Confessions of an Adultolescent:

Iraq is an adultolescent nation

Last Friday night, I wanted to join my friends at Blur Nightclub in Naperville because my friends said that I needed to get out more.  Since I live with my parents, I told them that I was going to be home late.

To my shock, my father said no.  I asked him to repeat himself, because I am in my 30s, and he was telling me to stay home tonight.

"I said you're not going out Nichole!  You need to save your money to get an apartment!"

I explained to my dad that between my regular job, and my paycheck from The Babbler, I could still meet my goal of moving out, and still have fun that night.

My father would have none of that.  "Nichole, if you come home late, the cat will meow, and wake me up!"

I explained to my father that if I quickly got to Fluffy after I unlocked the door, I could minimize her meowing, and reduce the chance that Fluffy would wake him up.

Then my father laid down the law.  "Nichole, you will not go out tonight, and that is final!  As long as you live in my house, you will follow my rules!"

To make matters worse, my sister added, "Yeah Nichole, you need to follow the rules."

I was so mad that I stormed off to my room.  What could I do?  I still don't have enough money to move out, and because I live with my parents, I am at the mercy of their rules.  If even the rules are stunting my social development, I still have to follow them.

It was at this point that I realized that my home was like Iraq.  My parents were the US.  They resent that I still live at home, but they feel that throwing me out on the streets would be far worse.  My sister is the Iraqi government.  She puts up a good talk about moving out, but she's really content to stay at home.  I'm the insurgency.  I lash out at my parents, but in the end, I'm powerless to do anything.

That led me to realize that Iraq is an adultolescent nation.  Like me, the government cannot stand on its own because it is constantly undermined by the presence of our troops.  Because it is sheltered from the consequences of its actions, it has been unable to grow up and achieve independence.

Dr. Phil says that parents of adultolescents need to be firm and set clear guidelines.  This is to help guide their adult children towards independence.  Alas, the Bush administration has not follow Dr. Phil's advice.  The surge was supposed to be a temporary effort to bring stability so that the Iraqi government could come together.  Once that happened, we could then pull out all of our troops.  Wait for September, Bush told us.

Well September is here, and the government didn't meet any of its benchmarks. In fact, they took August off, when they should have been working on ending the civil war.  Instead of being a firm parent, the Bush administration spun the lack of political progress, and used fuzzy math to make it seem like violence dropped a little bit. 

This sent the wrong the message to Iraq.  They know that as long as Bush is president, he won't withdraw the troops.  As long as the US troops stay, the Iraqi government has no incentive to grow up. 

Now I am a critic of Dr. Phil, but since American lives are involved, maybe we should use his techniques on Iraq.  We need to do something unless we want to have our troops there for generations.

As for my home situation, I'm going to keep saving money, and someday I will surge my way out of here, and on to the path of true adulthood.

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Please note: All stories and characters on this web site are works of fiction.