Raising Teenagers

My husband Nik didn’t marry just ME, he married my daughters too, and over the years proved to be a kind (and FUN!) step-father. Vanessa and Rachel had been devastated by their father’s death, and Nik’s presence in our lives brought love and joy back into the house. The girls had known Nik for many years and liked him, I wasn’t marrying a stranger but a friend, and we settled in as a family unit even though Nik was often at sea.

Time passed quickly, TOO quickly. The pretty young children Nik had adopted suddenly developed curves, they seemingly went from being innocent little girls to lush, beautiful women overnight, and parenting took on a whole new life! The young boys they had played with on the beach as children were changing too, and our porch was often filled with young, testosterone-laden males. They were drawn to our porch partly by their fascination with Nik and his wisdom, and partly by the easy access to my chocolate cream pies and pizzas. However, it became increasingly obvious what the MAIN attraction was, and I began building mental family trees in my head as the young fellows eyed my daughters. Wait, isn’t this one a first cousin? That one I am SURE is a second cousin, or is it a third? The fellow in the corner is from the mainland, but I don’t know his parents. Yikes!  Yes, parenting had indeed taken on a whole new life.

The day came when Vanessa was invited by one of the young men to  an evening function. It was decreed that she could go with him as long as her younger sister went as well, an order that I am sure put a bit of a damper on the date and that was, indeed, the intention! Nik was in charge of setting the curfew and, being Nik, he always made it an unforgettable one; where most parents would have given a curfew of 10:00, Nik would make it 9:57 or 10:03 for Vanessa, 9:31 or 9:48 for Rachel. These odd numbers ensured their presence at the bottom of our gap in time for Rachel’s deadline, giving Vanessa and her date a bit of time alone (but not too much!) for smooching. The girls were ALWAYS home early – we would hear them giggling at the bottom of the driveway before the appointed curfew time, waiting by the road until the very last minute, then walking into the house smack on the dot.

Vanessa and Rachel were obedient and well-behaved, and so were their friends. Bequia is a small island, and the boys and girls my children spent time with were youngsters I had watched grow up over the years. I trusted them, but still felt it was necessary to lay down a few rules when it came to dating. After all, I had been a teenager myself and knew the dangers of temptation and peer pressure, not to mention the matter of raging hormones! I wanted to ensure that Vanessa and Rachel did not fall prey to bad influences, and there were a couple of places on the island that in my opinion could lead them down a murky path.

First and foremost was a night club called Bedrock, laughingly referred to as “Manrock” due its distinct lack of female patrons – I wasn’t the only mother on the island banning her daughters from the old cinema locale! The cave-like interior was dark, the music extremely loud and, in my opinion, it wasn’t the place for respectable young ladies. The second “no-no” on my short list was a bar called Penthouse, a small rum shop with a rather dubious reputation that I figured wasn’t seemly for teenaged girls. It was made quite clear to anyone dating Vanessa and Rachel that Bedrock and Penthouse were “taboo”, they could go anyplace else but not THERE. I trusted the young men who dated the girls and figured they wouldn’t take them to such places, but stressed the point just in case!

The boyfriends came and the boyfriends went, with a bit of tears and heartbreak along the way. Vanessa and Rachel eventually left Bequia to attend university in Canada, and ended up marrying and settling there. Decades later, while visiting with the girls, I was explaining to people unfamiliar with Bequia what it had been like to raise them in such a special place. My children had grown up in a veritable paradise and had made it through their teenaged years unscathed, thanks in part to parents who knew where to draw the line, a line I explained by saying;

“For example, there were just two places on Bequia Vanessa and Rachel were not allowed to visit, a night club called Bedrock and a rum shop called Penthouse.”

As I spoke, I heard snorts of laughter and turned to see my two daughters rolling their eyes at each other.

“Oh Mommy, we went Penthouse ALL THE TIME!”         

What did I expect? Vanessa and Rachel are, after all, chips off the old block!  At least they didn’t patronize Bedrock, they were good girls and I trusted them……