The Philosopher on Peer Pressure

I asked The Philosopher and The Diva to go to the movies today. The Philosopher sighed one of his over-grown-up sighs and agreed. The Diva just clapped her hands and began to tie random articles of clothing on her body in order to create her "style" for the day.

As we walked to the car, Phil explained ot me his concern, "We'll have to be very careful or else teenagers will think we're cool, want to hang out with us and then offer us wine."

I burst out laughing. We'd seen a poster reminding parents to "talk to your children early" about alcohol abuse. My sister and I had half-joked our way through a warning to the children about unwise alcohol use. Since we'd been joking, we really hadn't thought much about our teaching moment.

"Okay," I responded. "We'll make certain that we say no to any alcohol and tell the teenagers we don't want to hang with them."

Phil sighed. It's so frustrating to be surrounded by adults of limited intellect. "No, they're smarter than us and have too many tattoos. They'll think we're cool and then they'll follow us around until they get in our car and force us to drink wine." For the record, no one in our family has ever had anything against tattoos or moderate alcohol intake, though we don't drink. I have no idea where any of this came from - and neither does his mother, who nearly died of laughter when I reported the conversation.

I laughed. "Phil, many of the teens we know are very nice even if they do have tattoos or drink alcohol. I don't think they'll do any such thing."

He continued to insist, so I gave up and played along. "Okay, if we run into a tattoo-toting teen forcing wine on innocent bystanders, what should we do?"

Phil then gave me the ultimate guide to being considered un-cool by teenagers and thus avoiding any peer pressure:

Rule 1: No smiling in public.
Rule 2: No laughing if the teenagers can figure out who was laughing (it's okay to laugh in movie theaters or large groups)
Rule 3: No making any hand signals (he then made the peace sign AND the semi-goat sign - NO IDEA where he learned these)
Rule 4: No putting one hand in your pocket and leaning against a wall (that's a for-sure sign you're cool and will drink wine)
Rule 5: No taking off your hat and shaking your hair around while looking at girls.
Rule 6: No wearing too many shirts or "fancy" shoes

And what to do if a teenager thinks you're cool anyway? Well, just get too silly and run into a wall, of course. This was illustrated in order to assure I would have perfect form if it were necessary in the course of the afternoon. I am pleased to report our sobriety reigned supreme - no teenagers thought us cool. I'd also like to say that Phil was cautious - not once did he smile and he did run into a wall once because "a teenager was looking at" him.

Somewhere. Somehow. My sister's parenting ran amock. After I recounted the conversation, she sighed and said, "I'm going to be one of those parents who has to beg her child to have fun in high school, aren't I?"

Yes, dear sister, though I'm afraid it will be even worse: You'll have to beg your above-it-all child to stop breaking hearts and show up at a party or two because there's no way this kid will be anything but cool.