Can Teens & Parents Understand Each Other?

Thanks so much for joining this episode, guys

We love making this stuff

to bring all types of people together.

Yes, and we did do this topic

in a previuos Middle Ground episode,

but due to your feedback

we chose to bring back this topic

with teens and parents

that do not know each other.

Also, if you wanna be in a video,

because I love reading your stories,

fill up the casting forum below

Enjoy!

One of the biggest things I believe in

is: you don't need a mother,

you don't need a father,

you need a parent.

[Cool suspense music]

My name is Anthony Cabassa,

I have three children,

and I'm a veteran, and I'm a parent,

and I'm happy to be here.

My name is Cassandra Roy,

I am a life coach,

and I have one son, David Alexander,

who's a full time MFA student at Yale University

on a full scholarship.

My name is Marissa Gold,

I have two children,

they're 14 and 10,

and I also have a parenting company.

I run social and emotional empowerment groups

for tween and teen boys and girls.

I'm Elizabeth, I'm 18,

next year I'll be going to school

to study nursing, and I have

two dads and a brother.

My name is Adam, I'm 15 years old

and currently I'm working on starting

my own clothing brand :)

I'm Noopur, I'm a Computer Science

and Engineering major at UC Irvine.

"I feel too stressed"

The first source of stress in your life

is probably your parents.

Something from your parents.

In a kind of... with your parents expectations

it kind of builts. At least for me it did.

My parents immigrated from India,

and so they went to college in India

and I'm a first generation Indian-American.

I did robotics, I did music,

I did volunteering in highschool...

and I got into college.

They were like "you should finish college

in like three years", like "yes, is four years,

but finish earlier, save money,

do a Master's program."

"Finish Master's early,

try and do a PhD;

get a job while you're at it."

I don't even think I would be in college

if it wasn't for my parents, but...

the fear of disappointing my parents is terrifying.

If I wanted to pursue something else

I would do it after college, I would do it

after I got a job, I'm stable, after

I've fulfilled what I needed to fulfill

for my parents.

It pains me to hear how stressed you already are,

because I think, as adults like, we know, like, it doesn't end.

You know? It's like, it's just like it gets harder

and harder. Like, unfortunately unfortunately,

like, life gets exciting and it goes in

dips and waves and whatever but..

But there's no alternative

You just keep going, there's no option

to quit.

I feel like the last kid being chosen

for the baseball team [laughs].

Don't be too hard on your parents,

because they're doing the best they can

with the information that they have.

And, in terms of you (Noopur),

I would really strongly suggest that you

sit down and have a conversation with them.

Because you may not understand this,

but they know something's

not settling with you.

My parents have tried talking to me.

The walls are already there

and if you don't have the fundation

it's hard to start at a later age.

"I have struggled to be honest with my family"

I mean, I was in the closet for 13 years,

so... that was one thing.

It's almost like as soon as I came out

of the closet, everything else did.

I started being more open,

I talked to more people,

I learnt how to express myself through art

and through clothing, which I'm now doing.

For me, personally,

I have struggled with an eating disorder

from the time I was 11 until just recently.

I mean, you're always in recover

if you have an eating disorder.

So much of that mental illness is lying,

and going behind people's backs.

My parents had to sit outside of

my shower at night to make sure

I wasn't throwing up.

They had to check in with my friends

to make sure I was eating.

All of these things,

there's absolutely no trust,

and I still couldn't feel

like I could tell them anything because

my mental illness wouldn't let me.

I have worked SO hard

to regain all of my trust

and now my parents trust me to

absolutely no end.

They now I would tell me the truth in any circumstance.

In my family we don't talk about mental illness,

or depression, or anything like that.

We don't talk abut sex in my family.

Saying the word sex in my house is like taboo.

And slowly my dad has tried reaching out

but is very (?), like he once told me in highschool

"Hey, you should go into this Body Positivity

workshop in school" Like, he could tell

that I wasn't happy with the way I looked.

I couldn't ever, really, come out to them

about the fact that "Oh, I have depression"

"Oh, I'm going to see a therapist in college now"

I think, for me,

my struggle with being honest with my family

is that growing up I was Christian,

and everything we solved through prayer and reading the Bible.

If you were depressed, prayer and Bible.

If you wanted to have a girlfriend,

"hey that's not allowed"= prayer and Bible

My mom was a very fierce

female individual in my life.

Her motto has always been:

"Your life is going to suck all the time,

and if you set to that baseline,

then you'll never be disappointed

because you always expect the worst."

By growing up that way

I feel like maybe I'm a stronger individual

but that communication was never there,

and that honesty was definitely not there,

'cause there's things that I would do

and I'm like "Wop, that's definetly not Christian-like

so I'm not gonna tell about that."

What I hope to instill in my children is like

"hey, no matter who you are, who you love,

I'm not gonna be like my mom" where she's like

"no, you have to be this perfect inside-of-a-box person."

Personally, I've gone through the same thing,

but now, I know that

I can

tell them absolutely anything.

When I first started telling my parents

that I was having sex

I was never met with

"That's horrible, you need to stop,

you're not a good person", none of that.

The first response was always:

"Thank you for telling us, let's (you know)

provide protection."

Just in that scenario,

I knew that I could be honest with my parents

in abolutely anything moving forward,

but it was hard to tell them that.

As and adult, as a wife and a parent,

the truth was always the best 'weapon'

for lack of a better word,

to lead with.

Because it cut down on hurt, it cut down on pain,

it cut down on frustration...

And have I always been honest?

'Course not, I'm human.

I like to think I've been honest about

the stuff that was important.

But I've learnt that honesty is in fact,

the best policy, is just easier all around for me.

"Social media can be very positive."

I honestly think that social media

and the Internet in general

has probably been one of,

if not the best thing in my life.

Having known like, queer role models,

seeing known artistic expression around me

in the real world where I am,

but discovering all that through the Internet.

I would not have found out I was asexual

without the Internet.

I would not have known what asexuality was,

I would not have even known that was a word.

Because, at least in school, and at home,

we never talked about this.

I was like a little bit like, okay, is it

more positive than negative,

but I think I'm gonna use like, to my own testimony,

like, how's been for me.

I started a social media page

under the alias Conservative.Latino.

I get a lot of hate mail,

and I get a lot of people call me a race treator.

Calling me, you know, a fake this, a fake that,

they call me names, they wish death upon my family and my children.

And I see a lot of the profiles don't even have pictures,

and then I go to their profiles: 0 followers, 0 posts,

0 nothing and I'm just like, man, these people rea(..)

You just signed here to hate!

Yeah! Exactly.

Some of them aren't even people, they're bots.

Um, I used to play video games and,

at some point, I actually decided to use my voice

in a videogame. And I am a female,

in a, in the video game comunity,

and there's a lot of masculine toxicity.

Every single day guys would hit on me.

I was 15 years old and these guys were like 20, 30s

They would like, gift me games as to let me out,

And usually it was fine, I can be always be like "No"

And most of them were respectful,

Sometimes they would escalate,

they would threaten to find out where I lived,

they would threaten to rape me.

The point that I realized I had to, like,

get away from all this is when someone threatened

to rape me and I actually got scared.

Yeah, and this is ex.. I mean...

Couldn't be a better illustration of

a parents worst nightmare

when it comes to social media. Right?

And how quickly it can escalate

and especially like you were 15,

which is pretty young,

but there are kids, boys and girls,

this is happening to, when they're...

8, 9, 10 they have no idea how to handle it,

they don't know how to even talk to their parents about it.

Because they innately feel that there's something off,

but they also feel like they could get in trouble

if they bring it to their parents.

And I'll be honest, like, my daughter

has been asking me since she was like 6

"Can I please start a YouTube Channel"

Can I, like that's been her dream,

but I go on these articles,

and I'm hearing about like, all these online bullying,

and especially with females, I feel it's

a larger thing because.. I was like a youth pastor

for my old church, and a lot of them would tell me

that if they're on social media they would be receiving

elicit pictures from grown adults! So,

I'm like scared, I'm terrified but at the same time

I feel like I'm almost punishing my daughter.

When she does start to explore that,

I would say don't take it away,

because that's gonna make her angry,

and she's gonna find a way to go on it anyways.

'Cause there's so many access points for social media.

Yeah, that's why I like, I'm just very like, concerned

as a social media influencer I see what I get in my DMs,

and I see the type of content that people leave on mine,

and I would never want..cuz..

It's probably part of why she wants to do it,

'cause she sees her dad doing it, so you're modeling it.

You know, I mean the kids wanna do

what they see their parents doing often.

[Asking the real questions here]

YYyYeEeEesSSS!!¡¡

I see more texting while driving in the parents generations.

They don't know about that technology they're like

"Oh, I'm just gonna check this really quick"

And that's what causes a lot of accidents.

My dad has a velcro patch on his steering wheel

In his steering wheel?

Yeah, on the steering wheel I'm DEAD serious

it's reallyl.. it's really bad.

He doesn't understand that you can leave people

on read. Like you don't have to respond

to people in the moment. If my parents text...

I just feel like I need to reply right then and there (yeah)

Just like "No!" Maybe is like and OCD thing.

The parent generation does, for sure.

More than, i, I see it all the time.

"I wish my parents listened to me more"

There definitely are times that I remember growing up

and even now as an adult where I felt like

when my mom and I talk about things

that she sometimes doesn't hear really.

Like I have to say something like

over and over and over and go back to it

and it's really hard for her sometimes to hear

something because is not what she wants to hear.

I have to say my father. He's... what we called "the weekend dad"

'cause that's when we can go and visit him,

t'was every other weekend.

And growing up he sat infront of the TV the entire time.

And, he wasn't a good listener,

he wasn't someone that I ever felt that I could come to

for anything, really.

And he just feels that the world owes him everything.

Sometimes he would call me, literally as I'm in class

and I would text him and be like

"Hey I can't talk right now" but he'd say

"How come you so busy, how come you never have time for me!"

It just got to the point where

he was making me feel like complete garbage,

and he would say hateful things to me.

And I was like "You know what?

Out of all your children,

I'm the only one that still talks to you

and I am trying to do the best that I can."

And no matter what, it was just never good enough for him.

I feel so fortunate to have the parents that I do.

And any time I approach them with a problem,

I am heard, I am supported, and..

usually hugged. [THAT'S SO CUTE] So,

I.. growing up, I had so many people think that

I was missing out on something 'cause I didn't have a mom,

and that I wouldn't be able to learn about, like

what it is to be a woman,

or what it is to, y'know, have your period or whatnot.

I had so many people approaching and be like

"Oh, I know you're missing a mother but

I'm always here if you wanna talk!"

And I'm like "No! I can talk to my parents about that"

One of the biggest things I believe in is:

you don't need a mother, you don't need a father,

you need a parent.

My mother, um

was also a single parent.

She worked sometimes two jobs,

but she was never too busy to talk to me.

She was dead tyred sometimes!

So what we did was, every Saturday

we would hang out.

We would, um, clean the house first,

get dressed, get lunch, and that was our time to talk.

Whatever was on my mind, that was a good time to bring it up.

So, it let me know that I could talk to her.

And that's what I've done with David,

every Saturday we had David's day,

when he was growing up.

So, if he wanted to eat McDonald's three times a day

um, we tried to convince him for dinner to something else

but you get my point,

that it allowed him to speak freely.

It's important that we continue to encourage one another.

Because you will keep us young,

and we will be able to put some wisdom on you.

You know, and hopefully we will listen to each other.

I think if everybody can just have moments

where they just tell their parents that they love them,

in an honest conversation, a supportive conversation from both sides.

I think that we need more of that.

Thanks so much for joining, guys

we really loved revisiting this, uh, topic.

Yeah, it makes you just wonder like

how, you know, we were like as teenagers,

and our parents, right? (Don't remind me)

We are trying to revamp? Middle Ground.

If you guys have ideas of how to revamp? let us know,

DM us, email us, comment below,

and we love to hear from you guys all the time.

As usual, thanks for watching, and we'll see you guys around.