The Teenage Tango

Earlier the teen, my husband and I had an argument. It was over something really minor. $3 to be exact. Yep, just a measly $3. But it turned in to a rip roarin’ hour long discussion. A loud discussion.

The gist of the fight was over his learner’s permit. That permit has been the cause of several disagreements in the last week. Who knew one little piece of plastic could be so controversial?

Basically my husband took the teen to the DOT to replace his lost driving permit. It cost $3 to replace it. Since the teen didn’t have any money, my husband paid for it. All along we were expecting the teen to pay us back for it. However, all along the teen expected us to just pay for it because we are the parent and he is the son.

This is where the argument comes in.

My husband asked the teen to go mow the neighbor’s lawn (the neighbor also happens to be the teen’s uncle). He told him he needed to mow so he could get some money and pay us back the $3 for the permit. The teen flipped. “Pay you back? Why would I pay you back?” We tried to explain that we paid for the original permit. When he lost that one, the replacement became his responsibility. The teen said we never told him he’d have to pay us back.

“Why would I go mow the lawn just so I can give you the money I earn? Then I don’t have any money for myself. I might as well not mow.” As you know, we’ve had these conversations (or ones like them) many times before. A teen’s logic just astounds me. The concept that you would earn money so you can pay me back and then have your own money the next time is completely lost on teens.

He went on to say that if he knew he had to pay it back he may not have borrowed the money. Which is usually a fair argument, but not in this case. I said, “How would you have driven at driver’s ed last night with no permit? Didn’t you HAVE to have a permit?” To which he responded, “Well yeah, but for other things you make me pay you back and you don’t tell me in advance.”

And here lies the root of the problem. The argument wasn’t really about a $3 learner’s permit. It was about choices, responsibility and respect. He feels like we don’t respect him enough to give him the choice to borrow money, just give him money or let him go without. We just force our will on him at our whim. He feels that at time we treat him like a little kid who can’t make his own decision. And we feel like we are being nice by loaning him money and getting no respect or appreciation in return. Who’s right? We’re both right. Who’s wrong? We’re both wrong. At least on some levels. This raising teenagers business is quite the tango.

In the end we decided going forward we would make it very clear when we expect him to pay us back. Going forward we will make it a point to say, “I will loan you this $3, but you need to pay me back.” And then he can make the choice to either take the money and pay us back or decline the money. Then everybody will be on the same page and there will be no surprises.