In these parts, we call it the ‘Hefner Special’.

It’s a party in your pants!

🧪🧴 🧪🧴 🧪🧴 🧪🧴

I parented a teen boy. Sometimes, no matter what you do and no matter how close you were before puberty, a switch flips outside your control and they won’t talk to you anymore. We were a typical family, no abuse, no fighting, nobody on drugs, both parents with 9-5 office jobs, very engaged with school and etc.

Thankfully, after riding it out (getting him therapy, giving space, respect, and support), he came out the other side fine. But there were a few harrowing years during that phase.

I went through a similar phase in my teens. If AI was there to feed my issues, I might not have survived it. Teenage hormones are a helluva drug.

Yep, I was gonna say, as a child of the 70s/early 80s, I was a totally unsupervised latch-key kid. The paedophiles loved that. It was a predator’s paradise. Most of us knew kids our age who either vanished or died by misadventure, and many of us were assaulted in some way.

I don’t like helicopter parenting, either, but anyone who sees the Wild West of the 80s as some sort of ideal either has a faulty memory or is deluding themselves.