How to Talk to the Creature in Your Car

How can we maintain a meaningful presence for young people, even when we may not have the answers to their most challenging questions?

Drawing on the tools outlined in my book, "How to Raise an Elegant Teen: The ABCs of Gen Z Parenting," I offer practical strategies to help parents, grandparents and guardians navigate the complexities of supporting todays' teens through life's various transitions. Additionally, this talk emphasizes the vital role of adult self-care.

Use this episode as validation of what is working in your relationship with your teen or as a survival guide for communicating with the "creature in your car." Let it remind you of what each of us wants most: the tender presence of a loving other and permission to be whomever we are becoming. 

Tissues required.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Okay, thank you so much for coming. What a beautiful turnout. I want to start this way. I'm gonna just stare at you. I'm gonna look into your eyes. And I'm gonna see you. And I'm gonna take this time because this is time that needs to be taken. This is what's missing in our world. So I will model for you how to put it back.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Tonight I will speak to you very poetically.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I will speak with alliteration, never-ending nearness, unassailable attendance. I will speak in metaphor. Why? I'm giving you an example of how I want you to talk to your teenager or the creature in your car. Because once upon a time, only a few years ago, you read them bedtime stories. And they loved metaphor, and they loved poetry, and they loved storytelling. And they're only a few years later, and they still love it. I will model for you tonight how that works. What your job is above all, of the many roles you play as parents, is to be the person who provides never-ending nearness and an unassailable attendance in a teenager's life. Every single one of us was born or was brought into this world with an exalted destiny. It seems that way, or at least that's the story we tell our kids, that their destiny is exalted. So for me, it was that I was born on a rainy day on a Monday in 1963. The doctor said that they own my there was only one heartbeat. That my that my mother was having one child, but she had twins. And so she wasn't prepared for a second baby. So they had only one heartbeat, one name picked out, one crib. And then I came along, and the nurses called me baby B. But my mother called me her bonus. I was her bonus. I was the one for whom this world was created. The exalted destiny, whether they're adopted, whether they're born, into your lives they come, and as they do, we exalt their destiny, and they start believing it as we did. This world is made for me. Once upon a time, life was an elegant endeavor. My pockets were filled with pennies and promises. And by the way, for a child, that's the fortune of childhood. A penny and a promise, and you've got forever. And every day was a snow day, and my world was as wide as the circle of hands that I could hold. And then I turned 13. And life was different. And my pockets were no longer just filled with moonbeams and miracles and pennies and promises. But words, words that described me or that I was afraid described me. Something that I like to call the faithful ache. The words in my pockets, I'm defective. I don't belong here. I'm so gay, stupid, loser, faggot, retarded, chunk, wuss, freak, geek, nerd, but mostly I don't belong here. The rite of passage is the faithful ache, and it happens to your teenager or soon-to-be teenager right around the time they realize that this world was not just made for them, and everything in it is not just about them. And here are two examples of my faithful ache. I had many, but one in particular, 1976, Wednesday nights, 10, 9 o'clock, on ABC, Charlie's Angels. And I would watch it with my black and white 13-inch TV screen and the little uh rabbit antennas. Remember? I was so grateful that I had a television in my room because that was a big deal, because now they don't need a TV in their room. They've got their iPads. My dad would knock on the door and say, Don't, don't forget 10 o'clock bedtime. I'd look up at 10 o'clock at the poster on my on the door of my closet. The poster of Faber Fawcett in that iconic picture. The one piece red bathing suit with and the white teeth and the and the nipple showing. And I looked at it and thought, nothing. And 10 o'clock, my dad knocks on the door and says, 10 o'clock, shut the TV. And I'm like, yeah, okay. 10 o'clock, ABC, the six million dollar man. And the wound arrived. My dad would leave, I would watch the TV, and I'd visit with my ache. I will never be like other boys. At camp, I'd evolved from this skin-need cadet boy in the kick field into a sexually confused super senior guarding furtive glances. The ache had settled into my system, and I felt incomplete. I don't belong here. I'm not enough. I'll never be completely loved. I graduated from NYU and I said no one's ever gonna know the real me. And here's the problem with that sentence, especially this is Pride Week, right? We understand that if nobody knows the real me, that means that I don't know the real me. So I didn't get to find out who I was. And so, to make the long story short, just to get this part out of the way, I accepted an invitation for a random hookup from another Jewish guy who said, Call me, you should call me, I know your secret. So I went to his apartment. I climbed five flights of stairs, I walked into the apartment, I sat down on the couch, I had a conversation with the Jewish guy who said he knew my secret. I talked about TV, terms of endearment was the movie of the time. This was 26 years ago. I left my jeans on the floor and my words in my pockets on the jeans, in the jeans on the floor. The words, please hold me, please see me, please love me back. Me and only me. As I laid in bed underneath the weight of this guy with the words in my pockets on the floor, wanting to say, prove to me that I exist. But afraid. So afraid. I would never be the six million dollar man. I turned my head, I looked the other way, and said, next time, I'll be safer next time. And I got infected with HIV. In 1987, that was a death sentence. And as I told this story a few weeks ago to a room full of parents like you guys in Boca Ratone, a woman, a mother screamed out at the end of the, she said, when I got to the fifth flight, she said, How can I get my son, my daughter, not to climb to the fifth flight of stairs and walk in and cross the threshold? And my answer was, you can't. We can't stop them. We can arm them with our unconditional love and our knowledge of what the world is and the fact, the proof that we will be there for them. But they're gonna do what they're gonna do. I expected to live three years, that would be good, and two years that would be bad, and that would hit me at 29, and all I wanted was to be 30. And somehow I made it here tonight in front of you, and I'm 50, and I'm so grateful.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Part two.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

What is it that I can teach you about the mind and the heart and the psyche of a teenager? Understanding what I call poetically the arc of adolescence, or again, remember, it's all poetry, the private midnight. What's a private midnight? It's my definition, what's my way of describing adolescence. A private midnight is that time in your life when you're alone in the world and you feel that life hasn't started. It's as if you're on a highway hitchhiking, waiting for somebody to just pick you up and say, I'll get you through until morning, when life begins and you have some agency and control over who you are. And you can answer with authenticity the questions that I want every adult to ask a teenager. Who are you when nobody's looking? Not on Facebook, but when you're by yourself. And whose arms do you fall into when life sucks? And what's the miracle you're waiting for? And tell me about the emptiness and how does it feel? Describe it to me, because I know it's there. And what advice would you give to your parents if they think they'd listen without judgment? And who do you miss the most? And what did God say to you yesterday if God spoke to you, if you believe? The journey towards adulthood, the private midnight. There's one, there's two things I want to teach you for me to get you to understand how to have a conversation with that creature in your car. And the first is this there's a giant paradox that's in the soul of those kids at home right now, on their phones, on their iPads, and they're all three computer, phone, iPad, all in front of them, right? They're doing it right now as we speak. And in their soul is this giant paradox. And it's everything you need to know about how to get a conversation started with them about their secret life. It's this. They don't want to get caught. They're deathly afraid of getting found out. They're so frightened of the wound, the shame, the faithful ache being exposed. They're afraid of getting caught in the act of becoming. And that is not even a complete sentence. The act of becoming what? But I like to say that a teenager is an incomplete sentence in search of syntax and poetry and proper punctuation. And that is your job. You supply, you provide the proper punctuation. You don't write the sentences as much as you'd like to. You provide the grammar and some of the poetry. And so they're not complete. So they're they're they're afraid of getting caught in the act of becoming. Becoming what? Something they're not supposed to be. Gay, trans questioning, bulimic, fat. Someone who doesn't believe in the God that you believe in. Lonely, empty, afraid. They're afraid of not being their Facebook profiles. They're afraid of not being who you want them to be, who what society wants them to be, what religion says they should be. Afraid of getting caught. And here's the paradox which you gotta understand. While they're afraid of getting caught in the act, they want to get caught. They want to get caught, but if you're taking notes, here's how I want you to do it. By a loving other. They want to get caught by a loving other. Who are the loving others in this room in their lives? All of you. Right? I just got new business cards. And it says, motivational speaker, health educator. Really, it should say loving other, but that's kind of creepy. So I didn't put that. But we are the loving others in a teenager's life or soon-to-be teenager's life. Right? The ones who provide the opportunity to say yes to their pain and yes to the wound and yes to the faithful ache. Not fix it, not change it, not ground them for it, but just witness it and allow it. Now you have many roles as parents. I'm not going to speak to you tonight about the other roles as disciplinarian, as provider, as teacher. I'm I'm I'm only speaking to you tonight from the role to the loving other that you are. I'm summoning out the loving other in this room, which is what they need. And so in Judaism, we have this word, rachem. Rachem means womb, right? But there's no plural for rachem in Hebrew. But if there was, it would be rachamim, which means compassion. It's even more than compassion, it's womb-like compassion. It's the compassion for which it's it's it's mother earth compassion, it's the love that asks for nothing in return. That's the loving other. And to that I make this appeal, to that person that you are tonight, to that role I appeal tonight. And here's the goal. In order to understand how to talk to the creature in your car at the table or the one who won't talk to you because they've got their headphones on, how can you how can I help you to get that conversation started? It must begin with the understanding that they are living with this paradox, they don't want to get caught, but they want to get caught by a loving other, and they need guidance through their faithful ache. The faithful ache, the arc of adolescence. What I believe every teenager needs to know. I traveled the world. I just got back from Montreal and England and Honduras, and a lot of times in New Jersey. And I teach when I teach teenagers, most of the time, four basic principles. And if there's more time, I get further. But these are the four main principles, principles I want you to know. I teach them. The first is this we don't make sense. We are contradictions. In fact, they are living the greatest of all these contradictions. They don't want to get caught and they want to get caught. I love it this way. I met a mother in Pittsburgh a few years ago who screamed out in my talk at right about now. She said, Oh, I don't believe in God. Oh my god. I hope that God didn't hear me say that. It's charming, it's self-effacing. We adults can laugh at our contradictions. They can't. A teenager does not want to not make sense. But a teenager doesn't make sense. So when they're given permission to not make sense, they're given permission to be exactly who they're becoming. Contradictions are essential in the development of self. We laugh at ours, they don't like theirs. I met a teenager just a few weeks ago in Minneapolis who said, Who cuts her skin? Epidemic proportion of teenage girls and some boys who cut their skin. In communities of privilege, right? In inner cities, we see them joining gangs, outward aggression. In communities of privilege, it's internal, it's an eating disorder, it's self-abuse, suicide. She said, I hate my scars, I love my scars. I don't want to cut, I want to cut. I don't make sense. Rule number one, when teaching a teenager, give them permission to not make sense. We give ourselves permission to not make sense, we've got to give them permission. Number two, accountability. It's a word that doesn't exist because of the internet and the media and social media, right? Bringing accountability back into the world, saying, I have a broken heart, I have a wound, this is my faithful ache, this is my invisible kingdom, this is my private midnight, this is my broken heart. And being able to fall into someone's arms. Something I call the Khmer people. What's a Khmer person? It's someone who says, Kimir. That's a Khmer person. You're a Khmer person. My great aunt Mendel, who survived Auschwitz, would say, Kimir, I put a little extra sugar in your tea. Don't tell your brother. And in their presence, in the presence of a Khmer person, life is sweeter. It's safe to be you in the presence of a Khmer person. So I need them to find arms to fall into, to be accountable to their wound, not be judged, not be scolded, not be changed, because they're not broken, they don't need to be fixed, but to be witnessed and validated, seen and remembered. Three, life is hard. We know that. And guess what? They know that too. And inasmuch as we don't want them to know that, it doesn't matter. They know it. Life is hard. Sometimes their parents get divorced. In the natural order of life, everybody's grandparent dies first. Right about now. Sometimes the breast cancer comes back. Sometimes they can't lose the weight. Sometimes they don't get the grades they wanted. Sometimes they wait for the phone to ring. By the way, it doesn't ring anymore, it vibrates, right? But they wait and their love, their longing, it's unrequited. So it's important that we teach teenagers to be at peace with being broken and that life is hard and how to deal with the faithful ache. You bow to it, you bow your head, you make room for it, you say yes to it. Because if I hadn't, if I'd known how to bow to the faithful ache, if I'd known how to accept my contradictions, if I'd known how to find somebody's arms to fall into, I probably wouldn't have fallen into that stranger's arms and had unsafe sex and gotten infected. I definitely would have used the condom. But the fourth most important thing I want every teenager to know is what I want you to remember. Once upon a time, when I when life was an elegant endeavor, and my pockets and yours were filled with marvels and moonbeams, we believed in the universal truths. I am enough. I belong here. I am completely loved, and I am completely lovable. Somewhere around the age of 12 and a half, around the age a boy learns to masturbate, somewhere around the age of 13, the time a girl learns to look in the mirror and hate what she sees, those four principles get challenged. And they stop believing that they are enough, that they belong, they are completely loved, and they are completely lovable. Two different concepts. There is not a child in the world that doesn't believe that. It's challenged when you're a teenager. And so I want to teach you how to have a conversation with them to reclaim those principles. You have a certain want for your kids, your teachers have another wish for them. Their rabbis and priests have another wish for them. Society has a whole other plan for them. I have two requests for your kids. One is, and something really simple, I just want your kids to use condoms. And I'm serious about that. Because they don't. But two, I want them to grow into elegant young men and women. Elegant young men and women. And what is an elegant man? It's someone who's in touch with their sorrow, someone who's in touch with their pain, someone who's in touch with their joy and in the process of healing all the time. What's an elegant person? Somebody who knows how to take care of themselves. My friend David Brunetti always says this. I love this quote, and I always quote him because it's his quote. I only feel safe around people who can take care of themselves. I don't have to take care of them. I want your kids to be people who can take care of themselves, and so do you, right? An elegant person is somebody who is who understands that authenticity and vulnerability are their greatest powers. Being authentic and being vulnerable is what is powerful. And finally, an elegant person is somebody who, in their presence, their authenticity and their joy is something to behold. I want your children to be something to behold.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

First is this.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

And if you say, not my teenager, then I'll say, especially yours. Every teenager has a secret life and they need their secret life. And if you're the parent who says, but my I know everything about my child, muscle telephone, I think that's great. But you don't. You can't. Because secrets to a teenager are like scaffolding to a building. Right? They need their secrets to develop this thing that we call self. They need their secrets to climb over the wound and the faithful ache to create this concept of the architecture of self, that they exist outside of you. They're whole and complete, completely loved and completely lovable. They need their secrets, and their secrets are their closest companions on that lonely road towards young adulthood because their secrets chose them. They didn't wake up and say, I think I'd like to be bulimic. They didn't wake up and say, you know what, I'd like to try being a lesbian. They didn't wake up and say, I want to cut my skin. It chose them. And I know because they tell me, and they tell me because I ask without judgment. They say, I tried cutting my skin and that doesn't work. I can't bring an Xacto knife to my skin. But you know what does work? A toothbrush down my throat. They tell me. Because sometimes when life gets reckless with a teenager, a teenager gets reckless with his or her life. So, how can I help you understand how to have a conversation with them? It starts with secrets that they get to have secrets. And if you get all their secrets, they're gonna have one to take the place of what you don't know about. They need some space between you. So I wanted to give you information tonight, tricks, tips, ideas, how to get hold of the dangerous secrets and let them keep the innocuous ones. They get to have something. So, what's an innocuous secret? There was alcohol at the party. Now I know that many of you are saying that's not innocuous, that's a bad that's a big secret. No, it's not. There was alcohol at the party, it's an innocuous secret. A dangerous secret is I brought the alcohol to the party. Do you hear the difference? I cheated on a test. I just threw I didn't go to school today. Innocuous. Dangerous is I have no intention of graduating high school. I hate my life today. I hate my life. A dangerous secret is I have thoughts of suicide. I can't stop thinking about it. How can I help you have access to the dangerous secrets so that they can you can have understand how to teach them and guide them and help them? It starts with giving them permission to hang on to the more innocuous ones. Let's be aware of how we use our words, right? Let's stop lying to them because the way we use our words actually sometimes turns into a lie. We don't mean to, but we do. There are so many things we say that actually end up as lies. It'll pass. You'll meet somebody new. By the way, when you say it'll pass, or you meet somebody new to a teenager, what you're doing is denying them their grief. And if a teenage girl can't have her boyfriend, at the very least she gets to have her grief over her boyfriend. To say it'll pass, you'll meet somebody new is audacious. Because it tells them I don't have time for your grief. But more things that we don't mean to say that actually hurt. These are the best years of your life. Well, they're not. They're not the best years of your life, and they actually have sometimes start to believe us in spite of life's demanding circumstances. They think, but these are the best years. How can it get any if it's it's this if if this is what it is, I don't want to be around. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. We know. We know that's never true, and we know that at the age of six in first grade. But here's the thing about sticks and stones. Very few people really ever got hurt by a stick or a stone. Some, but very few. But the words, you think about it. I remember when I broke my arm when I was six years old, broke my arm. I do not remember the pain. My brain is blocked out, the physical pain. I remember the people writing on the cast. I don't remember the pain. But I do remember the emotional pain of when the class bully, Butch, it had to be Butch, right? Called me faggot. Faggot! So gay! You're so gay. F-A-G-G apostrophe T. Faggot! I remember how that felt. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words, words have greater power. It's the thought that counts, not so much, not to a teenager. Remember, the never-ending nearness, your unassailable attendance. That's what counts, not the thought. As long as you have your health, another expression, right? What happens to the teenager who has cerebral palsy? What about the teenager who's blind? What about the teenager who doesn't have their health? They don't have the same value. So, this one, it's such a small world. We've got to stop saying to a teenager that it's such a small world because they know that it's not, because all you have to do is have one naked picture of yourself and their, of their, of themselves, and their ex-girlfriend's phone or ex-boyfriend's phone, and it's not a small world anymore. It'll never happen to me. Well, it happens to somebody, and it happens to somebody's child. But I think the most pernicious of all the things that we mean to say, that we actually say wrong, is this next expression. And it's pernicious because it has the best of intentions, but it doesn't ring true. Time heals all wounds. It simply doesn't. It simply does not. And you know that, and I know that, and Jane knows that. And it would be wrong for us to tell the teenager that. And this new movement that came along in September and October, November, and 2010 was this movement called It Gets Better. And itgetsbetter.com is an amazing thing. The words it gets better are not. Stick around. But to say to a teenager, it gets better means that you don't have time for when it doesn't feel like that. It gets better as a first cousin to time heals of wounds. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. We don't know. They don't know. All we know now is that life may be sucking for them. So right now, let's sit and feel how it feels for life to suck.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

I want you to remember this next thing. Now you might like this.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

I don't think this works for me, and didn't work with my parents for me and my parents. This next quote: You can tell us anything. You can tell mom and dad anything, you can tell mom and mom anything. You can tell dad and dad, and you can tell us anything. Well, here's why that doesn't work, right? Two reasons. Because obviously, they need their secrets, and so if they if you say you can tell us anything, then there's a there's that there's no break between you and them. They need their scaffolding, they need some protection, so they can't tell you anything. And secondly, can they? Really? Can they tell you anything? Maybe you're the parent to whom they can, but some of us in this room are not those people, and that's okay too. So to the teenager who is questioning their gender, who thinks they're born in the wrong body, transgender as opposed to what I am, cisgender, Latin, cis, for alignment in the body that I present and feel that this is who I am. That teenager, are they prepared? Can you take that? The teenager who says, I I have an eating disorder and it's it's out of control. Are you ready to hear that? And how will you deal with the information when you hear it? So when you say you can tell us anything, just be prepared. As Rosalind Wiseman, who wrote the book Queen, Bees and Wannabees, I met her recently and she said it this way: just be prepared to be changed by what you hear. So instead, here's how I want you to say it. If you want to say that because you want to create safety in your home and you want to be the one that they come to, say it this way. It's and exactly this way. I would like to be the kind of parent that you could tell anything to. And I know there are certain things you need to keep to yourself. Do you hear that? I would like to be the kind of parent that you could tell anything to, but I know there are a few things you've got to keep to yourself. You make it about you. I. You put you open yourself up, I. It's not you, because when you is a pointed finger, you. Right? I is an open door. I wanna be. I'm gonna make myself vulnerable in front of you. I wanna be that parent, and I know that there are some things you're not gonna tell me, but I want to be that parent.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

We give up our secrets in the dark. We do this as children, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

In summer camp, we say things in the dark of a cabin or in a slumber party at our friend's house that we never say in the light of day. But if you want to know what's happening in the life of your teenager and your child, ask them at the end of the day. They need contact, right? Sex, teenagers have sex for many reasons, right? And we're gonna talk about sex a little bit later, but I'll tell you now, they have sex for many reasons, not the obvious ones, just because they're horny or they're curious or for revenge or they're bored. No, it's because they need contact, they need to be touched.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So if they're not gonna let you crawl to bed with them, then on the floor or in some contact, right? It's enough already with the how was your day?

SPEAKER_01 30:30

And what did you do? Fine, nothing. You have your cell phone? Did you do your homework? You know what time you have to be home? I know you have to ask those questions, right? But you've got to also ask original questions. And why is that? Because teenagers are original. Every day anew. Last week they wanted to soccer us, you got them all the equipment, and now it's the trombone. Every day anew. They are original and they're onto us. You start hiding from them, they're on to you, they know. So ask them original questions. It tells them that you think that they're interesting. Oh, and one more thing. If a teenager, your teenager, asks you for help with an issue, not homework, but an issue at midnight, and you're tired, do not say no. There's only a few more years that you get to do this. If you're tired, you get to be tired. But that's when they're gonna talk to you at the end of the day, when their defenses are down. Not in the car when you're picking up a carpool, right? But at the end of the day. I want you to be mindful of how you talk on the cell phone in front of them. The good and the bad. The good is that you're teaching them social skills, you're teaching them compassion, how to listen with love. And that's an important phrase. Listening with love. Do we listen with love or do we listen for an opportunity to talk?

SPEAKER_00 31:56

A mother had a fight with her daughter a few uh years ago in West Orange, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Right? Here. She said to me, I uh my daughter stormed away into her room, I put the dishes away, I put a plate on the counter, I sat down and composed a text, and I said, There's a plate on the counter for you if you're hungry, and we can finish the conversation later. I can't guarantee you that every teenager will respond to every text they get. But if I can guarantee you anything tonight, it will be this. A teenager will read every text they get. You want to get through to your kid? Text messaging. Now here's the condition. Listen carefully. Never use social media to do your dirty work. That's for Kanye West and Jimmy Kimmel. That's what they do. They use Twitter to have uh get more followers, to get publicity. That's not what we do, because that's not how we raise elegant young men and women, right? So there's something I call digital integrity. Digital integrity is that you are whole and complete, that your personality is always the same online as it is in the world. You keep your word and your word is consistent. Digital integrity means that you who you are every time you send a text is the same because the teenager's never gonna read it the way you want them to read it. They're gonna read it in the mood they're in. There's no inflection, there's no bold face, there's no italysis, it's just the words on in their phone. So here's the here's the tone I want you to always have. Loving. Use modern technology to be a loving other. That's when you get to be that loving other. It's in the great example. You you send a text that's loving so that when they say, I when they read it, they will always that you can never argue about how you meant to how it to be read, right? It's always consistent. My brother and my father would watch the New York Jets in the den and they'd be screaming at the same moment at the TV. They were talking to each other in that scream. Watch the TV with them. That's a way to get a conversation, to have a conversation. I want you to give advice even if it's not going to be taken. Right? Here's why. My father died 10 years ago. He gave the worst advice. What I wouldn't give for some of my dad's bad advice today. Because it wasn't the advice I wanted, it was that he is he would take the time to give it to me. I just wanted his unassailable attendance, I wanted his never-ending nearness. I wanted him around with whatever wisdom he had to offer. I wanted him to know more about me. So even if they say, I don't want your advice, they they want your advice. They want your attention. And admit it when you don't know the answer to something. Show them that you're fallible. Say, I don't know. It makes you accessible and approachable. Ask them for advice on an issue you need help with, even if you don't need the help. Empower them to give you an answer about something that you can't figure out. So they'll have to think for themselves and somehow think to themselves, oh my god, my dad, my mom think I have enough information to help them with this. And I'm not talking about monotechnology, I'm talking about deeper stuff. Talk less, listen more. Seriously, this one's important. Right? My friend Susan is a social worker, and we talk on Saturday mornings, and she'll start the conversation by saying this. She'll say, Now, I just want to know, do you want me to listen so that I can solve this? Or do you want me to listen so I can say, oh that's terrible?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

If you're judging them, they know it, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

I was in a car with my brother years ago, my twin brother, and uh he was silent. There was no talking. We were in Delaware, and he says, Stop it! And I said, Whoa, what are you talking about? Please stop judging the way I'm driving. And I said, I didn't say anything. And he goes, You're judging the way I'm driving. And I was. Come on. He knew. They know. They know who you voted for. They know my parents, I my mother said there are three things we don't talk about when I was growing up. Who you voted for, how much money you make, and your health. And I knew my parents voted for Nixon in 76. I knew we didn't have a lot of money, and I knew that my parents were healthy. I knew they can't hide that. You can't hide. They know your phobias, they know your prejudices, they know your isms, own them. Your unintegrated shadows, integrate them into your lives. That which is not yet integrated, that you don't understand, that you don't like about yourself, get to know it, get to like it, get comfortable with it, so that they'll get comfortable with it because they're onto us. They are the monitors of bullshit. They know the truth. Somewhere around the age of 24, 25, it goes away. But now it's finely tuned. Why is that? Why are they so finely tuned to that? Because they're so afraid of getting caught in the act of becoming, and at the same time, they're waiting to find somebody who will catch them in the act of becoming. That's why they're so finely tuned. So be careful how you judge them. And if you do, just own it. I'm not saying stop judging them. I am saying own the fact that you're judging. I want you to get comfortable with silence. Silence is a communication too, especially in a car. I know, here's what happens. Used to be they get in the car and then you'd be car uh carpooling, driving, and they'd be in the big in the back of the SUV and they'd be talking to each other about their day, and you'd be in the conversation. But they don't do that anymore, right? Because they forget you were there and you find out about the test on Friday, and then you'd say, Did you study for a test? But they don't do that. Because now they're in the back of the car texting each other. Right? There's no talk. Or they get in the car and they put their iPhone into the USB port or whatever it is, and they're playing their music. And by the way, it's not just one song, you know, right? It's half a song, and they move on to the next song. And then I'm tired of that song. And you never get to even hear the whole song. So I want you to try driving in a car with your child, silence. Just at practice. Why? Because I want them to know that you are comfortable with them in the silence, that you find them interesting even in the silence. Let them ride in the front. Here's why. They get to feel special, but also they get to see the world the way you see the world. You got your hand on the my dad would ride, he'd have his forearm on the wheel, and he'd drive with such confidence, and he was metaphorically driving me with such confidence through life. He was driving me into adulthood, and I could see the road before me in those coveted rides. When I did get to drive shotgun, ride shotgun, I'd see the road before me, and he'd have control of it. My future, he's got this. You hear that? There was one time every month that I got to ride shotgun. My dad would ask me if I wanted to go with him to get a haircut, he'd get a haircut in Great Neck. Now, when I was eight, I would go and I would chatter all the way. When I was 10, I would go and I would chatter all the way. When I was 13, I would go and I was silent. And that's why I want you to be comfortable with silence and with their silence, especially if you're the parent who will come up to me at the end and say, My child doesn't talk to me. I want you to get comfortable with the silence and stay with them in the silence. And here's why. There is something happening in the psyche of that teenager, yours, and it scares the crap out of them. And what they need more than anything else is your attendance and your nearness. So I'm 13 and I'm not talking. I'm in the car, great neck, 20 minutes away, and I'm afraid my dad's not going to invite me next month because I'm not interesting. I don't have anything to say. I'm so afraid he's not gonna invite me. All I want is to be near my dad, but I have nothing to say. And why? Because I was 13 and I had discovered masturbation. And I discovered the thoughts in my mind, the fantasies were not of people of the same sex. Of the opposite sex. They were people of the same sex. And I thought he knew. So I couldn't talk. I was so afraid of getting caught, and I wanted to get found out. But every month my father would say, You want to come for a ride to Greyneck? He was fine with my silence.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

He just wanted to be near me.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Now, by the way, if you want to know what it's like to be a teenager today, all you really have to do is download any song by the recording artist Pink. She gets it. Pink gets it. Every lyric of every one of his songs, Don't Let Me Get Me, right? Especially the song Glitter in the Air. That one, that's a teenager right there. So music to a teenager is the only thing that I can think of that I've come up with that actually reaches the emptiness, the faithful ache, that lonely hunger in their soul. Music did for us and it does for them. I want you to listen to their music, and if you don't like it, you don't have to like it. But if you judge their music, there's a chance, I'm not saying it's definite, but there's a chance that they're gonna assume or it's gonna be implied that you're judging them. Be careful how you talk about their music. I was in a car with my friend and his son in March, and he said, Ethan said, uh, just do you have any rap music? Because I had, you know, I like Neil Diamond. So air supply. And so I was I I I and and and his dad said, I don't want to hear any rap music, right? And I said, let me find the rap music. I just wanted to give him a chance to have his music heard. I know you don't like it. I know. But it speaks to the emptiness. It's they chose those lyrics, they chose that that song. And if you don't like it, it's an offer, it's an opportunity for a conversation to find out what it where does it go? Where does it reach? How does it feel for you? Right? And I want you to let them listen to your music and why? So they'll know what reaches your emptiness. And when you're gone in the natural order of life, they will hear a song 40 years from now and they'll go, oh my god, that was my dad's favorite song. The sweetest thing for me to ever see when it comes to teenagers are two teenagers with one headphone, set of headphones, and one earbud in each ear, listening to the same song, and it's going to their respective emptiness. The privilege of an elegant life is to be surrounded in the presence of a few loving others who give you exact permission to be exactly who you are and who you keep becoming because they keep becoming more of who they are. I didn't have that. I was afraid that if my parents found out about my wound, my shame would destroy me. Shame, by the way, is a paper tiger. Shame is a paper tiger to us because we are adults. We've got therapy and Prozac, and we're resilient. To a teenager, shame. Makes them do some terrible things. I want you to like their friends. I want you to be the house where their kids, where the kids hang out. Remember, liking. Like me on Facebook, like my Instagram picture. It's hard to like their friends, but find some that you do like. Don't punish them for lying. Listen carefully. I can't tell you how to discipline your kids. Not my job, right? But I would say this: don't punish them for lying. Find out instead why they felt the need to lie to you. I needed to lie to you because I don't feel safe here. I lie to my therapist once a year. A lot more than once a year. And then the week later I come back and say, guess what? I lied to you last week. And I don't want to tell you what I lied about. Doesn't matter. What I want to talk about is why I feel the need to lie. Why don't I feel safe here? I want to protect myself. I want to feel safe. I want you to provide other loving others, other adults that they can that can witness them and listen to them. And this is for the overworked mother and overworked father in this room who says, I can't do it all. You don't have to. There are other people. Who can do it with you? An aunt, an uncle, a friend, a cousin who can witness for you what's happening in their lives so that they're not alone and you're not the only one doing it. Be aware of the shush moments. The shush moment in a teenager's life is uh the doorknob conversation in therapy, right? You're here in therapy and you're about to leave, you've done your 45 minutes, and you say, Oh, by the way, uh, you got your hand on the doorknob. Next week I want to talk about the fact that I'm cheating on my husband. And you leave. That's a doorknob conversation. Teenager is gonna tell you the thing that you want to hear that they don't want to tell you at the worst possible time. Right? I told my mother, or was planning to tell my mother, that I have HIV as the train was coming into the Cedarhurst train station, and I was gonna just get on hand on the doorknob, I was gonna get onto the platform and leave. That's not how it worked out. The train never came. And I sat and I told her. I'll be teaching in a high school, and a teenager will come to me in the middle of the uh changing c changing rooms in the periods, three minutes, five minutes to get to the next class. And and a teenager will say, I have an eating disorder. Oh, mister, mister, I have an eating disorder. The worst possible time, I gotta teach. Or in a noisy restaurant, or a quiet restaurant, and they're too noisy when you have to shush them. The lights are going down in the movie theater. The preacher is giving his sermon at the worst possible time. Here's what I want. That's because that's when they're gonna tell you they know. Look for the shush moments. You wanna find out what's happening in their lives? That's when they're gonna find out. It's not at the dinner table, that's too dangerous. It's confrontational, it's when the lights are going down in the movie theater. So here's what I want you to do. If and when you have to shush them, I want you to remember the exact words they said. Not the gist of the conversation, not the idea of the conversation, but the exact words. Why? Because teenagers are true and total narcissists, and not the DSM kind of narcissists. I'm not talking about personality disorders, I'm talking about healthy, self-involved narcissists architecturing their self. So they want their words reflected back to them, right? So you have to go to work in the morning and you can't finish the conversation. At the end of the day, you come back and you say, the last thing I heard you say when I had a shushu was this. This happened for me and it was amazing. I called my at the time, my boyfriend, and said, I got the first new sentence, first sentence in my new book. Here it is. Once upon a time, life was an elegant endeavor. My pockets were filled with pennies and phone cutoff. Battery died. That's our new, my dog ate my homework. It's it battery died. So he calls me back 15 minutes later and says, I had to power up, but here's what I remember you saying. Once upon a time, my pockets were filled with what? What were your pockets filled with? I've been waiting 15 minutes to find out. When you give them back the exact words that you they gave to you, it proves to them something that I call the seeming absence. That the seeming absence doesn't exist. What's a seeming absence? You know, as parents, more than I know, because I'm not, that they're never not with you. You're always wondering, do they have an umbrella if it's raining? Do they have it in the home? Have they had their food? Are they are they are they are they warm? Are they lonely? Are they loved? Are they safe? They don't know that. They're off in the world. So to them, it's a seeming absence. To you, it's it's there's no absence. They're always with you. You're carrying them all the time. And the only way they know that is when you give them back the exact words that they use. How do you practice the shush moment? You're in a diner, you're in a restaurant, you're talking to your partner, you're talking to a friend, and the server takes your order, and then that moment you say, okay, remember the last thing that person said. That's how you practice the shush moment because they need to know that you're listening to them in the exact words that they use. If you want to know how to find out what's happening in their lives, you've got to lay down one of your cards. You've got to anti-op and lay down one of your cards. In blackjack, you can't even sit at the table unless you've got some chips. And then you get some cards. And you might be lucky enough to have the guy next to you show you his cards. You want to find out what cards they're holding, you gotta lay down one of yours. To the degree that's comfortable and appropriate for you. To the degree that's comfortable and appropriate for you, you laid down a card. What's a comfortable and appropriate card to lay down? Not I haven't done my taxes in six years, I've been getting audited, not I lost my job and I don't think we have we have to sell the house. But how about this? How about this? I made a mistake today. I forgot to put gas in the car. Had a call triple A, got to work late. Makes you accessible, makes you fallible. Lay down that card. And then and only then can they lay down a card on their own, of theirs. It's not fair for them to tell you their secrets if you're not going to tell them yours. What are the ways can you anti up? If you send your child to therapy, you gotta go too. Not because you need therapy, I don't know that. That's none of my business, but because you're modeling for them what courage looks like. Music, right? They love music. Years ago, the biggest song for a teenager was by a group called Death Camp for Cutie. And the title of the song says everything about the what I want you to know. The title was, I will follow you into the dark. I will follow you into the dark, modeling for them what courage looks like by going to therapy yourself. How can you pick up your daughter from therapy with her eating disorder and say, how's it going? if you can't start by saying, you know what, I'm getting a lot out of my sessions. You're not saying anything else other than that, but just that you're getting something out of it. To the moms and dads who don't work, I've been told to say this by other people, not me. Sometimes a teenager needs to know that a parent can have a life outside of being a parent, that has a job to go to.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

That's also modeling courage and anteing up. Now, while we're talking about cards, you never want to steal their secret.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

You never want to take a card out of their hand. My father was a great dad. He made one man, he made a few mistakes, but the biggest one he made when I was a teenager was this. It was Saturday night, I was 14. He came to my room, he knocked on the door, he sat down and said, son, and I hated that. I hated that he called me son because it made me think he couldn't tell me apart from my twin brother. I would give anything to hear my dad say son. So if you've got a son, I want you to say son once in a while. Princess, scout, champ. How about this one? Plenty. You are my plenty. Give them a nickname so that when you are gone from the world in the natural order of life, they will know that they were once someone's plenty, someone's champ, someone's son. So he said, son, you're depressed. He's reaching over, he's taking a card out of my hand, metaphorically. And I'm thinking, oh no, here comes my dad. He says, You're depressed, and I'm gonna tell you why you're depressed. It's Saturday night, and you're 14, and you have no more bar mitzvahs to go to. And he was right. Eighth grade, I had all these bar mitzvahs ago. Now I've got nothing to do except watch Coward Burnett on Saturday night. He said, You're depressed. Now, here's why that doesn't work. Because if my father knew, I didn't even know that's what I was depressed. If he knew that, I was depressed on a Saturday night. Did he also know the other cards I was holding? Did he also know that I didn't believe in his God because his God smites? Did he also know that I didn't want to go to college? I just wanted to be a ballet dancer. Did he also know that I thought about people of the same sex when I masturbated? Because that scared me. If he took a card out of my hand, he must know the other cards. Never steal a secret. Instead, lay down one of yours to make it safe. This may be a surprise to some of you in this room because we grew up in a time when health class was kind of mandated. It is rare today for me to find a teenager and I teach everywhere in North America. It is rare that I will find a teenager today that knows what HIV stands for, that knows what the four fluids are that transfer HIV, that knows the difference between a bacterial STI and a viral STI, that knows how to protect themselves when it comes to sex. And we are sending our kids to prep schools and to get into the best schools, guest c best colleges, and I wonder what it is we are preparing them for. There are teenagers today, most of them, that do not know how to protect themselves from a simple but ubiquitous STI. And it is almost unconscionable. For me to meet teenagers today with HIV, and I do, doesn't make sense. Because our teachers are not teaching them. It's either not in the curriculum or they're not doing it, or they're not doing a good job. So who teaches them if the school doesn't? We do, you do. But here's the question: who teaches you? Who teaches you how to teach your kid about sex? And who teaches you how to talk to them about it? And what it is you need to know about these things. I want you to learn about sex and about the four fluids and about condoms and latex and polyurethane and viral and bacterial and abstinence and how to say no. The four no's. The four no's in a uh a poster at the college of uh Colby College in Maine, in the men's room, above every urinal. No means no. Maybe means no. Silence means no, and yes, when she's drunk, means no. Things that they need to know from your mouths. And if you're not comfortable talking about sex, then be uncomfortable talking about sex and talk about it. And say, I am so uncomfortable talking about this. Now, here's what I want you to know. Who better to learn from than you? What if you've done everything I ask you to do and stuff that you know to do, and still it's your child or someone you know and love who has the eating disorder, who has an STD or an STI, or who has a suicidal wish. What do you do then? What if you've done everything right and still something happens? First thing I want to remember is this. Remember it exactly the way I say it. Never meet hysteria with hysteria. It only creates more hysteria. To a five-year-old, hysteria is a tantrum in their bedroom. To a 15-year-old, remember that's overnight. Hysteria is a quiet thing. It's an x-acto knife, a ritual instrument in their bathroom, in places in their skin that you can't see. Because cutting is not a cry for help. It is rarely a cry for help. That would be a borderline personality disorder teenager. You rarely see that at that age. That drama, that histrionic need to be seen. A teenager who cuts her skin or cuts his skin is doing it because they don't want you to see it. They need to do it. One said, I cut because my physical pain has a beginning and an end. I can control the end of it. My emotional pain goes on and on, and I gotta control something. What do you do? Never meet hysteria with hysteria, it creates more hysteria. Hysteria to a teenager is unsafe sex. And by the way, unsafe sex is sex not without a condom. That's unprotected sex. Unprotected sex is sex without a condom. Unsafe sex is sex when you don't feel safe. When you don't feel safe to say, I don't want to do this, I've changed my mind, I'm scared. That hurts. When you don't know how, well, you can't hear the word somebody saying no, and you don't know they're saying no, that's unsafe. That's hysteria. Hysteria is a suicidal thought, wish that repeats itself. A teenager in Colorado said this to me in an email. I it was my sweet sister Sweet 16 down in the basement, and I'm the older sister. My dad didn't come. I was my parents had divorced, I felt lonely. I took my razor blade that I used to shave my legs, I cut into my shoulders, and I stood at the mirror and I watched the blood come out of my arms. Now listen, girls are not afraid of their blood. We are afraid of their blood. She said, I stared at the blood coming out of my arms, and I felt better. Right? Mother comes in to the bathroom, sees her, throws her into the shower to clean her off, and while she's showering, takes the door and the hinges off the door of her bedroom. And now Greer has no privacy, and she writes in the email, all I want to do is cut more. I'm not saying it's the parents' fault. We have a tough world, an inauthentic, tough world they grow up in. It's not the parents' fault. But we make it worse when we meet their hysteria with our hysteria. So here's what you do instead. You gotta get hysterical, right? You get a circle with your therapist, you get a hysterical with your partner, you get a circle with a friend. But in the moment you find out that the terrible blow, the faithful ache, the wound has arrived, here's what you do: you say yes. You say yes to it. The kindest thing you could say to a person in pain, and you know this is true of you as adults as well, we want this when we're in emotional pain, but we rarely get it. They need it desperately. The kindest and most effective thing you could say to a teenager in emotional pain is yes to their pain. Not it will pass, not I'll fix it, not I can, because we can't. My friend Shake is here, one of her teachers is this great psychologist, psychoanalyst, Anna Ornstein, and she says this great quote Get down into the muck of hopelessness with them. Get into the muck of hopelessness with them. And as another parent in Syracuse promised me, she said, it does happen if you can get into the muck of hopelessness with them. When you get to the other side, and you will get to the other side, your relationship with that child will be even more intimate.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Because you went into the dark with them. The worst thing you could ever hear from your child is sometimes the best thing.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

I hate you. Why was I ever born? Just get away from me. I never want to see you again. I hate you. That is amazing. That means you're doing something right. Because if they say that to their friends, they're not getting invited to the party. They are unfriended. And by the way, to be unfriended is a very difficult thing. It's very hard to get friended again, literally and figuratively. But if they say to you, I hate you, there's a chance they're gonna get dinner. If not dinner, definitely breakfast. Why? Because that is the root of unconditional love. When they say to you, I hate you, what they're really saying is they don't have the words to say, I'm so scared. I don't understand this world, it's too big. I'm so afraid that my shame will overtake me. I'm afraid of getting found out and I don't have a loving other. Where are my Khmer people? That's what they're saying with their eating disorder, that's what they're saying with their self-abuse issue, that's what they're saying with their unsafe sex. There are many reasons why teenagers act recklessly, and I am not going to assume that I know the reasons. But the one they have all in common Am I safe? Do I belong? Am I completely loved? Am I completely lovable? Am I enough? As I am, ask a five-year-old, the answer will always be yes. Ask a 15-year-old, the answer will rarely be yes. There was a dad that came up to me one of these talks and said, My daughter's in the hospital. She's in rehab for an eating disorder, and she says to me, uh, the visiting hours are 4:30 to 5. I have to leave work early. I get there, I have a half an hour every day. She says, I don't want you here. I keep telling you, don't come back. Why are you here? And he says to me, What should I do? What should I do? So I told him what I know you would want me to tell him, what you would tell him, right? Which is what? Keep coming back. Give her someone to hate. Better you than herself, better you than her body, better you than the world. That's your job, right? So I can't tell you what to say when they say to you I hate you, but I can give you an idea of what might work. How about this? You're supposed to hate me sometimes. I can and guess guess what? I can take your hate, and I love you still. I can take your hate. I still love you. And listen, why? Because this may come as a surprise to you. It did to me. Teenagers generally, most generally, do not believe in unconditional love. I didn't know that, but I asked them, and they say, no, I don't believe in unconditional love. Why? Because unconditional love has to be proven. We love them unconditionally, and when we say to us we hate them, they hate us, we still take them to the mall, we love them unconditionally. We're teaching them what unconditional love is, but they don't know it until we're gone. I didn't know really what unconditional love was. Until my father died, and I realized, wow, that's one less person in the world in front of whom I can fail and still have a place at the table. That's one less person in the world in front of whom I can make a fool of myself, get infected with HIV, and still be loved back unconditionally. And then when my mother died, I realized that's it. Where are the unconditional loving people? Where are the loving others? It happens later in life that they get it, but they're learning, they're it's being instilled now. If a teenager says to you, I hate you, get away from me, don't come back, remember these words. Thank you for showing me your boundaries. So I know that I got too close. It's thanking them and telling them that you see them and you're honoring and respecting them, that they have boundaries, and you got too close. And then go back the next day. This one is uh my favorite, and I actually said it first, but Dr. Oz said it on TV a few months ago. But I swear I said it first many years ago. And it goes like this fill the void. Don't fill the void. Fill the void. There was a teenager named Becca in New Hampshire that screamed out in my talk, and she said, I'm a loser. That's all I'm ever gonna be. And I said, No, you're not, you are beautiful. Everybody tell Becca how beautiful she is. She said, Don't do that, please. I don't don't deny me my reality. And she was right, I was denying her her reality. So I said it this way, and it's subtle, but it's so perfect. I said, Okay, Becca, I get it. You see yourself as a loser. How you dress, how you call out in class, you share it about your eating disorder. You see yourself as a loser. I got that. But I don't see you that way. I didn't tell her she's not a loser. I didn't deny her her experience. I told her that she gets to see herself that way, and I see her a different way. And somehow we had created a space that we could slip into to work with. On the day of my twin brother's wedding, I didn't have a date. I was the gay brother that had to, best man that had to go back in the closet, right? Because when you come out of the closet, you know this, you gotta come out again and again and again, and then there's the wedding, you gotta go back in because the extended family doesn't know. So I had to go back in just for the night, and I went home and I wanted to be an elegant man. And an elegant man doesn't have jealousy for his brother who's getting married, because he could. And I couldn't back then. And I was in the house, and my mom's at the top of the stairs, and she started to she gasped. She said, and I said, What, mom? What? She said, I feel your loneliness. I feel that you're lonely. She wasn't doing what my dad did by stealing a secret. She was experiencing it. She said, You're so lonely. She didn't get me a date. She didn't take the loneliness away. She didn't fix anything. But when I walked down the aisle as the best man, she nodded to me, I nodded to her. She gave me a companion to the loneliness. That's how you feel. What can't be fixed. And it's the hardest thing for you to do. Because you're the good parents. The best parents are the ones who don't want to feel their kids' pain. Because you don't want, because that means your kids in pain. And you can't stand to put them to be in pain. But here's the deal: they're gonna be in pain. Because life will present its lessons in time, its faithful aches, and when they do arrive, they need you to show them that you can take it. Because if you can't take it, how are they gonna take it? You must follow them into the dark. Because every emotion has its own heft. You must learn how to feel it and hold it. Now, when we're teenagers, we can crawl to bed with our parents, and sometimes we don't want them to crawl into bed with us. But as adults, right, we don't crawl into bed with our parents anymore. I certainly couldn't, not my gym teacher, dad, except once. There's only one time you get to crawl into bed with your parents, and that's when they're dying. So my dad is dying of skin cancer, it's really quick. And he's lying in bed, and I go to him, and I crawl into bed, and he looks at me and he said three times, Scotty, Scotty, Scotty, and he reaches up and he places his hand, his palm, upon my cheek, and I could smell his scent, my father's closeness. And he speaks and he says, How long will you stay with me? I know now what he was saying. Was how long will my memory stay with you? And I said, Dad, I gotta teach a few parents in Merrick tonight. I'll stay as long as I can. He said, Good, stay. Stay as long as you can. I want you to go home tonight. They're gonna have their iPad, iPod, computer, and phone in front of them. I want you to take their face, take gently, even if you're not, especially if you're not comfortable. Used to be that I'd say, all right, don't do it if you're not comfortable, do it. Because it works. Place your hand gently on their face and say a one, two, three, or four-word sentence that begins with I and ends with you, and it's not I love you. Because I love you is unoriginal. And I would never tell you not to say I love you, but they know it's coming. Right? So that's not the time to say I love you because it's unoriginal. Yeah, you gotta say I love you. Not now, not this time. This is the time for originality. So, and by the way, they can't, where are they gonna go? They can't look away, like they're stuck. Where are they gonna go? And so you stare at their face, and they're like, Okay, what did the speaker say to you tonight? What's going on? And then you say a four-word sentence, starting with I ending with you, and I'll give you some examples. You can come up with your own. Here are mine. I see you, I believe in you. I'm here with you, I'm here for you. I have faith in you. How about this one? I like you. I like you is a lot different than I love you. I remember the eulogy for my dad. I said, my dad used to leave messages on my answering machine. He'd say, Come home Friday night, mom's making Shabbos dinner. I love you. Oh, by the way, I like you. My brother comes out to me at the end of the funeral and goes, Yeah, we had different dads. I like you. I see you, I like you, I believe in you, I know you are enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

I'm here for you. I am with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

You may find yourself, I'm speaking to the teenager, at war with your parents once in a while. You may tell yourself that they're relics from another time, and you may even really believe that they just don't understand you, accept you, get you, see you. But on a private midnight, if you are honest, you might also comprehend the incalculable force field of a parent's love. You need them to fail in front of and still be adored, you need them to rail against and still have a place at the table. You need them to earn your grace, you need them to push off of and press against. That's the contradiction. Push off and press against. To find your own soul's voice, to fashion the architecture of your personality. You need them, but guess what? They need you just a little bit more. I didn't know that. I didn't know that my mother needed me more than I needed her. That my life was her life until I put the dirt in the ground when she died. And then I realized how much my parents needed to love me. And I'm teaching them how much you need to love them. I sent out a tweet last year because I wanted to find the perfect 140 characters, and I thought I got it just right, and I said it, and then I said it at Penn State one day, and a student named Anthony retweeted it better. So I'm gonna end with the tweet that I thought was so great, and then I'm going to tell you how Anthony retweeted it. And I'm gonna do this by looking in your eyes as I began. Staring into your eyes. Listen to others with the same tenderness, that you would have them listen to you, until the presence of love stumbles into the conversation. Listen with love. Listen to others with the same tenderness that you would have them listen to you until the presence of love stumbles into the conversation. And then Anthony retweeted, never leave a conversation until love walks in the room. Thank you for being a parent, for taking on the job of a parent, which you will still be long after we're gone in the natural order of life, still parenting them. Thank you for that. I love to say this last sentence. I have enjoyed your company. Have a good night.