SavageTimes

My kids (otherwise known as The Teenagers) and I are in a new place.  As a parent, you are technically in a “new place” every day: whatever worked one day in regards to motivation, instruction, discipline, management, etc., certainly will not hold the next day.  Especially if you think to yourself, “There.  I figured him/her/it out.  Problem solved.”

Don’t ever think that.

Right now, I often literally do not know who either of The Teenagers are from one day to the next.  My daughter, especially, but my son is joining the fun in his own more quiet but no less mood-shifting manner.

It’s nothing personal.  They have no idea who they are from one day to the next, either.

For the first time in their lives, the Teenagers cannot predict what they will be doing even six months from now: my son will be a senior in the college program through his high school, but what classes will he be taking?  Will he still be interested in becoming a linguist?  Will he still be interested in the University of Washington?  Will he have the job he wants to get, which is interning with a travel service that works with Japanese exchange students?  Will his mother have managed to work with him to get him signed up for his ACT and SAT tests in a timely manner?

My daughter will be an 8th grader at her home middle school, but she is quitting band at the end of this year.  Will she lose the friendships she’s made over the last 4 years?  Will one of her besties have moved, as is a possibility?  Will I be one of her teachers next fall?  Will she have grown any taller at all? Will she and her longtime crush still be friends? Will a high schooler ask her to high school homecoming (the answer to will her mother let her GO to high school homecoming would be NO, but that’s for another day).

When your kid is 3 or 5 or even 8, you know, for the most part, where they are going: to school of one form or another.  Their friends are mostly approved and encouraged by you, often because you are friends with the parents.  You may volunteer in their school, so you know everything about their life in and out of school. They may have friends over all the time, but you and the other parents talk and you know what they do, even if they aren’t at your house. You know they will choose a hotdog over a double cheeseburger, because they don’t eat cheese.

They do not, usually, surprise you by ordering both the hotdog AND the double cheeseburger with extra bacon.  Because, just yesterday, they still made gagging noises whenever you offer them a cheeseburger.  Much less a double one, because they cannot eat enough.  Oh, and they also need two orders of fries and, as it turns out, your order of fries, too.  And a milkshake. No.  When they are 5 or 8 or even 10, they eat off the kids’ menu and usually don’t finish it.

When they are 8, you know they would rather spend their time with you on Spring Break, especially when you are offering them a large FroYo with unlimited toppings.

They do not choose to go talk to their online friends about the bombing in Syria because they just need “serious talk with people who know more about history then you.  Sorry, Mom.”

They do not ask you nicely to not go shopping with them because they are embarrassed to be seen with you at the town center where all the teens hang out. They are, in fact, happy to hang around with you and your adult friends, and even hold your hand in public and not roll their eyes whenever you speak and mutter, “PLEASE STOPPPPP BEING EMBARRASSING….”

They do not ask you to take them to Target and then “go away,” and then get into trouble with a security guard because they were climbing shelves. If they do this, at 2 or 9 or 11, you are probably with them, and YOU are rolling your eyes and muttering, “PLEASE STOPPPPP BEING EMBARRASSING…..”

When they are 1 or 7 or 9, they will not drive you crazy because they use your towel and your toothpaste and eat the red velvet cake slice you bought for just you or steal your jeans or eat all the oranges or never clean their dishes or fill the garbage way past the fill one so that when you finally take it out (after you realize your strike isn’t working), the bag rips and falls apart.

But they will also not be able to control themselves when they melt down because the dog ate their retainer.  They will melt down for hours, if not days, and you will have to cancel your lunch with friends, instead of just getting there five minutes late.

They will also not tell you to rest when you have a migraine.  They will not make dinner if you ask them to, or assure you they can “forage” with their friends and be just fine.

When they are 6 or 8 or even 12, they may not pour you a glass of wine after you’ve had a long day.  They probably won’t tell you to go out with your friends to see a concert and assure you they can get themselves dinner and to bed on time and everything will be “fine.”

They probably won’t give back to you as much as you give to them, freely, and increasingly less as little needy squirrels and more as equals. As people. As people who you may not know from one day to the next very well right now, and as people who often drive you nuts because they are like stoned roommates much of the time right now.  Still….they are people you know you are proud of.

After you have taken many deep breaths, practiced yoga, ate half a chocolate bar and poured a glass of wine and promised yourself, “Still better than the potty training phase.”