AI Conversations

The moral to this story is, “A field rat can fit through a rabbit proof fence.”

Chat history

You said:

We tilled and planted a spring garden about 80 by 40 feet in area and planted bush beans. To keep the rabbits out, we enclosed the garden with a 2×4 inch wire fence and then put chicken wire about 18 inches up all around the bottom. When the beans were about three to four inches tall, field rats came through the one-inch diameter holes in the chicken wire. Can you relate this to raising teenagers?

ChatGPT said:

Yes—and it maps almost too cleanly to raising teenagers.

You did what every conscientious parent does first: you built a reasonable fence.
The 2×4 wire keeps out the obvious threats. The chicken wire along the bottom addresses the known vulnerabilities. From the outside, the system looks sound, thoughtful, and complete.

And then the field rats show up.

The lesson

Raising teenagers is discovering—again and again—that you protected against the dangers you knew, only to learn that the real trouble slips through openings you didn’t think mattered.

• You planned for rabbits (big, visible problems):
  drugs, crime, obvious rebellion, bad crowds.
• You guarded the bottom edge (early boundaries):
  curfews, rules, expectations, supervision.
• But the field rats—small, clever, persistent—came through holes you never imagined were an issue.

In parenting terms, those “one-inch holes” look like:

• a phone in a bedroom
• a friend who “seems fine”
• sarcasm that hardens into contempt
• private online spaces
• ideas that don’t look dangerous until they start eating the roots

By the time you notice them, the beans are already chewed down.

Another uncomfortable truth

The beans were only three to four inches tall—still tender, still vulnerable.
Teenagers are like that. They look grown. They sound confident. They insist they’re fine.
But they’re not hardened yet.

And field rats don’t attack mature corn.
They go after what’s young, sweet, and easy to damage quietly.

The deeper parenting insight

This isn’t a failure of effort.
It’s a reminder that no fence is ever final.

Raising teenagers isn’t about building the perfect enclosure—it’s about:

• constant inspection
• adjusting defenses
• learning which threats are seasonal
• and accepting that some damage will happen no matter what

Good parents don’t prevent all losses.
They notice early, respond quickly, and re-plant when needed.

The hardest part

Just like your garden, the attack didn’t come from outside the county.
It came from right there in the field—things that had always been around.

That’s the quiet shock of parenting teenagers:

“I didn’t know this was something I had to guard against.”

And now you do.