What do you wish your parents warned you more about? Do you wish your mom or dad gave you more advice about certain aspects of life so you were better prepared? It doesn’t have to be a parent, it could be the media from your childhood.. or even what was taught at school.
OAKLAND COUNTY MOMS BLOG ENTRIES
What Do You Wish Your Parents Warned You More About?
I grew up in the 1980s and was bombarded with Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” and “this is your brain on drugs” anti-drug campaigns. We had D.A.R.E, we had McGruff the Crime Dog, we were trained and warned of the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Sure, plenty of kids still smoked, drank, took drugs, and had unprotected sex, but any child of my generation will tell you… parents, media, and the schools put out crazy efforts toward helping kids make wise choices. Put it this way… if we walked into and fell in an open sewer (made a bad choice) back then, there’s a good chance we knew that the lid was off the manhole before we plummeted.
I remember how comical it was to me growing up that adults back then could look a kid square in the eye and say “but we didn’t know smoking was bad for us back then.” Didn’t know? Smoke billowing out of your mouth and nose and you didn’t know it was bad for you? I want to make sure I don’t look as foolish to my own kids about a stupid behavior like smoking, but I’m already too late!
As a parent, I suffer from a mild case of tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. The smoking gun is loud volume throughout my life. Some of the culprits are obvious, some are not so much. Obviously, the loud concerts I attended as a teen had A LOT to do with my eventual tinnitus. My college jobs with zero ear protection definitely contributed. I worked at car wash near loud blowers and have cut many a lawn near a roaring lawn mower. No protection, other than my 80s Walkmans… which was cranked at obscene volumes seemingly all the time. Boy, was I dumb.
I wish there had been more hearing loss or tinnitus warnings when I was growing up but really, there wasn’t much attention paid to it. I’m glad to see many celebrities are now speaking out and warning teens about loud volume use as it relates to tinnitus and loss of hearing. The loud concerts with no ear plugs should have been a no-brainer but I honestly didn’t know I should (or could) protect my ears at my landscaping or car wash college gigs.
Now, I’m the Nancy Reagan of the loud volume warnings. I’d never let my kids attend a concert (or even mow the lawn) without ear plugs. I also constantly warn them about their Air Pods phone ear buds and Beats headphones. I hope they take my lesson to heart.
I’m waiting for the day when my son says to me “What do you mean? You sat front row at dozens of heavy metal concerts without ear plugs and you say you didn’t know it was bad for you?” I guess I deserve it.
So, what do you wish your parents warned you more about?
