It's a dicey thing to assume, Mellie. She was thirteen years old and very sensitive. When I was 13 years old I absolutely hated my parents, or thought I did, anyway. I can't quite remember why, but early adolescence was a rather nightmarish time for me when I felt awkward socially and confused emotionally. It was a lot easier to pin my problems on my parents than try and figure things out for myself. It was a trend to feel victimized by our parents at that age. There were months when I completely avoided my parents and could barely hold a civil conversation with them. I felt that they didn't understand jack abut what I was going through and they didn't care. I'm sure my poor parents were as baffled about me as I was, and I'm sure they made a few mistakes in handling my behaviour, but I also know that it was just me going through a phase in my adolescence. I started growing out of it by the time I was about 16 and by 18 I was very close to them again. Looking back, I wouldn't lend much credence to any of the accusations my confused adolescent self hurled at my parents. (I still have my old journals. They're filled with angsty, self-pitying declarations like the acronym Meghan made up.)
I'm not saying that Meghan was a typical teenage drama queen who shouldn't be taken seriously. I'm not even saying that I shouldn't have been taken seriously at that age. (Well, not too seriously, obviously.
) My problems were as real to me then as they are to me now, whether most of them were imagined or not. Adolescent confusion is not something to be trivialized - it's very dangerous if allowed to develop unchecked and very painful when you're going through it. What I am saying is that what Meghan wrote seems typical of the drama I see in the autograph book of an average 13 year old, myself included. There's certainly a chance that she really was neglected by her parents, but all we can really tell from that acronym is that she FELT neglected at the time she wrote it. Given that teenagers aren't always grounded in reality, we can't use it to indict her parents of neglect.
However, I do believe that maybe the Meiers COULD have been less focused on discipline and more on being sympathetic. Two of the points that struck me was that when Meghan called her mother and cried about how the other kids were flaming her on-line, Tina's response was to order her to log off right now. (Yeah, right!) And then, after rushing back home, Tina took Meghan to task about being disobedient rather than sympathizing with her about the terrible flaming attack she had just endured. Ron had clearly been more inclined to do the latter, but I have a feeling he thought he should stand behind his wife while she was disciplining their daughter, and talk her later, after they had all calmed down. Neither of them had clearly understood what a traumatic experience this had really been for Meghan until after she committed suicide. If they had just held off the confrontation for a bit of initial sympathy, Meghan would probably not gone over the edge. So in that way they are culpable, and I'm sure they are kicking themselves over it.
And yet, I still don't feel like blaming them. Why? Because their reactions were exactly like the reactions of an average parent - Punish first, then commiserate. If I had to blame them for it, I would have to blame my own parents, who punished me first, and after I had raged and cried myself out, would sit me down for the love and sympathy. Meghan, unfortunately, was simply too far gone for this standard parenting method to work.
So while I can't find it in myself to blame them for something they must be devastated with guilt over already, it does cement the fact that parents should respect their children's sensitivity more, and realize that their problems are very real and very painful to them.
