I Should've Been a Rebel

I never rebelled as a teenager. I had three older brothers who did more than enough rebelling for the four of us. But sometimes I wonder if I should've raised a little more hell.

The problem in my house was that I didn't really get much out of being the good kid. I wrote a post about my psychotic family and a couple brave souls left comments (thank you by the way) so those who read the post might understand why I wanted to remain invisible as a kid. And that's what I was aiming for; invisibility. But looking back, I realize I didn't get much mileage out of being the mild mannered one.

I mean, I didn't do anything. I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't skip school and I got good grades. Out of four kids, only two of us graduated high school and I'm the only who went to college and was the first in my family to have a college degree. I got something out of being the good kid on a personal level, but from a familial standpoint I didn't get squat.

What I mean by that is that my brothers were so busy raising hell that my parents didn't have time to care whether or not I was doing anything good. To a degree, this was a good thing since I did strive for invisibility. But on the other hand, when you don't raise hell, you get in trouble for the dumbest shit.

Case in point. The only thing I did that bugged my mom as a kid was that I had a messy room. Looking back, it wasn't even that bad, just an unmade bed and some clothes on the floor. But you would have thought I set the place on fire. My brothers were doing drugs, getting kicked out of school and getting in fights that resulted in more than one hospital stay. Were their rooms clean? Um, no. Did they get grounded for having a messy room? No. Did I? All the time.

Am I the only one who sees a glaring double standard here?

Obviously my mom was looking for a measure of control in an out-of-control life and I bore the brunt of that. And it chaps my hide to no end. I have laid into my mom on this and to her credit she admits it was messed up. But daaaaaamn, I wish I would have had the guts to just go a little crazy back then. I mean, what's the worst that could have happened? Getting grounded? Sheesh.

And now I'm a mom and I don't have the luxury of rebelling. Oh, I could do the Britney Spears route, but how sad is that? I wouldn't put my kids through that for anything. So I'm kind of stuck being the good girl for different reasons now. I have a good life, a nice husband, beautiful kids and nothing to be too ashamed about. But every now and then I wish I had been a little bolder when I was younger and had the chance to live it up a little. You know, given my parents a real reason to ground me.

My daughter has a messy room too, and I don't say a word.