Going through airport security this past Friday en route to San Francisco, my wife, son and I finally reached the agent for the last of several ID verification checks. The agent scanned and closely eyeballed the picture ID’s for Julie and I, and then asked George his name. As we were packing up the paperwork, the agent asked George his age.
In his wildly deep baritone he answered, “Fifteen.”
“I’ve got one of those at home,” she answered, offering my wife an empathic, pitying, eye-rolling look that implied, “I’m with ya, sister. Raising a teenager, a nightmare we both share, uh huh.”
On her radio show recently, the ever-popular Dr. Laura suggested that there were no good teenagers anymore, that today’s teens are an entitled, values-free bunch of narcissistic ne’er-do-wells. Okay, I added the ne’er-do-well part, but the rest was all Dr. Laura.
A recent best-seller in the parenting section of your local bookstore is entitled “Yes, Your Teen is Crazy.” In the past six months, different parents have brought this book in as a reference at least three times indicating, effectively, that they take some comfort in the collective suffering of all parents of teenagers.
Certainly, these stories are a clear indication that raising a teen is a brutal, foreboding, out-of-control process. Our teens today are too entitled, right? Yes, our teens are crazy! And mothers of teens everywhere need to serve as a de facto support group for the decade of misery and suffering they are collectively in the midst of. Right?
False.
I personally know that all of this bad news is short-sighted, unnecessarily pessimistic and, perhaps most importantly, flat-out wrong. In my gig, I get to know teenagers. A lot of them. Many of them with some big ‘issues,’ bad reputations, trouble in school, and so on.
And I’ve yet to meet the crazy teen we’re supposed to be afraid of. I don’t know the kid who merits the eye-roll. And Dr. Laura. Well, c’mon, it’s Dr. Laura, for crying out loud!
The teens I know are smart, really smart, even those whose grades don’t reflect their intelligence. They are thoughtful, empathic and caring, all of them. They take care of each other, and most of them have a sense of strength and integrity that I truly admire. Most teens today stand up for the little guy, having very little tolerance for bullying. They have values and standards that they live by. Unlike my generation, they designate drivers.
We need to change the vibe. My book is entitled, “The Available Parent: Radical Optimism in Raising Teens and Tweens.” Initially, to be honest, I balked at the phrase “radical optimism.” “Was this what parents really needed?”, I wondered. As it turns out, radical optimism is exactly what we need as parents. We need to shift the nature of our thinking, about teenage-hood in general, and about our own teens in particular. We need to replace our fears and anxieties about our kids with faith, fascination, openness and curiosity.
Because teens are good, man. Really, really good people. They’re fascinating and funny, and you should listen to them.
They have something to say.

And believe me, you don’t want to miss it.