EDDY'S PAGE
by Eddy Robey M.A.

"Please help me, before I do something drastic."
"I'm at my wit's end."
"Stop me from killing him."

There are desperate people on the Internet, and many of them write to me. Who are these folks? My frantic correspondents are the parents of teenagers.

Those of you who are not parents may think those opening sentences sound a bit exaggerated, but they are not. The only thing as difficult as being an adolescent is rearing one.

Life has been good to me. I survived the ordeal, and now have the peace of an empty nest. It is impossible to overstate the pleasure of being able to reach for one of my possessions, and finding it in its appointed location. I know where my scissors and vice-grips are, what a joy.

As a veteran of the Dirty War (Yep, trying to get a youngster to keep his room clean) I would like to offer this memory of my child's fourteenth year. May it provide a smile, and perhaps assistance to those of you still enmeshed in the struggle.

Life had become monotonous. Each day I would remind my boy to clean his room, that having a chamber of his own was a privilege envied by some youngsters, and tell him all privileges carried responsibilities.

Naturally, he ignored me.

We all have our idiosyncrasies, and one of mine is to never raise my voice. My dear old daddy, bless his soul, said that, "Dogs get mad, not people."

Another is that I am a devout Savoyard, which means a fan of the works of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan.
In The Mikado, the eponymous ruler sings a ditty with the lines:
My object all sublime,
I shall achieve in time,
To let the punishment fit the crime,
The punishment fit the crime.

I took this notion to heart. One day, my son returned from school to find his bed in the living room, and the door to what had been his room padlocked. Since the responsibility of caring for a room of his own was obviously beyond him, he was relieved of the burden.

For a month, the lad had no privacy, a fate worse than death for most adolescents. There were no arguments, and mother retained her noted composure.

At the end of that period, the padlock was removed, and he returned to a room which was never untidy again.

Justice does prevail.