I've been fired....

[plumaria]

...by my 15yo daughter! Oh. My. God. I am on day one of my vacation and it has not gotten off to the best start. What a dichotomous position I find myself in. Let's see...She is officially in my legal custody until she's 18yo, yet I've been fired. What to do!....Here's what happenned....Amanda wanted to travel 40 miles to Kona yesterday afternoon on the back of a pick-up truck with 6 other 15 and 16 year olds. The Mamalahoa Highway from here to Kona is a bleak stretch of 2 lane highway, surrounded by massive lava fields on each side. It is similar to a moon scape setting - alarming at first, and then one slowly adjusts to the visuals. Tourists will often tell you that when they first fly into Kona and view the harsh lavascape from above, they find it visually shocking, and their thought processes are; "Wait just a fuckin minute here....I spent 'x' thousand dollars for a vacation in the godamn TROPICS, and this is what I paid for????" Poor things. Once they hit the resorts its all lush, 'golf-course' green, with the requisite palm trees and tropical flowers everywhere. Gorgeous Hawaiian guys running around in traditional dress, beautiful young women doing the hula..you get the picture. You see, our side of the island is the dry, desert/lava field side. It takes all of 30 minutes to drive into a completely different ecosystem where one's tropical needs will be fully met. But, back to my firing....The aforesaid Mamalahoa Highway has now become something of a 'memorial' highway. There are no less than 15 to 20 shrines along each side of the road honoring those lives lost due to accidents. Here in the islands, when someone is killed on the road, a shrine is set up immediately. Sometimes crosses are dug into the lava and multiple, beautiful flower leis are draped over and around the crosses. Then the shrine will begin to show evidence of that person's former life. Surfboards or boogie boards might appear. Recently one family built a rock wall around the site and adorned it with many artifacts of their loved one's life. People bring and leave food (a buddhist tradition), bottles of alcohol(if it was an older person who died), t-shirts of the deceased...shoes..you name it...flags.. stuffed animals that belonged to a child who may have lost his or her life... Unfortunately, most of the deaths have been those of teens, and unfortunately again, most of the accidents were caused by teen drivers either drag-racing (a popular sport here) or being really, really drunk. My kids knew some of the young men and women that have been killed on this wretched stretch of highway. Hence, our knee jerk response to "Could I ride down to Kona in the back of 16yo 'N's' pick-up?" was a resounding, and unanimous "no" by mom and dad. I have been accused of being 'over-protective', a 'psycho', 'crazy', but I'm still not gunna let her do the pick-up thing.
So...its a dilemma. How will I juxtapose my 'fired' status against needing to continue to be a 'responsible' parent? Wish me luck...I'll need it :)