10-07-03
Most parents of teenage daughters, hearing
that Los Angeles parents Laurence and Marianne
Sunderland stuck their 16-year-old daughter on a
boat to sail around the world on a year-long
voyage, thought to themselves: "A whole year
without having my teenager screaming at me?
Where can I get a boat?!"
Typical parents are unable to afford the kind
of yacht the Sunderlands used — you can't just
stick your kid on a rowboat and shove her out
into the bay, as tempting as it may sound at
times. For those parents, there is summer camp.
And if you can't afford summer camp, there's
always the grandparents. And if there are no
grandparents, you should not have teenagers. But
you knew that.
Abby Sunderland's father denies that the
ill-fated voyage, which came to an abrupt end
when Australian authorities and a French fishing
boat rescued the girl, had anything to do with
plans to market a reality TV show called
"Adventures in Sunderland." It was, he said,
about allowing his daughter to follow her
dreams.
Now, when I was a teenager, I had a dream,
too: I wanted to win a drag race in my parents'
station wagon. My father, though, had a
different dream — in his dream, I mowed the lawn
after school. I don't think my father considered
allowing a teenager to follow his dreams was
necessarily good parenting, or even parenting. I
think he thought I was a teenager with teenage
impulses. I'm pretty sure he knew that if he
just let me follow those impulses, it would wind
up being very expensive and perhaps even
life-endangering.
Mr. Sunderland probably wouldn't agree with
my father, though it is worth noting that Abby
Sunderland's boat was foundering in 30-foot
waves and her rescue is estimated to have cost
the Australian Maritime Safety Authority almost
U.S. $300,000. On the positive side, though, I'm
sure the fellows on the French boat were really
glad to have her aboard.
The reason the TV show idea was shelved, by
the way, is that the parents thought they were
making a show about how two wonderful people
were doing a fantastic job raising their child
by putting her on a boat to realize her dreams,
and the producers thought they were making a
show about how two wonderful people were doing a
fantastic job raising their child by putting her
on a boat to die. (Look it up!)
At any rate, a worldwide appeal for donations
to fix Abby's yacht has raised, according to her
father, only about $2,800. There's also a
clothing line, an "Abby16" brand of shoes, the
book Abby is writing and finally the rights to
Abby's story, which by itself is estimated to be
worth as much as $200,000.
Abby's father says the stunt was not about
money, but about loving his kids.
I imagine that if I had made $200,000 mowing
lawns, my father would have loved me a lot, too.
Of course, if in the process of making $200,000
the Australian taxpayers had been forced to fork
over $300,000, he might have lost some affection
for the whole process.
Still, I never felt that my parents didn't
love me or would stand in the way of my dream
unless it involved wrecking the station wagon.
In fact, once I was no longer a teenager, I came
to understand that saying "no" is how parents
prove they love their children, because it is
so, so much easier just to say "yes" to
everything and live in relative peace.
Daughter: Dad, I've met this boy who owns a
motorcycle, and he's taking me on a high-speed
cross-country trip.
Father: Sure!
Daughter: We'll be staying with his friend
"Cool-Boy" and helping him with his meth lab.
Father: Follow your dreams, honey. I love you
so much I just can't say no!
Instead, the conversation was more likely to
be something like this:
Father: You may not ride on the back of your
boyfriend's motorcycle.
Daughter: What? I hate living here! You're
the meanest man in the world! Don't talk to me
ever again!
Father: Say, would you like a boat?
My dad didn't have a boat, though, and I
didn't go to camp.
I had grandparents.
►J◄
►J◄
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