Ammo

Part of what I enjoy in my job as a youth and family worker is that I get to know parents and through them I get to know their kids better too. This past few weeks have been enlightening in lots of ways as I've spoke to several parents and ended up in conversations about what their kids did when they were little. I love it, it fascinates me how parents recall certain events and when they retell them they seem to become more animated and excited. However, with hearing all these stories I'm learning one of the darker sides of parenthood - storing up embarrassing stories about your kids. I wasn't completely unaware of it, sure I have parents too who liked to embarrass me by recalling the stupid/weird/crazy/mortifying things I've done, but I was a little surprised at the lengths some of these parents have gone to in keeping evidence of some of these embarrassing things. Photos, videos, diaries, the items involved in these stories etc all stored in little safe places that the kids don't know about (or at least they hope they don't know about). What's more is that they use these stories as ammo in order to get their kids to do something or even not do something..... it's scary the power people can have over each other.