Role swap: my parents are more ‘hip’ than I am (as evinced by my use of the word “hip”)

"PRETTY PRETTY PLEEEAAAAAAASEE, if you ever ever feeeeel, like you’re nuhhhthing, you are perfect to meeee,” my middle-aged dad all but belts out as he rushes into my room. "Sabrina! You have got to hear this.”

Annoyed and a bit frazzled, I reply, "Dad, can't you see I'm busy, I'm just not in the mood right now for…"

I can’t even finish my sentence before he begins again, "But don’t you want to hear the song?  I found it on my new app, Pandora."

Before I can argue, he shoves his iPhone in front of my face and presses the blue “P” button.  The singer P!nk’s face pops up.  Suddenly, a little red sign catches my eye.

“Dad! This song is explicit! It has the f-word in the title!” I say as I stare at him in astonishment. 

“Well, it has a good melody.  Whatever, I like it,”  he replies as he leaves my room, slamming the door on the way out, just like a teenager with attitude problems.

It worries me that my dad enjoys listening to songs like this. Lately, he’s even discovered the realm of rap … which has opened him up to a whole new level of profanity.

But it isn’t my dad whom I’m most worried about. Ever since my mom’s co-worker introduced her to the show “How I Met Your Mother” a couple weeks ago, my mother hasn't gone two days without watching an episode. In fact, she finished the first two seasons in 48 hours.

It's not her addiction that concerns me so much as the actual content of the show. Earlier this week, I happened to walk past the TV when she was watching. The screen showed two men smoking this sort of thick brown pipe.

"Mom, why are you watching this?" I began, "… I think these people are smoking pot."

"Mhm," my mom said, nonchalantly shoving another bon bon into her mouth. "Shhh … Sabrina, this is the best part."

I was puzzled about why this show was so appealing to my mom, so I sat down to watch it with her. In the one episode I observed the following: four people got drunk, dozens of swear words flew about and there were abounded sexual references, not to mention the initial drug use.

Maybe I’m overreacting, and maybe it’s not really my job  to censor what my parents watch or listen to. Yet I can’t help but wonder why it’s not me who is listening to the explicit music and watching the PG-14 TV shows, or why it’s not my parents doing the reprimanding.  

In the Chen household, the parent and child roles are somewhat swapped.  It’s my parents who are always discovering the top-of-the-chart songs, popular TV shows, trending apps and newest movies. As for myself, I like to utilize my time to study (or to write personal columns for newspaper.)

My parents and I have different academic standards as well.  While I have an Aeries app bookmarked to the home screen of my iPhone and check my grades at least once every day, neither one of my parents even knows the password to my Aeries account. 

Sometimes, my parents even criticize me for studying too much and not leaving enough time to hang out with friends  or relax.  

For example, on the day before I took my SATs, I wanted to review my 2000 vocabulary flashcards. However, my mom had different plans. 

 "There's no point in studying now, it'll only make you more stressed. Come watch the movie I rented," she said as she dragged me onto the couch.

Many parents would find my parents’ way of raising me as less than ideal. But personally, I’ve found that this “role-swap” has made me more responsible and more independent. 

I’ve found that I have better time management skills and study habits than many of my friends whose parents hammer them about grades. 

This isn’t to say that I sometimes wish my parents would act more like “normal” parents and maybe check my grades every once in awhile or watch the news instead of “How I Met Your Mother.” But the truth is, I think I like having parents who are more “hip” than I am. 

“Sabrina, you don’t have swag,” my dad tells me.