Features: The Secret Life of Your Teen

Not every parent is dropping a quarter mil on a birthday party, but there are plenty of oether extravagant gifts being given to teens — including new breasts. “In some large metro areas — and I think Philadelphia is no different — we’ve seen breast augmentation surgery become a popular sweet 16 or high-school graduation gift,” says psychologist David Sarwer, of Penn’s medical school. And why not, when one of the hot topics in pop culture is whether Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan have had their boobs done.

If such lavishness makes you feel uncomfortable, you aren’t alone. Some parents worry about not only excessive materialism, but also whether they’ve made life too easy for their kids. One mother, brought up in an old-school household where the kids did plenty of chores, says she views her daughter’s job as being a student — and that’s the reason she and her husband wash the dishes each night while her daughter “goes up supposedly to study. But whether she’s studying or talking on the computer with her friends, I don’t know.” What’s more, the mother has lately started to realize that the activities her daughter has learned the most from are her summer job and teaching Sunday school, where there’s a demand to accomplish something and to be accountable. She’s grown the most, in other words, not when something’s been given to her, but when something’s been asked of her.

The other concern among parents is that consumerism has given kids a warped view of reality. And teens aren’t the only ones whose vision gets clouded. Linda, an attorney who lives in Ardmore and whose two kids recently graduated from Harriton High, remembers traveling to one of her son’s baseball games in Maryland. As she looked at the girls from the other school, she thought how unattractive they seemed compared to the natural beauties at her kids’ school. But the longer she looked, the more she realized the Maryland kids were just normal teens; the Harriton girls’ “natural beauty” was the result of a fortune spent on haircuts, makeup and clothes.

The Hooters girls never are quite as hot as you think, are they?

So where are the parents in all this? Actually, that’s what some of their fellow parents would like to know. One of their biggest complaints is about grown-ups who, because they’re either blissfully ignorant or too caught up in their own lives, simply don’t give enough supervision to their offspring.

Allison, for example, has a rule: If Ethan is invited to another kid’s house, she calls to make sure a parent will be around. Many are happy that she’s interested. But not all. “I’ve had parents tell me, ‘Oh, we may go to dinner for an hour or two, but we’ll be here,’” says Allison. “‘So really,’ I tell them, ‘you won’t be there.’” Then there are those who get defensive, who insist their kids are trustworthy. “But it’s not a question of trust; it’s a question of supervision,” explains Allison. “We give our kids sex ed, and that’s fine. But it doesn’t teach you what to do in the passion of the moment, about what you might do if you have the opportunity.”