8 ms·

Out of Sync: Puberty at age 9

142 points by ghurlman 16y ago

Wolf_Larsen 16y ago
Well, it was more interesting than I expected.
jolie 16y ago
This online mag is amazing. The writers are actually good essayists, and the themes are more elevated that what you'd expect from a more typical "lad mag" like Esquire.
kragen 16y ago
Poor Alex. For the rest of his life anyone who googles his history will be reading about how he threatened his mother, attacked his father, and loved hardcore porn at 12 years old.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  ...and if anyone makes a decision about his worth as a human being because of his actions as an adolescent, while ignoring his accomplishments -- both earlier and greater than many young adults -- well, then it's their loss, not his.
  - pyre 16y ago
    That may be true, but unfortunately a good portion of society is screwed up like that.
    - hartror 16y ago
      I think it will be outweighed by the respect and understanding he will gain from it. I for one would be more likely to want to hire him given I have walked a mile in his shoes.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Whether it's folly or not, could you imagine if he tried to run for President? Last I heard they kick you out of the running if you ever got detention.
    - telemachos 16y ago
      That's silly. Bush 2.0 was able to get elected (twice), regardless of various blots on his earlier public record. So did Clinton. (I'm not interested in any ideological wars. Please spare us. Point is, both men served two terms as President no matter how many detentions they served once upon a time.)
      - sliverstorm 16y ago
        I am well aware of that, I am simply forever amused the way they dig ancient skeletons out of the closet during the running.
      - dmm 16y ago
        But he was rich enough for his national guard records to be destroyed.
        btilly 16y ago
        People still knew about plenty of questionable stuff, such as his drinking problems, and doing lines of coke off of the butts of prostitutes.
- MaysonL 16y ago
  Actually, no: the article doesn't currently show up until page 8 of a Google search for alex peppe. I would imagine that in a couple of years it will be even further down the search space.
  - CrazedGeek 16y ago
    The HN comments are on page 2, though.
    - davidw 16y ago
      It wouldn't surprise me if that dude found this discussion, actually.
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    Especially if you search with quotes, the article won't show up, since his last name only shows up in the context of his mother's name (since she's the author). But now that you've typed it here, it'll show up ;/
  - kragen 16y ago
    I imagine that in a few years, the search engines will be inferring that an article written by a "Mary Doe" that refers to "my son John" should rank highly in searches for "John Doe".
joubert 16y ago
At one point the mom says she asked him whether he wants to take the medication ("it is his life"). I wonder whether she asked his permission to publicize the intimate details of his growing up.
- kiba 16y ago
  If you have read the comments, than you would have realize that her son was looking over at the whole things and deciding what to include and not to include.
melvin 16y ago
A colleague of mine has a daughter who went into full-blown puberty at the age of 7. Bodily changes, emotional lability - everything that usually happens at 13. The doctors recommended they cut out the use of plastics and household cleaners... so, off to read the article.
petercooper 16y ago
Eric and I agreed that Internet pornography would allow Alex a sexual outlet that was the safest of all the alternatives. [..] Looking back, I realize I knew nothing about boys and pornography. I’d never seen online porn and assumed that Alex was viewing still pictures similar to print magazines. It wasn’t until Alex was 12 that we learned that he’d been downloading video clips and visiting adult chat rooms. This article lost its legitimacy when I discovered that this poor lad merely suffered from a lack of good, disciplined parenting. Not everyone turns into a secretive, manipulative sex addict a few years after puberty whether it happens at 9, 11 or 13. Letting a 9 year old browse porn and interact on "adult chat rooms" shows, to me, a lack of care that could (did?) cause serious psychological trauma in someone so young.
- kiba 16y ago
  You didn't get the whole story. Read the last comment: Another topic people have commented a lot about is the pornography. Helen writes that we didn’t want to control his Internet pornography, but this decision came after years of trying to do just that. We fought to stop it all day, often every day, for years. But there is WiFi in every neighborhood and at every university. Finally we came to the conclusion that this was a battle we could not win and that the energy we were spending on it could be better used in other places. The original draft of this story had some explanation in it, and some description of how this battle unfolded, but it was taken out because Alex found it embarrassing. And this is his story, not a defense of our actions.
  - krupan 16y ago
    Wow, just read that comment, and suddenly it's a completely different story. Maybe they should have kept it more anonymous and left in important details like that. I left the story thinking the same as the poster you replied to, "wow, those were some serious push-over parents." Kind of explains Alex's violent reactions too, if the parents really were attempting more serious interventions than the original story lets on. A story like this goes to show that mercy, and never giving up on your child does pay off in the long run.
  - sethg 16y ago
ams6110 16y ago
Parenting is a tough job, especially with your first child when you have no experience to fall back on. But OMG do I think they made a bunch of bad decisions with this kid.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  Agreed, the parents asked the child's permission too frequently rather than simply taking control. I don't ask my dog permission when I take him outside, but I see many owners that do and they have dogs that quite frankly I would be scared to let small children be near. And I truly believe the same principles apply to children as animals, the nature of the relationship is vastly more complex but authority isn't. You're the boss or you aren't. These parents were not the bosses of the household, Alex was. My father was the boss, it was an undebatable fact and I experienced very little drama in my childhood. I never got grounded, and I rarely got disciplined because if I ever did something wrong I simply had to be told not to do it again.
  - randallsquared 16y ago
    Different people respond differently to the same situations. It's not as simple as "lay down the law, and the child will behave". Sometimes that seems to work great, as with you, and sometimes it works out fairly badly (as with me... ;) ). It might well be that you'd have been a well-behaved child even had the parenting been completely different; twin studies suggest that quite a lot of behavior is built-in.
  - pyre 16y ago
    > I don't ask my dog permission when I take him outside, I hope that you don't feel the dog-to-child comparison is 100% accurate. Running your house like a pack of dogs (or frankly a boot camp) might not be the best way to raise children. You don't want to raise children that: 1) can't think for their own b/c they only know how to memorize/regurgitate or 2) will instantly rebel and 'go wild' when control is released (i.e. university/college). > My father was the boss, it was an undebatable fact and I experienced very little drama in my childhood. I never got grounded, and I rarely got disciplined because if I ever did something wrong I simply had to be told not to do it again. This evidence is just as anecdotal as the people that say, "My computer runs Windows and I've never seen a BSOD so therefore anyone that experiences a BSOD must have been asking for it." Also, read the comment (currently) above this thread that refers to further information that was cut from the final draft of the article at Alex's request. It adds more context to the story. On the other hand, there is some evidence for having a strong father figure. e.g. Ted Nugent has stated that it was his up-bringing that kept him out of drugs and alcohol even while hanging out with notorious drug users like Jimi Hendrix. (Though many people might not see the 'Motor City Madman' as a role model to aspire too; I don't share a lot of his views on politics, etc)
watmough 16y ago
Terrifying. But it doesn't sound that far removed from any other mal-adjusted kid who was obsessed with computers and porn. I'd forgotten how miserable puberty was. Ahhhh kill me now.
sliverstorm 16y ago
I'm a little confused. I haven't read the article word for word, so I may have missed something but The article paints it like the problems are because the boy has multiple times normal levels of testosterone (not for his age, but for men at all), but I didn't see any mention of tests or levels. So, if the testosterone levels were a problem but didn't exceed natural levels (at any age), why were there problems? Yes, you could have problems with a child with high testosterone levels, but the article also seems to be claiming everything else about the boy was developing at the same rate- that is to say, while chronologically he was one age, his body AND mind AND everything else were some other age, but all the same age. Why would this be a problem? There's plenty of normal teenage boys out there of equivalent biological age, and the number of candles on their cake doesn't determine how unhinged they may be. I've phrased all this poorly as I can't quite work out how to put it, and maybe I've missed something, but I didn't find any evidence that he wasn't anything other than just pretty much a regular boy with a somewhat accelerated clock.
- hartror 16y ago
  He had a rather highly accelerated pubescence which increased the alienation that teenagers often feel from their peers. Combined with an emotional immaturity (this you will note was is not accelerated as it is learnt rather than grown) lead to some serious difficulties for him and his parents.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Alienation I buy, but it seems unlikely it would be the most important factor. Emotional maturity (or lack thereof) is what I'd normally attribute it to, but I'm not quite sure how that develops. Is it truly purely a learned trait? If so, I'd agree with you that would be the biggest stumbling block. I thought of it myself, but discounted it.
    - hartror 16y ago
      Have a full read of the article, his actions bear all the hallmarks of emotional immaturity combined with heightened hormone levels. And don't discount alienation, we're social animals and puberty is where this need for strong interaction with peers is initiated and grows to form our adult emotional and social intelligence. And no emotional maturity/intelligence isn't purely a learnt trait, rather there parts of the brains that function to provide us with a place to learn these behaviours which is why physiological disorders can affect it. There a number of documented cases where a child has been deprived of social stimuli (such as a case where a child was brought up living in with her parents dogs), these children's brains are underdeveloped in the parts of the brain that deal with social skills (and language). A particularly horrific example of the argument of nature vs nurture.
danbmil99 16y ago
opposite of my family: 3 boys, puberty at 16, 17, and 18 (almost 19). That last one they were about to inject with all sorts of ugly drugs, when ole puberty came shuffling in late but otherwise normal
btilly 16y ago
Why are people upset at the article? I look at it and I see a boy who had a medical disorder, but managed to grow up, is finishing college at 19, has developed useful skills, and has developed good decision making skills. Along the way there were some emotional problems and unfortunate incidents. But guess what, nobody learns to make good decisions without making some bad ones along the way. Furthermore everything I know about parenting says that the people who would have tried laying down the law from day one would have been extremely likely to end up with lots more conflict and a worse outcome. Admittedly I'm far from an expert, but as a parent I consider it my duty to read and think enough to have a reasonably well informed opinion. (I'm curious how many of the people who are offering blanket advice are parents. As one friend told me, "It is amazing how much more I knew about being a parent before I had kids.")
- petercooper 16y ago
  Since I came out and flatly said I see this as a serious case of a lack of good parenting, I'll satisfy your curiosity one step: I'm a parent. Furthermore everything I know about parenting says that the people who would have tried laying down the law from day one would have been extremely likely to end up with lots more conflict and a worse outcome. There is a wide gamut of parenting behavior between "laying down the law" and just letting your kid do whatever they like without any monitoring or guidance. Neither approach is good - you need to work out a middle way that gives your child a wide scope for autonomy but with defined boundaries that allow you to notice and correct/repair/talk about unreasonable behavior. Letting a 9 year old have unfettered access to hardcore porn and late night text room conversations is severely towards one end of that gamut.
  - btilly 16y ago
    Letting a 9 year old have unfettered access to hardcore porn and late night text room conversations is severely towards one end of that gamut. If you think that he was granted that access at 9, or that he was granted access lightly, you didn't read the story very carefully. Go back and search for the comment near the end from Alex' father for some more context. Now refresh your mind as to the effects of testosterone. It is the chemical that makes previously complacent boys seek out sexual behavior, assert their own identity, challenge authority, and attempt to establish themselves higher in whatever dominance hierarchies they find themselves in. Sure, chronologically he might have been 11. But biologically he was more like 16. With all the conflicts and behaviors that go with that. (How many of us would like to be reminded of the stupid things we did at 16? I sure wouldn't...) How big a set of fights do you want? Because his brain chemistry is prepping him to give them to you. My attitude is that childhood is where we do our best to lay a foundation. Puberty is where we have to cross our fingers and hope that we did a good enough job. And adulthood is where we hope to find validation that we did OK. I don't expect to face those challenges that young or that severely with my children. But in this case their son's accelerated pace has already got him to adulthood. And the results seem pretty good. It seems likely that my standard for parenting is different than yours. But by my standards if the kid winds up capable, high functioning, healthy, and thankful for his parents, then you succeeded.
Confusion 16y ago
This is just your regular puberty story, displaced a few years. I fail to understand the alarmist responses of the medical professionals. Why would they worry about pregnancy with someone age 9, but not age 11? The parents seem to suffer from a 'we are so special; our problems were so different' syndrome. Why would allowing someone aged 11 to watch porn be a larger issue than allowing your child aged 14 to watch porn? Since when is a child hitting his dad at 15 different from one hitting his dad at 17?
- philwelch 16y ago
  Moving into the basement, watching porn, clashing with your dad, making bad decisions about relationships and staying up late are all pretty standard male adolescent behaviors. The fact that he stayed up all night coding and went to college, and got through all of that shit early in life, are actually pretty encouraging.
- paulnelligan 16y ago
  The worst thing about it is that they wanted to put him on severe medication with nasty side effects, some of which they can't even quantify. A lesser parent would have gone for that without consulting their child. The arrogance of the medical profession to just 'throw drugs at the problem' astounds me. As for the 'we're so different' aspect of it, I disagree with you there. It does seem to present a major challenge, and it's a personal story, very well written, and one which I for one really enjoyed reading.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    >The arrogance of the medical profession to just 'throw drugs at the problem' astounds me. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this very arrogance (in the medical industry and outside of it) are what caused the issue in the first place.
  - sethg 16y ago
    The nasty side effects of the drug have to be weighed against the nasty side effects of the condition that the drug is meant to treat, and from the article, the parents didn’t do that. The kid hated needles and didn’t want his balls to shrink (when oversized testicles was one of the symptoms of his condition) and that was the end of it. I’m sure that lots of people with juvenile diabetes, when they were first diagnosed, hated the idea of injecting themselves with insulin every day, but they learned to cope. This child could have learned to cope. ETA: According to a comment by the father toward the end, the endocrinologist agreed with the decision not to give drugs.
Tichy 16y ago
Huh? Seems to me not testosterone, but hysterical parents are the problem here. Quote from the doctor: "He can get a girl pregnant. He will not hesitate if given the opportunity." WTF??? What a bunch of nonsense.
- btilly 16y ago
  On what data are you basing your opinion? The doctor accurately describes what testosterone does to boys. Once a boy starts producing testosterone in large amounts he matures sexually, becomes capable of getting women pregnant, and develops a strong interest in doing so. The result is called puberty. This is as true at 9 as it is at 16. It is much rarer for boys to start producing testosterone at 9, but if it happens, the results are perfectly predictable. (Ditto for girls. There is no known lower age limit at which the body responds to sex hormones. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina for an extreme example.)
  - Tichy 16y ago
    But even with Testosterone, boys don't try to impregnate every girl they are alone with. Maybe they'd want to, but they are not completely brainless.
    - btilly 16y ago
      This boy had higher than normal levels of testosterone, and was facing it with unusually little maturity due to his young age. Both factors bode poorly for self-control.
DavidSJ 16y ago
TL;DR: Hysterical parents and doctors freak out over son who is perfectly fine and even abnormally intelligent, publicizing lots of incredibly personal information in the process.
eapen 16y ago
I just got done reading this article and don't blame the parents at all. It is always easier to criticize another parent's decisions but you are in their shoes, the whole perspective is different and you will end up doing whatever you think is best for your kid. btw. This is his website. http://www.alexanderpeppe.com/ http://www.alexanderpeppe.com/

142 points by ghurlman 16y ago

Well, it was more interesting than I expected.

jolie 16y ago

This online mag is amazing. The writers are actually good essayists, and the themes are more elevated that what you'd expect from a more typical "lad mag" like Esquire.

kragen 16y ago

Poor Alex. For the rest of his life anyone who googles his history will be reading about how he threatened his mother, attacked his father, and loved hardcore porn at 12 years old.

thaumaturgy 16y ago
...and if anyone makes a decision about his worth as a human being because of his actions as an adolescent, while ignoring his accomplishments -- both earlier and greater than many young adults -- well, then it's their loss, not his.
- pyre 16y ago
  That may be true, but unfortunately a good portion of society is screwed up like that.
  - hartror 16y ago
    I think it will be outweighed by the respect and understanding he will gain from it. I for one would be more likely to want to hire him given I have walked a mile in his shoes.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Whether it's folly or not, could you imagine if he tried to run for President? Last I heard they kick you out of the running if you ever got detention.
  - telemachos 16y ago
    That's silly. Bush 2.0 was able to get elected (twice), regardless of various blots on his earlier public record. So did Clinton. (I'm not interested in any ideological wars. Please spare us. Point is, both men served two terms as President no matter how many detentions they served once upon a time.)
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      I am well aware of that, I am simply forever amused the way they dig ancient skeletons out of the closet during the running.
    - dmm 16y ago
      But he was rich enough for his national guard records to be destroyed.
      - btilly 16y ago
        People still knew about plenty of questionable stuff, such as his drinking problems, and doing lines of coke off of the butts of prostitutes.
MaysonL 16y ago
Actually, no: the article doesn't currently show up until page 8 of a Google search for alex peppe. I would imagine that in a couple of years it will be even further down the search space.
- CrazedGeek 16y ago
  The HN comments are on page 2, though.
  - davidw 16y ago
    It wouldn't surprise me if that dude found this discussion, actually.
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  Especially if you search with quotes, the article won't show up, since his last name only shows up in the context of his mother's name (since she's the author). But now that you've typed it here, it'll show up ;/
- kragen 16y ago
  I imagine that in a few years, the search engines will be inferring that an article written by a "Mary Doe" that refers to "my son John" should rank highly in searches for "John Doe".

joubert 16y ago

At one point the mom says she asked him whether he wants to take the medication ("it is his life"). I wonder whether she asked his permission to publicize the intimate details of his growing up.

kiba 16y ago
If you have read the comments, than you would have realize that her son was looking over at the whole things and deciding what to include and not to include.

melvin 16y ago

A colleague of mine has a daughter who went into full-blown puberty at the age of 7. Bodily changes, emotional lability - everything that usually happens at 13. The doctors recommended they cut out the use of plastics and household cleaners... so, off to read the article.

petercooper 16y ago

Eric and I agreed that Internet pornography would allow Alex a sexual outlet that was the safest of all the alternatives. [..] Looking back, I realize I knew nothing about boys and pornography. I’d never seen online porn and assumed that Alex was viewing still pictures similar to print magazines. It wasn’t until Alex was 12 that we learned that he’d been downloading video clips and visiting adult chat rooms. This article lost its legitimacy when I discovered that this poor lad merely suffered from a lack of good, disciplined parenting. Not everyone turns into a secretive, manipulative sex addict a few years after puberty whether it happens at 9, 11 or 13. Letting a 9 year old browse porn and interact on "adult chat rooms" shows, to me, a lack of care that could (did?) cause serious psychological trauma in someone so young.

kiba 16y ago
You didn't get the whole story. Read the last comment: Another topic people have commented a lot about is the pornography. Helen writes that we didn’t want to control his Internet pornography, but this decision came after years of trying to do just that. We fought to stop it all day, often every day, for years. But there is WiFi in every neighborhood and at every university. Finally we came to the conclusion that this was a battle we could not win and that the energy we were spending on it could be better used in other places. The original draft of this story had some explanation in it, and some description of how this battle unfolded, but it was taken out because Alex found it embarrassing. And this is his story, not a defense of our actions.
- krupan 16y ago
  Wow, just read that comment, and suddenly it's a completely different story. Maybe they should have kept it more anonymous and left in important details like that. I left the story thinking the same as the poster you replied to, "wow, those were some serious push-over parents." Kind of explains Alex's violent reactions too, if the parents really were attempting more serious interventions than the original story lets on. A story like this goes to show that mercy, and never giving up on your child does pay off in the long run.
- sethg 16y ago

ams6110 16y ago

Parenting is a tough job, especially with your first child when you have no experience to fall back on. But OMG do I think they made a bunch of bad decisions with this kid.

electromagnetic 16y ago
Agreed, the parents asked the child's permission too frequently rather than simply taking control. I don't ask my dog permission when I take him outside, but I see many owners that do and they have dogs that quite frankly I would be scared to let small children be near. And I truly believe the same principles apply to children as animals, the nature of the relationship is vastly more complex but authority isn't. You're the boss or you aren't. These parents were not the bosses of the household, Alex was. My father was the boss, it was an undebatable fact and I experienced very little drama in my childhood. I never got grounded, and I rarely got disciplined because if I ever did something wrong I simply had to be told not to do it again.
- randallsquared 16y ago
  Different people respond differently to the same situations. It's not as simple as "lay down the law, and the child will behave". Sometimes that seems to work great, as with you, and sometimes it works out fairly badly (as with me... ;) ). It might well be that you'd have been a well-behaved child even had the parenting been completely different; twin studies suggest that quite a lot of behavior is built-in.
- pyre 16y ago
  > I don't ask my dog permission when I take him outside, I hope that you don't feel the dog-to-child comparison is 100% accurate. Running your house like a pack of dogs (or frankly a boot camp) might not be the best way to raise children. You don't want to raise children that: 1) can't think for their own b/c they only know how to memorize/regurgitate or 2) will instantly rebel and 'go wild' when control is released (i.e. university/college). > My father was the boss, it was an undebatable fact and I experienced very little drama in my childhood. I never got grounded, and I rarely got disciplined because if I ever did something wrong I simply had to be told not to do it again. This evidence is just as anecdotal as the people that say, "My computer runs Windows and I've never seen a BSOD so therefore anyone that experiences a BSOD must have been asking for it." Also, read the comment (currently) above this thread that refers to further information that was cut from the final draft of the article at Alex's request. It adds more context to the story. On the other hand, there is some evidence for having a strong father figure. e.g. Ted Nugent has stated that it was his up-bringing that kept him out of drugs and alcohol even while hanging out with notorious drug users like Jimi Hendrix. (Though many people might not see the 'Motor City Madman' as a role model to aspire too; I don't share a lot of his views on politics, etc)

watmough 16y ago

Terrifying. But it doesn't sound that far removed from any other mal-adjusted kid who was obsessed with computers and porn. I'd forgotten how miserable puberty was. Ahhhh kill me now.

sliverstorm 16y ago

I'm a little confused. I haven't read the article word for word, so I may have missed something but The article paints it like the problems are because the boy has multiple times normal levels of testosterone (not for his age, but for men at all), but I didn't see any mention of tests or levels. So, if the testosterone levels were a problem but didn't exceed natural levels (at any age), why were there problems? Yes, you could have problems with a child with high testosterone levels, but the article also seems to be claiming everything else about the boy was developing at the same rate- that is to say, while chronologically he was one age, his body AND mind AND everything else were some other age, but all the same age. Why would this be a problem? There's plenty of normal teenage boys out there of equivalent biological age, and the number of candles on their cake doesn't determine how unhinged they may be. I've phrased all this poorly as I can't quite work out how to put it, and maybe I've missed something, but I didn't find any evidence that he wasn't anything other than just pretty much a regular boy with a somewhat accelerated clock.

hartror 16y ago
He had a rather highly accelerated pubescence which increased the alienation that teenagers often feel from their peers. Combined with an emotional immaturity (this you will note was is not accelerated as it is learnt rather than grown) lead to some serious difficulties for him and his parents.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Alienation I buy, but it seems unlikely it would be the most important factor. Emotional maturity (or lack thereof) is what I'd normally attribute it to, but I'm not quite sure how that develops. Is it truly purely a learned trait? If so, I'd agree with you that would be the biggest stumbling block. I thought of it myself, but discounted it.
  - hartror 16y ago
    Have a full read of the article, his actions bear all the hallmarks of emotional immaturity combined with heightened hormone levels. And don't discount alienation, we're social animals and puberty is where this need for strong interaction with peers is initiated and grows to form our adult emotional and social intelligence. And no emotional maturity/intelligence isn't purely a learnt trait, rather there parts of the brains that function to provide us with a place to learn these behaviours which is why physiological disorders can affect it. There a number of documented cases where a child has been deprived of social stimuli (such as a case where a child was brought up living in with her parents dogs), these children's brains are underdeveloped in the parts of the brain that deal with social skills (and language). A particularly horrific example of the argument of nature vs nurture.

danbmil99 16y ago

opposite of my family: 3 boys, puberty at 16, 17, and 18 (almost 19). That last one they were about to inject with all sorts of ugly drugs, when ole puberty came shuffling in late but otherwise normal

btilly 16y ago

Why are people upset at the article? I look at it and I see a boy who had a medical disorder, but managed to grow up, is finishing college at 19, has developed useful skills, and has developed good decision making skills. Along the way there were some emotional problems and unfortunate incidents. But guess what, nobody learns to make good decisions without making some bad ones along the way. Furthermore everything I know about parenting says that the people who would have tried laying down the law from day one would have been extremely likely to end up with lots more conflict and a worse outcome. Admittedly I'm far from an expert, but as a parent I consider it my duty to read and think enough to have a reasonably well informed opinion. (I'm curious how many of the people who are offering blanket advice are parents. As one friend told me, "It is amazing how much more I knew about being a parent before I had kids.")

petercooper 16y ago
Since I came out and flatly said I see this as a serious case of a lack of good parenting, I'll satisfy your curiosity one step: I'm a parent. Furthermore everything I know about parenting says that the people who would have tried laying down the law from day one would have been extremely likely to end up with lots more conflict and a worse outcome. There is a wide gamut of parenting behavior between "laying down the law" and just letting your kid do whatever they like without any monitoring or guidance. Neither approach is good - you need to work out a middle way that gives your child a wide scope for autonomy but with defined boundaries that allow you to notice and correct/repair/talk about unreasonable behavior. Letting a 9 year old have unfettered access to hardcore porn and late night text room conversations is severely towards one end of that gamut.
- btilly 16y ago
  Letting a 9 year old have unfettered access to hardcore porn and late night text room conversations is severely towards one end of that gamut. If you think that he was granted that access at 9, or that he was granted access lightly, you didn't read the story very carefully. Go back and search for the comment near the end from Alex' father for some more context. Now refresh your mind as to the effects of testosterone. It is the chemical that makes previously complacent boys seek out sexual behavior, assert their own identity, challenge authority, and attempt to establish themselves higher in whatever dominance hierarchies they find themselves in. Sure, chronologically he might have been 11. But biologically he was more like 16. With all the conflicts and behaviors that go with that. (How many of us would like to be reminded of the stupid things we did at 16? I sure wouldn't...) How big a set of fights do you want? Because his brain chemistry is prepping him to give them to you. My attitude is that childhood is where we do our best to lay a foundation. Puberty is where we have to cross our fingers and hope that we did a good enough job. And adulthood is where we hope to find validation that we did OK. I don't expect to face those challenges that young or that severely with my children. But in this case their son's accelerated pace has already got him to adulthood. And the results seem pretty good. It seems likely that my standard for parenting is different than yours. But by my standards if the kid winds up capable, high functioning, healthy, and thankful for his parents, then you succeeded.

Confusion 16y ago

This is just your regular puberty story, displaced a few years. I fail to understand the alarmist responses of the medical professionals. Why would they worry about pregnancy with someone age 9, but not age 11? The parents seem to suffer from a 'we are so special; our problems were so different' syndrome. Why would allowing someone aged 11 to watch porn be a larger issue than allowing your child aged 14 to watch porn? Since when is a child hitting his dad at 15 different from one hitting his dad at 17?

philwelch 16y ago
Moving into the basement, watching porn, clashing with your dad, making bad decisions about relationships and staying up late are all pretty standard male adolescent behaviors. The fact that he stayed up all night coding and went to college, and got through all of that shit early in life, are actually pretty encouraging.
paulnelligan 16y ago
The worst thing about it is that they wanted to put him on severe medication with nasty side effects, some of which they can't even quantify. A lesser parent would have gone for that without consulting their child. The arrogance of the medical profession to just 'throw drugs at the problem' astounds me. As for the 'we're so different' aspect of it, I disagree with you there. It does seem to present a major challenge, and it's a personal story, very well written, and one which I for one really enjoyed reading.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  >The arrogance of the medical profession to just 'throw drugs at the problem' astounds me. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this very arrogance (in the medical industry and outside of it) are what caused the issue in the first place.
- sethg 16y ago
  The nasty side effects of the drug have to be weighed against the nasty side effects of the condition that the drug is meant to treat, and from the article, the parents didn’t do that. The kid hated needles and didn’t want his balls to shrink (when oversized testicles was one of the symptoms of his condition) and that was the end of it. I’m sure that lots of people with juvenile diabetes, when they were first diagnosed, hated the idea of injecting themselves with insulin every day, but they learned to cope. This child could have learned to cope. ETA: According to a comment by the father toward the end, the endocrinologist agreed with the decision not to give drugs.

Tichy 16y ago

Huh? Seems to me not testosterone, but hysterical parents are the problem here. Quote from the doctor: "He can get a girl pregnant. He will not hesitate if given the opportunity." WTF??? What a bunch of nonsense.

btilly 16y ago
On what data are you basing your opinion? The doctor accurately describes what testosterone does to boys. Once a boy starts producing testosterone in large amounts he matures sexually, becomes capable of getting women pregnant, and develops a strong interest in doing so. The result is called puberty. This is as true at 9 as it is at 16. It is much rarer for boys to start producing testosterone at 9, but if it happens, the results are perfectly predictable. (Ditto for girls. There is no known lower age limit at which the body responds to sex hormones. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina for an extreme example.)
- Tichy 16y ago
  But even with Testosterone, boys don't try to impregnate every girl they are alone with. Maybe they'd want to, but they are not completely brainless.
  - btilly 16y ago
    This boy had higher than normal levels of testosterone, and was facing it with unusually little maturity due to his young age. Both factors bode poorly for self-control.

DavidSJ 16y ago

TL;DR: Hysterical parents and doctors freak out over son who is perfectly fine and even abnormally intelligent, publicizing lots of incredibly personal information in the process.

eapen 16y ago

I just got done reading this article and don't blame the parents at all. It is always easier to criticize another parent's decisions but you are in their shoes, the whole perspective is different and you will end up doing whatever you think is best for your kid. btw. This is his website. http://www.alexanderpeppe.com/ http://www.alexanderpeppe.com/