Narrowing communication gap with youngsters

JAKARTA (JP): Erma Bombeck, the late American columnist, once wrote about her anguish over her teenager offspring.

When she told her daughter to do the dishes and the answer was a sweet "Just a minute, Mom," Erma expected that exactly 60 seconds later, her daughter would be in the kitchen.

But to her daughter, "a minute" meant an hour; that was, when she had finished talking on the phone to her boyfriend and playing his favorite songs for him to listen at the other end of the line.

Erma is not the only parent to "suffer" from communication problem with youngsters.

I do too. I once told Bungsu, my youngest son, to meet me at a restaurant where I was caught up in a long business lunch. When I said he had to be neat and tidy, the answer was a reassuring "Of course!"

What I saw approaching the restaurant a while later was a boy in a shabby T-shirt, wearing jeans with a slit on each knee, and sneakers that could have been worn for two generations.

"Am I not tidy?" he asked innocently.

"You are," I said, dragging him away before my guests could see him.

Just like Erma, my wife is experiencing a communication gap with Bungsu. When she asks him to tidy his room, she expects the result to be a room without any trash; dirty clothes taken to the laundry basket; and shoes on their proper rack.

But to Bungsu, tidying a room means pushing shoes and dirty socks under the bed; hiding dirty clothes behind the door; and piling books up like merchandise on a street stall.

Whenever he borrows my car, it is always "just for a few minutes". But expecting him to return a few minutes later is hopeless. I have got used to him coming back a few hours later; that is, after he has finished watching two laser-disc movies at his friend's house, or after watching a midnight show at a cineplex.

"What's wrong with communication?" Mr. Gafar, our neighbor, complains.

He has three teenagers, but feels alone in his big house when his wife is out.

"Asking my children to talk is just like asking George Bush to eat broccoli," he rants.

"They are incommunicado. But wait until they talk to their friends on the phone! The conversation could last forever!"

The reluctance of teenagers to talk to their parents is a universal problem. Young people think it is "useless" to talk to their parents, except for the purpose of financial matters.

"Because," said Sulung, my oldest son, taking his generation's side, "most parents do not communicate. They lecture! They think they know everything and are experts on anything. Honestly, dad, your generation and mine have a communication problem."

"What a cliche," I interrupted. "But, any way, you have every right to your opinion. I just think that, at least, if you do talk, you should use the proper language so that we can understand each other."

And, to show how wrong his generation was, I disclosed the discomfort I had been hiding for a long time. "Frankly speaking, we, fathers, do not entertain the idea of being referred to as Bokap instead of bapak (father). Your terms suck."

For a split second, I thought I had won the argument. But then Sulung smiled jauntily. "Guess who is using improper language!" he said, glancing at the TV where a senior official was making a government statement about corruption in his department.

I pretended not to hear what the official said, but the message was loud and clear: "I assure you that there is no racketeering in my department, I repeat, no racketeering. It's only an issue. What happened was a little mistake in the implementation of procedures."

"A little mistake, for Pete's sake!" retorted Sulung in a fiery tone. "It involves billions of rupiah!"

I was speechless. And my silence gave him more opportunity to "nail" me.

"And what about the government using the word adjustment instead of rise? Every time the price of fuel and other government-controlled prices are increased, it is always said to be adjusted. Why can't you just use the simple and the correct expression?"

I did not want my son to lecture me about things that I knew more about, I had to put him in his place. "What do you know about government policies? You young people had better concentrate on your studies. Do not mess with the authorities. They have worked hard to run the government."

To end the argument, I dismissed him with a "get the hell out of here" expression.

When Sulung had gone away, however, I began to realize that I hadn't been a good listener. I shouldn't have killed his enthusiasm by ending the conversation like that. I felt sorry for him. But, on the other hand, I also realized that Sulung, like many other youngsters, is not incommunicado at all, providing you choose the correct "menu" to get his mouth open.

-- Carl Chairul