Sanctuary
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Oh, the joy of being the parent of a teenager.
Our oldest son came home from school today, and almost immediately thereafter went after our middle som in a vicious attack because he supposedly ate some of HIS precious Skittles, that he was hoarding in his room. After about five minutes of this, my wife reached the end of her tether and laid into him good, then proceeded to enter his room and take out everything he had been hoarding. We found all kinds of things we had been seeking: our working flashlight, matches, the vacuum attachment, and the food stash. Tempers flared, things were said, and he stormed off to Grandma's while we cleaned up the mess.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for us; we had long grown tired of his prideful hoarding MINE MINE MINE ways. After some consulting with Grandma, we did something pretty drastic. We moved his things into the room the middle and youngest child share, and gave the middle child (who gives us little trouble so far) the room to himself.
When our oldest came home and found out, he was really mad, as can be expected, but when we explained why, he begrudgingly accepted. He's not a really bad kid, just a teenage boy. They just seem hard-wired to explode. Ugh.
This connects to music, I promise.
It gave me a chance to think of my room when I was a hotheaded teenager. The house was tiny, the room extra-small, but I spent a lot of time there, and I loved it. Since I'm a guy, there wasn't a lot of decoration, a few posters, an award or two from my wrestling career. The hole in the closet door where I punched it in a fit of rage after my mom had chewed me out for something. My collection of Corona bottles (hey, wasn't always LDS), and of course my music.
Until my senior year, my only music source (aside from the clock radio) was a tape recorder, on which I would play my cassettes. It was mono, so it sucked, but it was better than nothing. Many a lonely night was spent with that tape recorder, listening to Soem Great Reward and lip-synching along.
For my 17th birthday, my mom bit the bullet and finally bought me a stereo. Remember the Yorx brand? Geez, they were cheap, but you'd better believe I was happy to have it. For the first time, I could copy my vinyl albums to cassette for later listening. It didn't have a CD player (this was 1986, CD's were still considered outrageously expensive items), but it did have radio, vinyl, and a dual-cassette system. I thought I was in heaven. That same stereo made it with me to college, and later into married life. In fact, I'm not sure how we lost it, because I don't think it ever broke.
Wow, late night posting leads to much rambling. Ah well.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (15)
My first cassette deck was a Norelco, thought the only made shavers didn't you, back in '70 or '71 maybe, recorded bootleg vinyl GD albums onto cassette with it, I still have the tapes but the deck is loooong gone and the vinyl was borrowed from a friend I didn't stay in touch with.
Good luck with the horder D, I come from a long line of New England packrats and hoarding can eventually develop into a real closet problem ;)
I bet if you look under the bed or in the back corner of the shelf in the closet in your eldest son's ex-room, you'll find that stereo.
I got a Yorx stereo when I was a teen, it didn't last that long though.
ohhh Dale, i love this post. i shared a room with two sisters up until high school - culturally it was unheard of to give kids their own rooms. (not anymore.)
how old is your hoarder exactly? vacuum attachment?
our very first stereo system with CD player was a cheap Pioneer-wannabe but i loved it to death because finally i did not feel left out when kids at school talked about CDs.
Ah, the joys of parenthood. Trust me when I say, I feel your pain.
My music listening was a cassette deck clock radio that I listened to quietly at bedtime (had to be quiet because I shared a room with my MOTHER. How horrible is that?) The neighbors were into CB radios and it would cut in, all static and stupid Smokey and Bear-ish...
Then, when I was 12 or so, she married my stepfather and things got waaaay better. He was a music lover and I got his hand-me-downs: a Denon receiver that must have weighed 80 pounds, a turntable that skipped a bit, a dual cassette deck. He went out and bought me speakers. All this in a room that was probably 10x12 and also held a dresser, desk and twin bed. Needless to say, I also had headphones. :)
The best part of it was he didn't do this to woo my mother; he set me up because he loved listening to music and was excited about my excitement. He was the best man and I really miss him since we lost him in 2002. He'd have loved MOG.
Hmmm...commenting at 10am leads to some rambling too.
"commenting at 10am leads to some rambling too." - hellsyeah, i loved reading all that! ;D
Dale, that sounds like a fair decision you made on moving the rooms.
And I knew it couldn't be true but the bit of my dyslexia kicked in and I read "(hey, wasn't always LSD)".
I remember very clearly a major hissy I threw was when I asked for a new stereo for my 16th birthday. I came home to find a 19' tv for my room...I was furious and took off to a friends and didn't want to come home. I still feel bad for over-reacting to this day and not being appreciative but now I also know, parents just don't understand and mine in particular...never listen. I love them to death tho.
Dale - Sounds about right to me...getting the "big boy bedroom" is a privilage...not a right. A friend of mine asked me once "What do you do when your son slams the door to his b-room?'. I told her to remove the door...She was shocked that I would suggest it.
Good job setting the boundries and being the hardie to enforce the consequences.
Great post. Like an episode of This American Life but with a much better soundtrack!
My oldest just turned 6 today, so I'd like to say I'm a couple of years away from this, but the truth is my kids go at it just like this. Fighting and arguing over what's MINE . . .
I also grew up on crappy radios and casette players, but I wasn't really a music addict until my senior year in high school. Once I caught the bug I saved up my money to buy my very own personal CD player -- it was so expensive at the time, I must've worked my butt of for abotu a month to get it. It was big and bulky, took about 8 batteries, and the batteries would die before even the first CD was finished. But it was MINE and it was great. Didn't own my own stereo until I bought one second hand from a guy during my sophomore year in college. I bought it so I could plug a cd player into it (was on my second by this time), but the real turning point for me was the fact that this stereo also had a record player on it. I started buying vinyl and that's whent he addiction really took off.
Got a good stereo when I graduated from college--1995. Still have it, still sounds great, although the speaker cones are a little trashed from cats and kids.
Yorx...........god you hit a button with that one. Like you I can remember my first stereo system, one that still works but is in storage at my parents house. When my son is old enough I plan on giving it to him, just hope he doesnt laugh at me when I do
You mean something like this...??? I had one that was similar and it stayed with me for years, and I think at some point it just got donated or trashed.... but I remember it well...
Darn it, now I'm craving Skittles. Stranger still, I don't even like Skittles!
I'm digging some of the autobiographical stuff I've seen on MOG the last couple days, and honestly would have overlooked there being no musical tie-in at all.
Thanks.
Came back to this one and it was worth it, some great stories, nice post Dale :)
Good on ya, Dale. And rather Solomonic solution. Best of luck as you continue doing the toughest job in the world.