Lighters, Lunchboxes and Overprotective Parents

Illustration by Lauren Phillips| VOX Staff

By Seth Langer
VOX Staff

I’m not afraid to say it: my mother makes my lunch for me every morning. Sometimes it’s a turkey sandwich and sometimes it’s scrambled eggs, but whatever I find in my bright pink lunchbox (don’t judge me), my mom made it herself for me that morning. Needless to say, my mom has complete access to my lunchbox, which I sometimes use as a purse.

One morning, she found a lighter among my pens and chapstick. I don’t smoke or anything, but I saw the lighter on North Druid Hills Road, and it was shiny and interesting, so I picked it up. Stupid? Yes. Fun to play with? Even more so. Of course, my mom confronted me with her I’m-suspicious-of-you tone of voice. “Seth, tell me. Are you messing around with drugs?” she said. I was a little insulted. My mom totally didn’t believe me when I first told her that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had to continue to convince her that I’m not a druggie.

As a teenager, I always feel like I have to prove myself. It’s tiring.

Establishing Trust
There’s a universal mindset to always live up to the expectations set for you. The minute we’re dropped into high school, we have to start proving ourselves. We spend our freshman year trying to prove to all the older kids that we’re just as much a high school student as they are. And from then on, we constantly try to prove ourselves to our teachers, our parents, our friends and ourselves. We always seem to have something to do: homework, sports, plays, volunteer activities, jobs, etc. With all of them, we have to try to convince someone that we’re a step above everyone else, that we stand out, that we’re the ones who should get a reward or that we should be believed.

I want the freedom to not have to prove myself to everyone around me. I want to be able to just passively loaf on a couch or coast through all my classes or play with a lighter I found on the road. I’m burnt out from struggling to prove myself all the time.

I hope my parents trust me. I’ve proven to them time and time again that I’m up to the challenge of being a responsible, intelligent person. I make good grades. I’m always where I’m supposed to be. My parents constantly know what I’m doing and with whom. And I’m fairly good at following through when they ask.

Besides, I don’t have time to do drugs. I get to school around 8 a.m. Until 3:10 p.m. I’m in class, and then I have rehearsal for one play or another everyday until 7 p.m. That’s an 11-hour day just at school. Then I come home, eat something, do all my homework, watch a little TV, shower (sometimes) and collapse into bed. Weekends aren’t much better; I’m never not in motion. I barely have time to sleep.

Sometimes I lose my house key, and sometimes I forget to call. But the thing is, I’m totally willing to get up before my alarm clock even beeps and put together a crappy peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich for lunch just so they wouldn’t assume the worst at the first sight of a beat-up lighter.
I eventually convinced my mom that the lighter wasn’t anything scandalous. She left; I sighed. Always another thing to prove.

Trusting My Parents
Adults should have to prove themselves, too. So far my parents have done a pretty good job with me. I’d like to think I’m pretty intelligent and have my values in check, but who knows? I might turn out to be a homicidal maniac. They’re not done raising me yet, so they are still proving themselves.

As I get older (and more argumentative), I want my parents to show me more proof that they’re being good parents. When they won’t let me go out for dinner with a friend one night but then let me do it another night, I want to know why. When they won’t let me drive to school, I want to know why. As the child, it might not be my place to make my parents prove themselves, but I’m still going to ask anyway. That’s who I am, and, ironically, who I’ve been raised to be.

Bottom line is, though, I have to trust that my parents have provable reasons for being overprotective, that my teachers have reasons for assigning difficult work, and that my friends only have my best interests at heart when they tell me my lunchbox looks stupid. And hopefully, if I prove that I can trust all of them, they can all trust me.

Seth is a junior at DeKalb School of the Arts. He has many pairs of Converse.