Most of my "middle years" were spent helping my children learn to run from, ignore, and avoid peer pressure. Now I am spending my "later years" trying to run from, ignore and avoid the peer pressure instigated by those very children. Thus. . .this blog. I have given in to their demands, encouragement, examples, and harassment to create what will probably be my one and only blog entry. (It didn't hurt their efforts when my job required this of me.) Nonetheless, and for what little value it will provide, I am now succumbing to that very peer pressure I tried to protect them from.
Heather, my daughter, called on Sunday to thank us for doing a good job raising her and her siblings. When questioned further, she explained that she had just come from an adult party where the guests were strongly encouraged and even harassed to drink not just one alcoholic beverage, but many. She noted that some guests gave in to one drink, just to pacify the hosts, but as soon as they had given in, the pressure was on and the hosts just kept pushing drink after drink on the guests, even though they had to drive themselves home. Her experience up until that point in her life was "peer pressure was a teenage thing." She now concludes that she was in error. Her key learning from that night was that if you said, "No!," the hosts accepted your answer and did not bother you again. But if you gave just a little, you were fare game for the rest of the evening.
Referencing Heather's key learning from the evening, I have given in just a little. Does that mean I am fare game now?
