Beware what you wish for

I have a teenager who is constantly saying things like "you never pay attention to me" and there is the broader "you should pay more attention." There are other choice phrases that he uses but they all lean towards his assertion that we as his parents and, indeed, all adults need to pay more attention to the world around them.

It seems the way of things that teenagers feel that adults don't pay enough attention to anything and don't know what we're doing or talking about most of the time. They are constantly telling us to pay more attention, get our "facts" straight and stop jumping to conclusions.

Well, most of us uneducated and oblivious adults know of the old quote "Beware what you wish for." That is profound wisdom which we try to give freely to our children and which they never seem to take to heart. Case in point is something that happened just yesterday. My wife and I had to go on a 6 hour trip so we left our 14 year old home watching our 8 year old. We gave them chores to do, rules to follow and a cell phone to use as a life line to their Grandfather if need be.

One rule was "do not play on the mattresses." The mattresses being some old bedding that we let them play with and which allows them to fly through the air and crash down with impunity. This is, however, a privilege that we feel is best enjoyed with adults in the immediate vicinity just in case someone bounces or lands awkwardly. (Have you ever noticed how awkward the word awkward looks?)

So off we go on our trip and everything goes fairly well. When we return home, however, we begin to "pay attention" to things. The first thing I notice is that two of our AA batteries are missing from the baggy in the kitchen. The kids were asleep by this time so I was intending to ask them what they had used the batteries for when they woke. The reason for the inquiry is that the only thing they have that requires batteries (and doesn't have a fresh set in it) is the teenager's Airsoft gun (which was off limits until the next ice age.) Then I notice that my digital camera is sitting on the kitchen table instead of being next to the computer. No big deal there, they play with it sometimes. Next, however, I sit by my computer and find the rechargeable batteries for the camera are next to the computer which clues me in to where those AA batteries might have gone.

I fire up the camera and find four pictures on it with the kids playing around in the house. That's ok too but those rechargeable batteries are good for about 60 pictures and there are only four on the camera which had to have its batteries changed. So, being the oblivious and uneducated adult that I am, I swiftly load up my file recovery software and aim it at the SD card. Thereupon I find a half dozen recoverable pictures of the neighbor and our 8 year old leaping through the air onto the mattresses which had been labeled off limits. Due to the most excellent embedding of EXIF data into JPEG images they retained the time and date of the image capture. And what's most precious in my opinion is that whilst his head was probably reeling with "I thought we deleted those pictures" the teenager's response was "Oh, that was Zach. I told them not to do that." Which, of course was a difficult statement for him to defend when we brought up the picture that had both his brother and the neighbor in it and pointed out that there was only one other person present who could have taken the picture.

Maybe now he won't desire so greatly for us to "pay attention." And maybe, just maybe, he'll spend the next few days at least wondering how many other things he does that we do notice and just chose not to react to.