Tag: spring break

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Opinion The Last Word

Memphis Is My Boyfriend: Spring Break Survival 

Ice cream — and food in general — keep the tweens and teens happy. (Photos: Patricia Lockhart)

Soon, flowers will bloom, painting the landscape with vibrant colors. The sun will shine for more hours, casting a glow over the freshly repaired potholes. Birds will sing cheerful melodies, and people will cruise through the city blasting GloRilla. But something else is stirring: spring break!

I’m a mother of four wonderful teens/tweens — an 11-year-old girl, twin 13-year-old boys, and a 16-year-old boy. And nothing is more exciting than the arrival of spring break. A full week with nothing pressing to do! But with tweens and teens, it hits differently. If you plan too much, they’ll complain. If you plan nothing, they’ll complain. Making sure your teens enjoy their break is a delicate balancing act. So, here’s a Teen Spring Break Survival Guide that will help you stay sane while keeping your teens (mostly) happy! Follow this foolproof (okay, semi-foolproof) plan:

• Limit your fun activities to one per day. 

Don’t overfill your teen’s schedule. While they may enjoy what you plan, let’s be real, teens love one thing above all else: being left alone. Pick activities carefully. We’re heading to Monster Mini Golf in Cordova, where they can enjoy glow-in-the-dark minigolf. And if they’re feeling extra adventurous, they might choose to play laser tag, too. (Keyword: choose — forcing extra fun is a crime in Teen Law.) More than one activity is overwhelming; less is boringggg.

• Involve lots of food.

At least one activity should involve food. My kids love to activate their “summer stomachs” during breaks. They have first breakfast, second breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, dinner, dessert, and a late-night snack. We are currently vibing on Jay’s Coffee & Cuisine in Millington. Everything on their menu is delicious. We’ve tried their shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, french toast, pancakes, and fries. Jay’s fries are out of this world! They are the BEST FRIES IN MEMPHIS. Period! Jay’s also serves lattes, syrups, and teas. I’m currently loving their lavender matcha latte.

• Leave them alone.

Arrange at least one day where you don’t call their name. Yeah, I said it! Need a glass of water? You’re going to have to get it yourself. Can’t find the remote? Try looking under the couch cushions or in the refrigerator. Who knows where they put it. For a full 24-hour period, require nothing of your teen. Nada. Zilch! Just like you get tired of hearing Mom, Mama, Bruh, they also get tired of being called to do tasks. Trust me: It’s peaceful on both sides.

• Let them sleep.

Do not wake them before noon. My teens stay up all night watching ’90s sitcoms and playing video games. Waking them up before noon is like poking a hormonal grizzly bear — only do it if you want a moody teen stomping through the house. Plus, the later they sleep, the fewer hours you have to entertain them. So while they rest, I’ll head to Hopson’s Espresso Print Coffee Shop in Bartlett. They’re a new coffee shop with the best butter cookies this side of the Mississippi. My go-to is the English toffee latte — just the right temp and taste. During spring break, I’ll be there playing my Nintendo Switch.

• Find something for you to do.

While they’re gaming, sleeping, eating, or doing anything but taking a shower, find something for you to do. Catch up on your favorite shows. Take that nap. Or get that project done you’ve been putting off. I plan on remodeling our backyard. I might even add a couple of chickens. Better yet, I’ll just go to the library. The Raleigh Library in, of course, Raleigh has an attached walking track. The outside area also has a huge, shaded seating area. 

• Ice cream is still magical.

No matter how old they get, my kids will always cheer when I say Sugar Ghost Ice Cream and Bubble Tea. Located on Broad, they have the only ice cream I eat religiously. And naturally, my kids love it, too. Ice cream has a way of melting the hard edges off teenagers. It’s really just magical how a sweetened dairy product can bring their inner child out. 

Spring break with tweens/teens is all about balance — just enough plans to keep them entertained, plenty of food to keep them happy, and the freedom to sleep and do their thing. Whether we’re mini-golfing, eating at Jay’s, or simply enjoying some well-earned quiet at Hopson’s, the key is embracing the frenzy and the calm. And while they’re living their best lives, I’ll be sipping lattes, playing my Switch, and maybe even getting those backyard chickens. 

Patricia Lockhart is a native Memphian who loves to read, write, cook, and eat. By day, she’s an assistant principal and writer, but by night … she’s asleep.

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Spring Breakers Push Airport Traffic

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Spring Breakers Push Airport Traffic

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Emgallagher | Dreamstime.com

We are in the throes of an annual bacchanalian

rite in the United States: spring break, wherein our teenaged kids get a crash course in growing up at all-inclusive resorts where security deposits, dignity, and virginity are lost, never to be regained.

No one enjoys spring break more than my son, assuming you do not count Bill Clinton. Said son, a mini-Ferris Bueller, went with his class to a Mexican resort this year. I like to think of it as an exchange program, where Mexico sends us their hard-working men looking to better themselves and we send them our lazy Jake-legged brats looking to find a resort that allows drinking at 18. No wonder the world hates us.

Knowing the debauchery that goes on during these trips, I sat my son down and explained the dangers. I told him that messing around with a girl could lead to an STD or, even worse, a relationship. I told him not to pay for sexual favors and that technically, if you pay for it, it is not a favor.

Given the bravado level of the average hormone-saturated young male, I also told my son to be sure that when they went out at least one of them was sober enough to fight. Finally, I tried to tell him that, after two drinks, there is a difference between people laughing with you and at you. All life lessons I had to learn the hard way — precious moments my son no doubt will remember forever. And off they went.

Apparently, in Mexico, he and his friends tested the boundaries of the chaperones who volunteered for this trip. Now, I have to question the wisdom of any parent wanting to do this. My guess is they have a paid-up umbrella insurance policy or are seeking to keep an eye on their daughters. The problems began as 12 chaperones, heretofore unknown to each other, tried to apply their varying parenting standards to this marauding group of kids fueled by an open bar. Within a day, the chaperones were in arguing mode. Who should be sent home, and why? Sensing the weakness and lack of cohesive disciplinary standards, the kids naturally got worse.

A lot has changed since my high school spring break. To begin with, we didn’t have one. But today, as far as I can tell, the Girls Gone Wild video library grows with spring break. Also, there have been major advances in beer delivery systems, which primarily involve a rudimentary PVC tube and an owner-operator named “Stoner” barking orders to kids taking bong hits of cheap beer.

Young men and, hopefully to a lesser degree, women, test their alcohol tolerance on these trips. Best case: They drink too much and get sick and learn to approach drinking with caution for the rest of their lives. Worse case: They discover their inner Britney Spears.

While my wild oats have surely turned to bran cereal at this point and I have started to hear my favorite songs on elevators, I do remember what I was like at that age. And that worries me a lot. Teenagers are usually only as good as the worst-behaved kid in their group. Sadly, the good kids never bring the others up to their level; they just get wedgies.  

I like the boys that my son hangs around with, but when I talk to them, I just know they are up to something. As life-long friends, they have a lot in common, even beyond the fact that they always seem to have their hands down their pants. When they were younger, I reminded them every time they left the house that they could be tried as an adult in our state. But it’s not for nothing that so many idiots say the same thing right before they die: “Hey guys, watch this!”

They’ve even got a name for this kind of behavior: the Darwin Awards — for those who accidentally remove themselves from the human gene pool in the course of doing something incredibly stupid. As parents, we can only work and hope and pray that our children manage to stay out of the competition. But spring break doesn’t help matters any.

Ron Hart is a columnist and investor in Atlanta. He worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His e-mail is RevRon10@aol.com.