned money - she took care of it and it lasted for years.
In any case, my daughter's fifteenth year was very difficult. Suddenly she was lying, cutting school and hanging out with kids who were headed no where fast. If you looked up the word defiant in the dictionary - there would have been a picture of her. If I said black, she said white. I was at my wits end. I found out that she had had her first sexual experience and that of course made things worse for a number of reasons:
Girls are not equipped to handle the emotional toll that comes along with sex.
They believe that love and sex are one in the same.
They now think that because they're doing what you and your mate are doing - that they are now your equal and should be treated as such even though they're not contributing to the mortgage, monthly bills, health insurance, food or clothing costs.
When someone you have had a hand in creating - that you have struggled and sacrificed to provide for, educate and keep safe, continuously disrespects you and breaks the rules that they should be abiding by -- no matter what your threshold - at some point you...will...snap.
You've seen news coverage about teenagers who have pushed their parents to the point of temporary insanity. The teenagers end up in a group home or dead - and the parents are carted off to jail.
Recently, a fifteen year old female family member of mine has started to act out - similar in the ways that my own daughter had behaved at the same age. She made an accusation that when it was repeated to me, left me stunned. Turns our though, it's a lie -- the cops know its a lie and the therapist knows its a lie. This lie and others she's told over the past few weeks have sent shock waves through the family. People are taking sides and pointing fingers. The family is coming apart at the seams - and all because this fifteen year old feels that there are too many rules in her life.
Now she has had a life similar to that of my daughter. Her parents take her own fabulous vacations, she in involved in a number of extra curricular activities, she goes to the theater, her biological father and paternal grandmother give her EVERYTHING she asks for. Remember that $400 dollar ipod? She had one at the age of five...
She does not understand why her mother needs to know where she's going when she leaves the house. She does not understand that she can't be in the street (like her friends) until all hours of the night. Or can't talk on the phone (on a school night) for as long as she wants..clean her room, wash the dishes.........etc... Too Many Rules!
This generation is very, very different from mine. When I was THIRTEEN years old, I spent an entire summer caring for my twin, toddler siblings. They were 13 months old and I was responsible for them, Monday through Friday 8AM -6PM. This included three meals a day, multiple diaper changes, managing crying fits, pushing a heavy metal double stroller around the streets of Brooklyn, playtime, reading time, nap time -- and all of this on top of my normal chores of cleaning the bathroom/kitchen, my room, washing clothes........etc.
Neither my child, nor this family member were/are capable of doing a quarter of that at fifteen.
TD Jakes talks about this. He says we are raising children who sit and feast at the table - not children who know how to prepare and set the table. In other words, we're giving them too damn much and when we tell them NO - their world falls apart.
My daughter ran away because she was told NO. And so did the above mentioned family member. If I had runaway every time I was told NO - I would still be running!
And furthermore, I had every reason to runaway and didn't. Don't belive me? Then read my (memoir in disguise) book: The Warmest December
We are raising a generation of children who have a strong sense of entitlement and wouldn't know what empathy was if it dropped down from the sky and introduced itself.
But I think I may have strayed just a bit....
There is a black female comedian who in her stand up routine says: "My mother told us kids she beat us so the police wouldn't have to."
If you're black - I don't even have to explain why this is painfully true --
Creflo Dollar was arrested and had to pay a 5K bond. So his child is lying - she has cost her father a large amount of money and national embarrassment - all because her father said: No, you cannot go to a party.
Here's something else that comedian said her mother told her: "You gonna call the cops on me? Go on ahead - I have money to bail myself out of jail, how you gonna get out of the group home?"
Maybe these privileged disrespectful children need to spend a month in a group home so they can appreciate all that they have. See how the folk from the other side of the tracks are living, maybe then they'll think twice about hollerin' wolf and learn to appreciate what they have - rules and all.
How many times do they think they can bite the hand that's feeding them - before they get smacked????
***I know this is a highly emotional subject for many, many people -- while I welcome your comments - please be respectful..........*****
Bernice L. McFadden
As you all may have heard, the popular television minister Creflo Dollar, was arrested for battery against his fifteen year old daughter. She claims that he knocked her to the floor, punched her, choked her and beat her with a shoe.
Now I wasn't there and neither were you - we don't know what actually happened. I am not a proponent of child abuse - but in the words of Chris Rock: "I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying I UNDERSTAND."
I'm sorry this has happened to Creflo Dollar - but this incident actually allowed me to the opportunity to talk about something similar that is going on within my own family.
But before I get into that, let me say this: I once had a fifteen year old daughter. Creflo Dollar is a wealthy man who I'm sure has provided his daughter with all he never had and all this child could ever dream of.
When my daughter was fifteen years old - I wasn't wealthy, but I had more money than my parents did when I was fifteen. I had a house and my daughter had her own room. Growing up, I had to share a room with three siblings. By the time my daughter was fifteen she was on her third passport. I got my second passport at age 28.
Now, I was not that parent who "gave" her everything she requested. I think that's ridiculous. I told my child if she wanted a new pair of sneakers every week, she would have to get a job and buy them herself. And she did. Remember when the first Ipod came out? It was about $400 dollars, right? She had to save her money and buy it herself. If I had of bought it, it would have been broken in under a month. Past history told me so. But when she spent her hard earned money - she took care of it and it lasted for years.
In any case, my daughter's fifteenth year was very difficult. Suddenly she was lying, cutting school and hanging out with kids who were headed no where fast. If you looked up the word defiant in the dictionary - there would have been a picture of her. If I said black, she said white. I was at my wits end. I found out that she had had her first sexual experience and that of course made things worse for a number of reasons:
Girls are not equipped to handle the emotional toll that comes along with sex.
They believe that love and sex are one in the same.
They now think that because they're doing what you and your mate are doing - that they are now your equal and should be treated as such even though they're not contributing to the mortgage, monthly bills, health insurance, food or clothing costs.
When someone you have had a hand in creating - that you have struggled and sacrificed to provide for, educate and keep safe, continuously disrespects you and breaks the rules that they should be abiding by -- no matter what your threshold - at some point you...will...snap.
You've seen news coverage about teenagers who have pushed their parents to the point of temporary insanity. The teenagers end up in a group home or dead - and the parents are carted off to jail.
Recently, a fifteen year old female family member of mine has started to act out - similar in the ways that my own daughter had behaved at the same age. She made an accusation that when it was repeated to me, left me stunned. Turns our though, it's a lie -- the cops know its a lie and the therapist knows its a lie. This lie and others she's told over the past few weeks have sent shock waves through the family. People are taking sides and pointing fingers. The family is coming apart at the seams - and all because this fifteen year old feels that there are too many rules in her life.
Now she has had a life similar to that of my daughter. Her parents take her own fabulous vacations, she in involved in a number of extra curricular activities, she goes to the theater, her biological father and paternal grandmother give her EVERYTHING she asks for. Remember that $400 dollar ipod? She had one at the age of five...
She does not understand why her mother needs to know where she's going when she leaves the house. She does not understand that she can't be in the street (like her friends) until all hours of the night. Or can't talk on the phone (on a school night) for as long as she wants..clean her room, wash the dishes.........etc... Too Many Rules!
This generation is very, very different from mine. When I was THIRTEEN years old, I spent an entire summer caring for my twin, toddler siblings. They were 13 months old and I was responsible for them, Monday through Friday 8AM -6PM. This included three meals a day, multiple diaper changes, managing crying fits, pushing a heavy metal double stroller around the streets of Brooklyn, playtime, reading time, nap time -- and all of this on top of my normal chores of cleaning the bathroom/kitchen, my room, washing clothes........etc.
Neither my child, nor this family member were/are capable of doing a quarter of that at fifteen.
TD Jakes talks about this. He says we are raising children who sit and feast at the table - not children who know how to prepare and set the table. In other words, we're giving them too damn much and when we tell them NO - their world falls apart.
My daughter ran away because she was told NO. And so did the above mentioned family member. If I had runaway every time I was told NO - I would still be running!
And furthermore, I had every reason to runaway and didn't. Don't belive me? Then read my (memoir in disguise) book: The Warmest December
We are raising a generation of children who have a strong sense of entitlement and wouldn't know what empathy was if it dropped down from the sky and introduced itself.
But I think I may have strayed just a bit....
There is a black female comedian who in her stand up routine says: "My mother told us kids she beat us so the police wouldn't have to."
If you're black - I don't even have to explain why this is painfully true --
Creflo Dollar was arrested and had to pay a 5K bond. So his child is lying - she has cost her father a large amount of money and national embarrassment - all because her father said: No, you cannot go to a party.
Here's something else that comedian said her mother told her: "You gonna call the cops on me? Go on ahead - I have money to bail myself out of jail, how you gonna get out of the group home?"
Maybe these privileged disrespectful children need to spend a month in a group home so they can appreciate all that they have. See how the folk from the other side of the tracks are living, maybe then they'll think twice about hollerin' wolf and learn to appreciate what they have - rules and all.
How many times do they think they can bite the hand that's feeding them - before they get smacked????
***I know this is a highly emotional subject for many, many people -- while I welcome your comments - please be respectful..........*****
Bernice L. McFadden
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I saw headlines about the incident, but did not read the articles. I stopped watching television a while ago, so do not know the minister. Of course, now I will read an article and see if You Tube has any sermons I can watch. My daughter ran away from home when she was 12, taking her younger sister and brother with her. She was mad. I think I slapped her for making her brother cry. I have not thought about that in many years, and no longer recall what she did to him. I have a habit of writing articles in comments so will shut up now, before I relay what happened next...
Rebelling against parents is a rite of passage on the way to adulthood. I would have to do some thinking on privileged kids; mine were not, we were dirt poor, and I did learn how to make a dollar out of fifty cents ~ a phrase I would not know, but for reading it somewhere.
A phrase comes to mind: out of control by you, means in control by them. As adults, I think, we need to control our fits of frustration caused tempers. "Here, take my advice, I'm not using it." When my daughter was twelve, I would not have known, how easily a person could die during a beating.
As you mentioned, I too understand. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
Preach sista. I am a mother of two teenage girls just coming out on the other side of the rebellion days. My nineteen year old is now in college and trying to find a part time job to help support herself b/c she wants to live in an apartment rather than a dorm. My seventeen year old is an athlete in HS who is an honor roll student but has a lot of fees for extracurricular activities and just recently got her driver's license. She also wants to try to get a part time job. She's now doing community service hours during the summer. They both see how hard it is for us to take care of them and provide for them. So I can certainly feel Creflo on trying to raise teenagers privileged or not. I would say overall I have two good girls. You have to continue to pray for strength and humility. Because sometimes they will make you WANT TO "snap".
I was saddened the moment I read about this incident because I would have more than likely re-acted in the same manor. What the child fails to know is that a parent who cares is going wear/bear their cross of embarrassment, financial set-back, and jail time with honor if they felt that action/cross-road was necessary to teach their child a lesson. That’s real tough love.
Many of our children who are “privileged” are oblivious to their wealth be it worldly possession or the fact that they have parents who genuinely care and therefore misinterpret their parent position and rules. Needless to say it will be well into his daughter’s adulthood before she can walk-in her father shoes and really weigh out the ramifications of her selfness and disrespect.