Lucky Ducks
lucky ducks (luk'e duks) adj. {Colloq.}
Kids born to 'boomer' parents with too much dispensible income and an inability to say no.
Tracey
00:23:05
I'm Tracey, boomer parent - member of the generation that has made more money in less time and spent more on ourselves and our kids than any generation in history
Teenage boy - Jack Mulqueen
00:37:19
I've been taught that money can buy happiness
Teenage girl - Jordan Capozzi
00:40:08
If you have more jeans or more handbags or more big car toys to play with, you'll be happier because you'll have things to do
Tracey
00:50:14
Despite the best intentions of our boomer parenting and uber spending, we have created the most entitled
Teenage boy - Jack Mulqueen
00:58:12
Money gives you access to certain privelages that kids without money do not have.
Tracey
01:04:02
Depressed
Irwin Bernhardt
01:05:17
A lot of kids get anti-depressants
Tracey
01:07:23
Dysfunctional
Dr. Medeline Levine
01:09:15
What we're finding right now are the highest rates of depression, anxiety disorders and substance abuse are actually taking place among affluent kids.
Tracey
01:19:00
Pissed off generation in history
Dr. Jeffrey Rudolph
01:22:05
You could be the brightest kid in the world but if you're going to piss people off, you're not going to get very far
Tracey
01:29:15
This is my duck, Taylor.
Like most parents, no matter how old she gets, this is still how I see her (baby image) even when she behaves like this
Taylor
01:40:17
I understand your sad, I have a headache, I don't need to be yelled at.
Tracey
01:44:02
...which is much of the time.
What happened to turn my little angel into a till of a teen? How much of a part have I played?
Taylor
01:53:15
I didn't ask for that
Tracey
01:56:03
And more importantly, how am I going to fix it
Credits
Lucky Ducks
a film by Tracey Jackson
Taylor
02:14:11
Hi daddy
Glenn
02:15:10
Hello
Young daughter - Lucy
02:17:13
I'm making something
Father
02:19:02
What are you making?
Lucy
Chicken
Taylor
02:20:02
Chicken a la Taylor
Father
02:21:12
Chicken a la Taylor?
Taylor
02:22:10
Yeh it's cranky too.
Lucy
But I'm having some of it
Taylor
It's put me in a bad mood, what?
Father
02:28:23
What, why are you in a bad mood?
Tracey
02:31:00
This is Lucy, my eight year old daughter and my husband Glenn, Taylor's step-father
02:38:01
See how it sizzles, down there in that searing
Taylor
02:41:14
Stop putting all that stuff on it, stop
Tracey
Look listen it gives it a little more flavour
Taylor
Ok that's enough.
02:47:00
Why would you do that, it smells awful
Glenn
02:48:23
It's called flavour, Taylor, flavour
Taylor
No!
Glenn
02:51:09
What do you mean no? What do you know, you've never cooked in your life.
Taylor
It's awful and it smells repulsive, why would you do that mummy? I was making it.
Tracey
02:59:23
Because it was getting too hot in the pan
03:04:06 (talk over)
The most difficult thing I have ever done in my life is raise a teenage daughter. I have worked for twenty years as a screenwriter, dealing with the insanity of Hollywood is easy compared to navigating the white waters of a sixteen year old girls moodswings.
I've been through my parents divorce and my own, those were nothing compared to what it feels when she yells - 'I hate you, you ruin my life' and slams the door in my face.
Every second is spent second guessing - have I said yes when I should have said no, when I said no should I have stuck with it, does she really need 200 dollar blue jeans or am I afraid if I don't buy them she won't love me and if I buy the jeans, the least she could do is hang them up.
03:59:11
Come on, when was the last time you cleaned your room?
Taylor!
Now!
Taylor
04:09:09
I'm coming, chill out.
Lucy
Come now
Tracey
04:14:18
Ok starting with this, come on take it, come here take it- 895 dollars.
Let me have it, why is it not
Purse, how much is that? 900 dollars. Why is that not put away?
Ok Juicy pants - plus 100 dollars
What's this? That's another 200 dollars
Ok we got 200 dollars on top of the jeans, the jeans were 195 dollars.
Oh look what we have over here Taylor - what out of everything you own nothing can be put away? Taylor!
12018 dollars worth of stuff lying on the floor. It's my fault for buying it for you
Lucy
04:54:22
12018 dollars
Tracey
04:58:08
Do you know how much money that is? You know that's as much as people make in a year? And it's on your floor. Makes me sick.
05:10:22 (talk over)
I too am a duck and despite the fact that every generation says this, things really were different back then.
(With specialist)
When I was a kid, we just weren't spoiled in the same way and it's not just my kid, I mean it's an epidemic. How did we get from there to here?
Robert Jackson
05:33:13
I think it's all centered around values and the values that you had or we had as I was growing up and the values that your generation had and now into your daughter are completely different but I can tell you that New York City is a wonderful place to live but to raise a kid? I wouldn't want to raise a child there that has the opportunity and the money to be exposed to the things your exposed to.
Tracey
06:14:00
New York City, where I'm raising my kids and to make matters worse, we live here on the Upper East Side where we're surrounded by the best stores, the finest restaurants and some of the worlds most expensive real estate. You could call it duck central. We have sixty private schools in a 1 1/2 mile radius and get this - 7000 shrinks
Molly Jong-East
06:55:06
I think parents nowadays have been, I suppose the word I have to use is brainwashed into believing that connections are made by material things and in fact we all know that they're really not, we don't make connections by what we can buy our children but by family history, what is meaningful in your life as a parent, trying to help your child find something meaningful in his or her life and rarely will that be buying anything.
Dr. Madeline Levine
07:32:00
I would say every adolescent girl in my practice is concerned, overly concerned about her appearance. Anorexia is high, there's some controversy about whether or not it's higher in the upper middle class or not, in any event it's certainly is at record highs.
You don't find Anorexia in Guatemala, you don't find eating disorders in countries where people don't have enough to eat.
Glenn
07:54:10
We're not challenging them to find within themselves answers for questions that all adolescents ask - Why am in the world? Why do I experience unhappiness? Why am I misunderstood? Why do my parents not hear what I'm trying to say? Why am I not listened to? - You know these are universal questions that as we sit here speaking, children from Buenes Aires to Kyoto are asking themselves at this stage but in some ways I'm not sure we're forcing them to ask these questions long enough or loud enough and then just leaving them to try and answer them without a lot of nets underneath them at the same time.
Lisa Revson
08:31:10
Part of it is that having so much, you aren't forced to go out there and make things happen on your own - I think that may be part of it, that the kids lose their own drive, their own hunger.
Joey Khalipha
08:44:24
A lot of these kids have not been, have not learnt to develop certain skills that would actually help them develop themselves in a way that they could be more successful in their lives. They were given too many things.
Tracey
09:00:05
You have to work tomorrow night. Yes you do.
Glenn
09:04:01
Sweetie we need you
Taylor
09:05:15
That's great - you don't tell me until the last minute
Tracey
09:07:10
Stop with the attitude
Taylor
09:11:00
Well fine I'll be on 64th street
Glenn
09:11:08
You have to do that at 5.30
Taylor
09:13:02
fine
Glenn
09:13:22
Actually you'll be there at 5.20 and you'll be out of there at 7.45
Tracey
09:17:20
So you have so much money, you're so rich you don't have to work for 2hours for some extra spending money - that's how rich you are? Making extra money doesn't mean anything to you? Well that sucks, there's a problem with that so you're going to work and all the things Glenn does for you, there's almost nothing you can't do
Taylor
09:33:09
I said I'd do it so stop it.
Stop it.
Tracey
09:36:24
Stop it. Stop the attitude, you're not going to go out.
Taylor
OK
Tracey
09:41:05
You're going to go and you're going to smile and help.
Stop being a brat.
Glenn
09:47:00
What are you doing this Saturday?
Taylor
09:48:02
Going out! Stop it Glenn
Tracey
09:54:07
There is truly a limit to the amount of yelling and door slamming one person can take. Time for a visit to the high priestess of privilege - Madeline Lavine.
You know I don't want to paint that I've got this kid who is say, you know she's ok - you know you look at her she's pretty, she's bright, she doesn't appear on the outside to be unhappy, you know as far as I know she doesn't take drugs, she doesn't have a Sid Vicious tattooed accross her breast, a needle hanging out of her arm. You know she's but there's something in the last 6 to 8 months that concerns me in how she- her coping skills, her I think and she would argue this with you, we argue this constantly together - I think she has an eating disorder.
Taylor
10:45:07
You know in the past I have had slight issues but I don't think it's a major problem and I fixed it and I think I'm fine.
Dr. Madeline Levine
10:52:04
Minor issues about body image or about eating?
Taylor
10:55:02
Both
Dr. Madeline Levine
10:56:00
Both. You think you're what, too what?
Taylor
11:00:10
I'm fine. I think I'm fine
Dr. Madeline Levine
11:03:06
That's a place you don't really want to go?
Taylor
Yeh
Dr. Madeline Levine
11:06:08
Ok.
What's your relationship like with your parents?
Tracey
11:11:04
Well with my mother it's hideous.
Dr. Madeline Levine
Hideous?
Tracey
Hideous.
Dr. Madeline Levine
11:15:18
Don't hold back
Tracey
11:18:02
I mean I have no relationship with my mother, it makes me very sad that I don't have a mother and it's never going to get any better. So in that sense there's a lot of, yeh it's very dysfunctional - I have a lot of mother issues of my own, that have probably at time affected my parenting, perhaps.
Dr. Madeline Levine
11:42:00
I think that you are a very involved, very caring, a very loving mum, I think you're a great kid and the kinds of problems that you have actually come into this intersection where you have difficulty setting limits and fully taking on your role as parent and tolerating her unhappiness for sort of her ultimate good, it's not all black and white.
12:14:24
Every single psychologist, psychiatrist, mental health worker I spoke with over the course of writing this book, talked about the fact that parents have become not just lax but almost incapable of discipling their kids.
Conversation in house
Glenn
12:29:07
Why would you spend 20 dollars on a salad?
Taylor
I like it
Glenn
12:33:12
That's the reason you like it?
Taylor
Yeh
Glenn
12:35:15
I'm sending it back.
Taylor
Ok then I won't eat.
Glenn
12:38:21
Taylor it's the most expensive salad in New York City- why would you buy that?
Tracey
12:42:11
We told you not to go to the Three Dimes
Taylor
12:44:17
Mummy said i could order it
Tracey
12:46:07
No I didn't know you were going to get a salad, everybody else gets dinners from EJ's
Taylor
12:51:01
That's nice, I hate EJ's
Tracey
12:52:13
Taylor get back here right now! At the count of 3, Taylor everybody else ordered ay EJ's so we would not spend a fortune, why did you have to order from Three Dimes? You're not supposed to order from there.
Taylor
13:05:19
Because I wanted it.
Tracey
13:07:11
Well it's coming out of your allowanace
Taylor
13:08:25
That's cool
Tracey
13:16:08
So I decided to send her to the slums of India, seriously. Not to live but to spend her Spring Break teaching street children English at the one international school in Mumbai.
I'd like to her to be in the situation that's very difficult, where she has to find a part of herself she doesn't know she had.
13:39:08
I was sent this today, this is what you have to learn before you get to India. So you have to memorise all the kids names, you have to come up with lesson plans for all the classes and arts and crafts which you should probably go out and buy.
Taylor
13:53:05
Ok
(Reads) Other points: no skirts or pants that don't cover your ankle, no shirts that have cleavage, shirts have to have sleeves- these are more for your comfort, you'll be stared at enough you don't want to give them even more of a reason. Be strict with them from day 1 or they will walk all over you.
I don't necessarily want to go, all my friends are packing their bikinis and I'm packing my, god knows what.
Tracey
14:21:15
Taylor you are spoilt
Taylor
14:23:16
Not really and you brought me up this way
Tracey
14:28:00
Well now I'm un-doing it.
Taylor
14:30:16
Cool, little too late.
You can't take back the fact that we live on Maddison Avenue, you can't take back the fact that I go to a private school, you can't take back the fact that you buy me stuff, it's just how I am and it's how you are - you carry around 10,000 dollar handbags, you're not going to take that back
Tracey
14:50:07
Yeh i'm not trying to change you. I love you but what I want I want you to be better, I want you to be a better human being. I mean the world I see you living in is not creating a good human being.
Tracey
15:02:15
Come on, come on. Give me your phone, come on come one 2 weeks without electronics- the Blackberry, the IPod, the Razor, the Apple and the Dell.
(Images of airport and then Mumbai people and slums)
(Arrive at accomodation)
Tania Spilchen
16:15:24
Hey, so this is your house. Yeh this is Shareena from England
Shareena
16:20
Hi, nice to meet you
Tania
16:22
And this is Alysha from Canada
Alesha
16:23
Hi, nice to meet you.
Tanya
16:25
This is your home for 2 weeks, good fun. There's the kitchen, there's the bedroom. What do you think?
Tracey
16:34
Hi I'm Taylor's mum
Girls
16:35
Hi, nice to meet you
Tracey
16:39
What do you think? What?
(Taylor hugs Tracey)
You're going to have an adventure, you know that.
I'm not very far, I'm just down the street, OK I'm not leaving you, I'm down the street. You can call me whenever you want me, alright?
So you guys will take good care of her?
Girls
Yeh of course
Tracey
17:08
(Tracey talk over) Did I feel guilty, leaving her there while I went off in my air-conditioned car to my 5* hotel? Of course I did but I work hard and quite frankly I'm too old at this stage to be miserable if I don't have to be.
(Shots of Indian children)
I've been involved with the One International school for many years, it's an amazing programme that both educates and feeds kids who would otherwise be left with few options.
Tania
18:05
So what do you feel?
Taylor
18:06
I'm excited
Tania
18:08
Excited? Scared?
Taylor
18:09
A little bit
Tania
18:10
A little bit?
Taylor
Yeh
Tanya
18:11
It's gonna be fun but you have to put the work in too right? Make sure you're ready for your classes and learn the kids names and then we can play, have lot's of fun.
So the first class right now is a Hindi class, step one so you'll be teaching them English later on and here you go.
Tracey (talk over)
18:34
Tanya Spilchin was only six years older than Taylor when she came to India with a tech job seven years ago, she couldn't ignore the poverty so she literally plonked herself on the roadside and started to teach a handful of kids English. Today she runs two schools and educates over 150 children.
(Tanya speaks in Hindi and introduces Taylor)
Taylor
19:04
What colour?
Children
Blue? Yellow?
Taylor
19:07
No red
Tanya
19:12
You taught for like 10 minutes
Taylor
19:13
They said to colour, she said to colour after, give them paper to colour
Tanya
19:17
Yeh you need to figure it out, so you need to get but yeh you need to figure it out, there's other things you can do. You can play games, right? They can yell and scream and do other things. You can say how are you? You can teach oral, so many things you can do ok? We need to figure it out
(Tracey hotel room)
Tracey
19:33
Taylor? Are you ok? You know I'm right here you can call me whenever you want. What did you have for dinner? You wanna call me just before you go to sleep? I love you.
(Talking to camera)
19:50
I feel like I want to run over there and snatch her up and take her and get her an ice coffee. I mean we just got here, it's scary, she's there in a strange place you know and she's just a kid but you know, it'll make her stronger.
(Talk over)
20:15
Taylor was the youngest person to ever work at the school, it's usually people like Shareena and Alysha who come and teach in exchange for room and board. Shareena is of Indian descent but raised in England, she was touring the world alone at eighteen. Alysha, 27 was a nurse from Canada. Taylor was truely, pardon the pun, a duck out of water.
(Shareena teaching a dance routine)
Tanya
21:11
What's going on?
Taylor
21:12
My head hurts
Tanya
21:14
Your head hurts? Because you're tired and because it's hot and because it's loud? Don't stress yourself, take it one stage at a time, try and laugh about something stupid.
Shareena
21:25
I just laugh at everything
Tanya
21:28
That's good too, right? But try and keep yourself up, find something good to talk about. Ok, be honest yeh?
Taylor
21:40
Yeh
(Taylor with Tracey)
Taylor
21:47
I'm really unhappy
Tracey
21:48
Why are you unhappy?
Taylor
21:51
I can't sleep there
Tracey
21:53
But you only had one night sweety.
Taylor
21:55
I'm all alone, I can't shower, I can't get comfortable
Tracey
21:59
I know but the point of this wasn't to be comfortable, the point of this was to learn a lesson, the point was to let you have an experience
Taylor
22:06
But I'm scared
Tracey
22:07
What are you scared of? You've got, you're sleeping in a appartment with three people - with a guy, with a nurse, with another girl, you've got a guard outside the building. What are you scared of sweety?
This is part of the experience, it's just coming through this, I know it's hard, no one said it was going to be easy right? I'm a phone call away, I'm down the street right? You've got to prove you can do this Tay, you can do this ok? Look at me you can do this, life is not easy look at how these kids live, you think these kids have an easy life look at them they're all happy and smiling, you think they have an easy life? Look at their spirit, so go give back to some people who don't have anything ok? Just take, hunny you've got to get out of yourself, can you do that? Just think of the road they've got ahead and think of the road you have ahead, why don't you try and make their road a little easier?
I love you very much, now go teach English.
(In classroom)
Taylor
23:16
Now come here, now go again.
Yay
Octopus
Child
Octopus
Tanya
23:35
Not all teens would be able to cope with this sort of experience but I think, I mean had I had it when i was fifteen, sixteen I'd have loved it and I think a lot of teens might hate it but it can't hurt, it can't hurt. They would go back with at least some understanding beyond North America, beyond you know their school and their best friends and their clothes and all that sort of thing.
Tracey (talk over)
24:04
I really didn't want to interfere with Taylor's experience but the day that everyone went to Nallasopara she was in bad shape, the fact that she was existing on coffee and gum didn't help. So mummy can't mind her own business, went along to keep an eye on her
Tanya
24:31
This is Nallasopara, it's a new school that we started three weeks ago and when we first started there was fifty kids here on the very first day so it's quite a bit and we've already got up to 77.
Tracey
24:47
It's a good think I went since Taylor couldn't even get through her first class so mummy step in and take over, did exactly that.
(Teaching class)
25:06
Yeh lion?
Children
Lion
(animal impersonations)
Tracey
25:17
You know what? All of you are very smart. Yeh go to school, very smart.
(in hotel)
25:26
I felt like maybe I'm wondering if what I'm doing is a mistake, maybe I'm pushing her too hard, maybe she's just too little young to handle this. She just feels so fragile to me, she seems like so.
If I can get myself over the impulse to make everything alright for her, that I'm going to make as much of a journey that she is, that I have to get over the impulse and I have to get over the habit, I have to break the habit of making everything right for her.
(next day, on phone)
26:19
No, currently unavailable. This is unacceptable, let's go over there.
Camera man
26:21
So what happened? How did you find out?
Tracey
26:33
I left her with Tanya and she was not allowed to be alone ok? Let's go.
There's no phone there, they left no phone with her right? There's no phone alright, she's in a strange country, she's fifteen years old. I trusted them.
(to taxi driver)
26:46
Ok, we tell you ok? Ok straight, go. Ok.
I'm telling you, you leave the kid with a telephone, if you're not going to be there you leave her with a telephone.
(to Shareena and Alysha)
27:21
You know guys, if you're going to leave her alone then someone has to call me, ok? She's, no no listen to me, ok I'm really sorry, she's fifteen years old, she's fifteen she's left alone in the appartment in India without a telephone, she's not as old as anyone else has ever been here, she's the youngest person to ever come here.
Shareena
27:39
If you want to spoil it for her that's fair enough
Tracey
27:41
I don't want to spoil it for her, I don't want her to be alone without a telephone, I don't want her to be alone when I say don't leave her alone, she's not, if you're going to leave her alone than let me know.
Tanya
27:50
If something happened what would you have done?
Taylor
27:51
I would have crossed the street to get you
Tracey
27:53
And what if Tanya wasn't there?
Tanya
27:55
I was there Tracey that's the point
Tracey
27:57
But what if you're not?
Tanya
27:58
But I am there, do you think I would leave her in the house without being there, without her knowing where I am. Come on give me a little bit of credit Tracey, if you can yell I can yell too.
She cares about her so much like a sister, she cares about her like a mother- she pulled out her stephoscope yesterday to hear her stomach to see how she was because she was worried about her.
Shareena
28:21
How is she not going to learn to stand up for, she knows everything you don't understand, she's an intelligent girl. Honestly, we're out for half and hour, she was leeping we came back home, she woke up and end of story and that's what you're making a big deal out of?
Alysha (interview)
28:35
I think that she is having more of a difficult time letting go of her daughter than her daughter is having growing up. Like I think Taylor is ready to grow up and is ready to kind of take on being an adult soon and I think it scares Tracey to death.
Tracey (talk over)
28:57
I think it's the steady beat of the spirtual drum that brings peace to the chaos that is India. I was hoping that a spirtual advisor could bring peace to the chaos that was us.
Spiritual leader
29:10
A lot of the things she wants to say but she hesitates to say, she's not comfortable saying it and the only way she'll respect you is when she feels comfortable being with you and saying her thing. Respect is two ways. Everything she needs is a very good friend, she's missing that in you. Right? You're losing your friend. That's a wish list, it would be nice for her to do it but to help her to do it alone, don't pressurise to do it because then she resents it. Let it be her gift to you, you have to earn it, you have to earn it.
(In classroom)
Taylor
30:30
I said a boom chicka boom
Children
I said a boom chicka boom
Taylor
I said a boom chicka boom
Children
I said a boom chicka boom
Taylor
I said a boom chicka racka chicka a racka chicka boom
I said a boo - chick a racka - chick a racka - chicka boom
(With Tanya)
30:52
After working with kids and spending time with them and falling in love with them and then you just see that their actually taking in what you're doing and it's making a difference in their life is just a feeling that nothing you know, you can't buy that feeling
(Classroom)
Black sheep, black sheep, what is it?
Tracey
31:18
One of the reasons I wanted to bring Taylor to India was it's the one place I always feel that I'm enough, somehow in the States no matter what you have, it's never enough, you're not young enough, you're not rich enough, successful enough, thin enough. No wonder our kids are depressed and feel the need for more, it's because they're looking at us and that's what we're always thinking.
(New York)
31:59
It's impossible to come back from India without a few epiphanies in your suitcase, the hard part is keeping them in play when you hit the western pavement. There was no question that Taylor had learned a lot and changed while she was there, the issue now was would it stick?
Taylor (in appartment)
32:20
I'm not going out, you wouldn't let me go out ever! I'm not coming home at 10:30, no one comes home at 10:30, I'm not 5 years old, I'm not going out tomorrow night so I'm not coming home at 10:30!
Glenn (interview)
32:32
The trip to India which I still believe was an extrodinarily rich experience for her has to date certainly not suggested that the experience has influenced the way that she is on a daily basis engaging the world in which she lives.
Tracey (with Taylor)
32:51
Here we are 6 weeks back from India, where are we?
Taylor
32:55
Well I think that, I mean I think that I've learnt a lot since India but I still think there's a lot of things that I have to work on but things from India have, i keep in mind and will help me in getting through other things
Tracey
33:19
I mean I think one of the hardest parts for me is that I could never fix my mother and now there's something with you I want to fix and I can't do that and I think it just makes me crazy.
(both walking)
Taylor
33:37
I don't have an eating disorder to the extent that it got that serious, therefore you can't compare me to other people
Tracey
33:47
You think it got worse when you got back from India?
Taylor
33:50
Yes
Tracey
33:53
And you think it's going to get better?
Taylor
33:55
It is getting better
Tracey
33:59
You held back on your eating for 9 months?
Taylor
No
Tracey
34:01
Not 9 months? I'm just trying to get an idea of it.
Taylor
34:05
I don't care what you speak about it like a ate a grape a day
Tracey
34:10
Now she's in there with the doctor and i go and I spend my entire day going from doctor to doctor to doctor.
Taylor
34:17
Can we go?
Tracey
34:19
Stop acting like everything is ok, it's not ok everything is horrible.
(On phone)
34:33
She's ... from seeing any friend this summer
(To Taylor)
You're not seeing one friend this summer
Taylor
34:38
Did I not hear you?
Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready?
Tracey
34:55
Taylor I'm so you know this little miss chirpy like everything is ok
Taylor
34:59
Umm I'm massively ready to go home
Tracey
35:03
I'm walking home by myself, you can go home whenever
Taylor
Cool, later
Glenn (interview)
35:21
She has also platonic ideal for what she in her adulthood wants from her family unit and clearly it stands in stark contrast to the slightly melodramatic experience she had in her own unit. I think that's a very common phenomena for people who've had badly broken childhoods
Tracey
35:40
Both my parents were lucky ducks.
Then she and my father when I was 2 months old went to Europe for a month because she had to get over the trauma of having had a child
Male
35:48
When you were how old?
Tracey
35:49
About 2 months old, they went to Europe for a month
Male
Without you?
Tracey
Yeh
Male
35:52
What happened to you?
Tracey
35:53
I stayed at home with the nurse
Male
35:56
They left you when you with a nurse when you were 2 months old?
Tracey
For a month
Male
For a month?
Tracey
35:59
Yeh and they kind of, she brags about it, she talks about it. One day she was telling me, 'I was reading my journal from when I was in Europe when you were a baby and I was more concerned about my new Chanel bag than I was you'. Hello?? That was long before parenting became a verb,
I would love this generational, third childhood thing to end with me, I would love that.
- Ah this is what I was looking for, my little bag - I would love it to end with me, I really would, I would love it be, to get somehow enlightened about this. I don't think Taylor is so old that I can't reverse what damage I've inflicted one her.
Tracey (talk over)
36:47
It was summer and like most Manhatten ducks we make a yearly migration to the Hamptons, it's a lot of family time and usually less stressful than our lives in the city. During the days the kids are in camp and i work at home but this year I had a plan, I would put all work aside and run camp Taylor. Seven weeks devoted to spending time with her, trying to help her get over her eating disorder and trying to mend broken fences and build new trust. She went along with it because I think she realised it would be very low on structure, which it was. It would be full of guilty mother shopping which it was. Discipline would fly out of the window, which it did.
37:42
Hey what are you paying for this meal with?
Taylor
37:45
Credit card
Tracey
Whose?
Taylor
Yours
Tracey
37:47
Which one?
No that's not exceptable
Taylor
37:51
It was sitting out, which one did you want me to use? The visa?
Tracey
37:55
Use my gold America Express, don't use this.
Tracey (talk over)
37:59
I thought we'd made great progress, she gained weight, we spent hours talking, she told me where she was going and with whom. The lying and deception were behind us.
Taylor
38:13
Ok ready I'm opening this for us (talking to friends)
38:17
Like if I want to do something and she says no, like no offence mum but I'll most likely find a way to do it. Like if she says you're not allowed out tonight then I will go out, I will figure a way to go out so I don't need to show her I have that power because I will just like do it
Tracey (talk over)
38:36
It wasn't until we got back to the city that I found out camp Taylor was far from her only recreational activity that summer
Tracey
38:46
Come down stairs please, the living room
I'm going to ask you if you understand the expression - do you know what the J is up means? I have two huge things what, would you like to tell me what they might be? Lying and drugs.
So you were clearly going to clubs, even though you would tell me all summer long in our long beach walk mummy, daughty, baby I love you so much everything I tell you, I'm completely honest, I adore you, I'm here for you talks where clearly I was being made a fool of life. You never bothered to tell me you started going to Stereo at the beginning of the summer and were smoking cigarettes and dope. I don't know how many times you have smoked dope but you have smoked dope many more times than you have ever let on to me. There is also Taylor many, many pictures of you on Facebook with beer in your hand, champagne in your hands with half naked boys.
Glenn
39:39
Why are all those pictures on that account for anybody to see? Why are they there? When is the last time you put pictures on there do you know?
Taylor
39:49
That I posted pictures?
Tracey
39:50
Do you know what a lack of self-esteem it shows to have pictures like that online?
Glenn
39:55
There are 242 pictures
Tracey
39:57
You are not leaving this house until at least January 6th. You have lost all privelages Taylor because I will not have someone, nor will Glenn lie to me, us for an entire year
Dr Jeffrey Rudolph
40:13
When you set really solid boundaries for your kids, when you talk to them about drugs and alcohol when you say there is a zero tolerance absolute zip policy in this house, they will probably still use, they will probably still sneak out or whatever but what they're finding is that when the solid boundary has been set the kids know the place to come back to, they have a sense of where too far is. Don't flip out because they're going to experiement a little, it's the nature of the teenager to take a look at that and the fact is the peer pressure is so immense they're probably going to get shoved into it. You got to talk to them and you know that whole thing about talk is the anti-drug, it's important.
Tracey
40:56
I weathered her on going dislike of me, contempt for me but then I read this amazing book called the Teen Whisperer and in this book I became aware that I had over zealously punished Taylor. Four and half months for what she done was really quite a bit but you know there's something to be said for peace and sanity at home which you know has been a little dicey.
(Car journey through snow)
41:53
What would you say is the number one problem with teens today?
Male specialist
41:58
It's not necessarily the teen itself that's gone wrong but I think that our family units breaking down. I don't think we spend enough time together as family. I think that fathers are losing their roles, their spending so much time working. Mums are having to spread themselves so thin, that they're not able to be mums.
42:16
So the one thing I told you yesterday is that I don't have your answers right? Where are your answers?
You have them, you had them all along. You're a very powerful young lady, you're very intelligent, you know the things that are going on in your household that don't work correct? A part of what keeps teens from really jumping into the work of trying to make change happen, trying to make change in their own world, trying to make change in the family is their afraid that they'll put out a lot of work and there's still not going to get any results.
Right the plan? We'll do some follow up, I'm sure we'll do some follow up as well if there's questions and recognise it's not going to go perfect, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to end up losing your Blackberry, you're going to end up writing a little letter of accountability once in a while, that's reality it's not going to be perfect.
43:13
I'm a big believer in the contract, I like to I just basicaly call it let's come up with a plan that works and i like to put it in writing and I like to make it pretty concise and look for as many holes as we can and try to sew it up, so that it's relatively bomb proof. Now it's not, it's not, part of you have to learn out of this, this is how to go wow you know what we didn't think of that but we do have a conflict here so how are we going to resolve it, learning how to manage our anger, learning how to manage time-outs, use time-outs in a way that appropriate and I love the contract, I love that plan that works because I make the teen accountable for it and I'll make the parents accountable for it too.
Tracey
43:55
The contract worked because it was the first time we each had a clearly defined set of rules. Allowance was based on chores not just a gift for breathing, if she broke a rule there was a real consequence.
Male specialist (over Skype)
44:10
How are things? Tell me how your weeks been so far? Are you and your mum doing ok? Are you getting through, are you achieving the things that we talked about you wanting to achieve?
Taylor
Yeh everything is good. I guess I got 100 on my psych test.
Male specialist
44:24
It feels good, right? And now typically because number one you're sticking to what you agreed to, you're sticking to your commitments and number two you're also, you're doing positive things so you see more positive things in your life, number three you're also having a better relationship with your parents. The number one fact in teen happiness is their relationship with their parents, a lot of kids don't want to admit that but that's typically the case. The better off you are with your parents the more happy you are in life.
Have you found your mums not yelling as much?
Taylor
45:07
Yeh not at all
Male specialist
45:08
Not at all? Not even when she's upset?
Taylor
45:11
She hasn't been upset with me recently
Male specialist
45:14
So all of those things are making your life a little bit happier correct?
Dr. Madeline Levine
45:20
I just think it's critically important, that I think of anything that I say this capacity to see who you've been blessed with because kids are blessing, you know I love kids and to the extent to which you're pushing for a child that's not there you're never really going to be really able to connect with the child who is there
Tracey
45:39
The end of the day if you can exist as a family within this nucleus, yeh you're going to fight, you're going to bump up against each other, we're all very strong individuals but if you can just be just be there. I think if anything i've learnt you can just be there for your kids and listen. I think i've learnt so much from the last year that if I can just you know I don't think, I'm not a great listener. I think you know i listen but i'm listening with what i'm going to say next and you know we all do that to a degree, you it's very hard to be able to listen to children and I think that children hear different messages, they understand when you're not listening exactly to what they're saying when you're hearing what you want to hear, what you think you're hearing. Just to be able to sit sometimes with Taylor now and just let her be in a bad mood, know that it's not actually my fault that she's in a bad mood or that I can fix her bad mood, that I can just if I let her be in her bad mood, her bad mood will eventually go away and she'll wonder in the room and say do you want a coffee or can I wear your scarf, can I go out later than you want me to but she'll just she's like a ball I find, If I don't pressure her now she's like a ball and she bounces back to me and I think because of my own mother walking away from me and my own mother will never come back to me even when i try, like I tried today to make up with her because she won't talk to me. That I was always so afraid that if Taylor got too far from me she would never come back because all I know in a mother daughter relationship is of someone going away and not coming back.
Taylor
47:43
I'm lucky to have followed my mother duck even though I resented it for so long, now it's my choice to apply it to my own life and i can safely say that I want to.
Tracey
48:01
I'd like to say that everything was perfect from there on but life is imperfect, as are people. we still tussle and struggle and I buy her too many things but she's growing up and I'm trying to let go.
Male specialist
48:18
What's the thing that's holding you back from letting go and saying ok let's see what you come up with.
Tracey
48:29
Because as crazy as she drives me, I don't want to see her go away
Male specialist
48:33
Ah honest answer, there it is. So you are being selfish and trying to protect her when you can't let go. The moment when you're able to let go, when you're able to let go Tracey you'll be doing her the biggest single thing that you could possibly do to help your child
Tracey (talk over)
49:02
A friend recently told me, adolescence is saying goodbye, so hard to do when someone will always be etched in your memory like this but after all the experts and the doctors and the books, I realised all I had to do was follow the mother ducks. I had to trust that I'd modelled well enough, pointed out the danger zones clearly and I had to release her and let her swim into the deep end on her own but she would always know what every child no matter what age needs to know - she could swim back to me whenever she wanted and I would be there
Credits
Produced, written and directed by Tracey Jackson
Executive Producer - Richard Arlook
Co-producer - Gloria Bailen
Director of Photography - Gabriel Judet-Weinshel
Editor - Cob Carlson
Light/ Sound NY - George Nicholas
Post production services provided by Tango Pix (Providence, RI)
Post-production manager - Roger Yergeau
Online Editor - Michael A. Dawson
Mix Engineer - Ben Caccia
Assistant Editors - Michael A. Brown & Andy Kwok