What To Do For Summer Fun With My Grandparents

How do I convince my parents to let me have fun this summer and let me live free with my friends?

Sorry, I agree with your parents. If they want a dead child the fastest way to achieve that is to allow you to drive in cars with other teens. The incidence of terrible accidents and trauma resulting from youthful exuberance combined with motor vehicles is truly high and horrific.Your friends are driving for the first time. They may be drinking and taking various recreational drugs. They likely won’t be figuring out who is a sober driver or having some adult dropping them off and picking them up.The fun experienced in a car full of other teens is heady, mind blowing, crazy silly, awesome and, quite often, tragically fatal.I forbade my daughter to go in any vehicle which had more than the driver in it. She survived being a teen. Her husband nearly didn’t. Fortunately the accident he had while being an idiot he had on his own and it scared him enough that he reformed his driving ever afterwards.Even teens who try to be safe can suffer terrible injuries. A few years ago I met a lovely girl who had one leg amputated mid-thigh. She had been partying and her bf was drunk. He wanted to drive her home and she refused, instead catching a ride with a sober motorcyclist. Tragically the drunk bf ran down the motorcycle with her on it and she lost her leg and almost her life as a consequence.I would like you to survive being a teen, but it’s up to you to make decisions which keep you alive.Did you realize that the boys your age - up until the age of 25 stand more chance of dying now, than they will again until they are over 60 years old?Do you want to include yourself in that statistic by being with one of these young men when he crashes his or his parent’s car?I won’t go into the likelihood of sexual assault committed in cars but please, do not get into a car with two or more men in it, even if there is another woman with them. This is a recipe for bad things to happen to you.It’s your decision: you’re ten feet tall and bullet proof until - someone smashes you and then, you may well be broken for the rest of your life.Look around you, ask the broken people you see what it was that broke them. Was it a car accident? A rape? Assault and battery? Losing someone they love in a tragic event?It’s all your choice, what danger you put yourself in the way of, because at the moment you have safe options.Another thing to remember: Nothing good ever happens after midnight. Especially not on city streets.

Have you ever caught your grandparents doing something embarrassing?

Every summer we would spend two weeks at my grandparent's caravan in Wales.My grandparents lived in a bungalow, about ten minutes drive from from the caravan site.Each evening we'd all get together for something to eat and head back to the caravan.Once the drinks were flowing my gran would go into the bedroom and put one of her bikinis on, she'd start this big song and dance about going out to meet one of her boyfriends.She was a right picture! Lips covered in bright red lipstick, bright white and black polka dot bikini, six inch heels, big Hollywoodesque sunglasses and sun hat to top it all off.In this quite lovely but (as I thought back then) not age appropriate get-up gran would march up and down the caravan as if it was some sort of cat walk announcing "Right kids, I'm off to see one of my many boyfriends; don't wait up!"My sisters and me would be upset that she would do this to our grandad, we'd be shouting and balling."Don't go gran! Please don't go, what about grandad?"My grandad would chirp in as she had one foot out of the door.."Ay, Maaarrrgret, don't you want another drink before you go?"Of course she'd always come back in and have a drink and not end up going. It was just a little act they liked to play out in front of us. My parents would play along with it too…The outfit gran would be wearing was highly embarrassing. But, the most embarrassing part would be when my grandparents would share an old persons snog to pretend they had made up…again it was all done in good fun, and I can't believe how many times we all fell for it.That snog though…I wouldn't wish seeing that to anyone. Embarrassing? More like vomit inducing.Rip M.C + A.CE/D

What are some childhood memories of your grandparents' home?

I was one of those kids who visited their grandparents house only during the holidays. Surprisingly, when I look back now to my childhood, a major part of my memories revolve around the vacations, my grandparents and cousins.I remember the large mango-tree situated just in front of the house and how we, as children, tried to climb to its top.I remember the porch in front of the house where my cousins and I played cricket.I remember the festival days when we children were made to sit on the floor and served food on banana leaves.I remember how my mom and aunt coerced a reluctant us who did not want to stop playing, to go to temple in the evening.I remember the small, ingeneous and very native games which we played while we were there.I remember the stories my grandmother used to tell me and the sweets which my grandfather used to bring us in the evening.Most of all, I remember my grandparents, the love and happiness in their eyes on seeing us, the genuine pleasure with which they received us and their sadness on seeing us leave!