Some Things Never Change




'If you can't make it better you can laugh at it' Erma Bombeck

I was shopping at Big Lots the other day and saw a teen with his mother; walking down the aisles…..I smiled to myself as I noticed the look of total pain and disgust on the adolescent's face.  He barely spoke to her…just grunted and kept his eyes to the ground. I imagined he was praying that none of his friends would get wind of him being there….He was way too cool to be with Mom or at Big Lots!

It brought back memories of an article I wrote some five years ago.  I came home and dug it out of my files.  I read it and smiled…….I thought maybe some of you might enjoy it as well….. Feel free to share it with someone you know who is currently going through the fire and could use a humorous perspective on raising adolescents.  

The Good, The Bad and the Adolescent  (by me)

I was watching a daytime talk show a few weeks ago and one of the hosts was sharing her recent family vacation photos.  She showed picture after picture of her family enjoying themselves, smiling, and having fun…everyone that is except for her 12 year old son.  No matter if they were at a family fun park or shooting down slide rock, the photographs captured this preteen’s scowl that remained on his face as if it had been surgically implanted.  I found myself laughing out loud as I remember my own frustrations of those adolescent years of my children.

It seems to happen right before your eyes…or nose.  It might be while you’re on the way home from your child’s basketball practice and you get a whiff of the odor coming from the back seat. You find that even with all the windows down and the newly sprayed air freshener, you still can’t get that smell out of the car.  

Wasn’t it only yesterday, I asked, when my child was begging me to come and bring cupcakes to his class to celebrate his birthday?  It just seemed so natural for me to volunteer to come and help out at the first Junior High dance…why did that cause him to throw himself on the floor, grab his stomach, writhing in pain?

What moment was it that he no longer wanted me to walk with him to the classroom door and give him a big hug and kiss in front of his friends?  I felt truly wounded one morning on our way to school when my son suggested I drop him off a block away from the building and he would just walk the rest of the way?  I pouted, “Maybe I could just do a ‘drive by’ and hunch down below the steering wheel, that way your friends won’t suspect that you have a mother.”

When my daughter reached middle school she no longer wanted to speak to me.  Her answers sounded like  the cave man days.  “How was school today?” I would ask.  “Mmm” she would mumble.  I questioned her about the upcoming weekend and her eyes would roll back in her head and then her reply…”Mmm.”  We would drive to soft ball practice in complete silence until I figured I could threaten to put on my Kenny Gee cassette tape and just keep playing it if she didn’t speak to me.  At night I would go in her room to tell her goodnight and she would grunt for me to give her a back rub.  I bartered with her…”Only if you talk to me.”  “Do I have to?” She would moan. 

Even experts agree that this time in life can be challenging for both the child and their parent.  James Dobson suggests that when your children reach adolescence you should put them in a whiskey barrel, nail the lid shut and feed them through a knothole.  Bill Cosby refers to this age group as ‘brain damaged’.  Erma Bombeck’s husband recalls his traveling with these youngsters as being ‘as giddy as the Nuremberg trials’.

I must admit that when my children were going through their middle school years, I should have perused the library shelves and found the section on parenting adolescents…. I would have seen just by reading the titles of the books that I wasn’t alone.   Titles like, The Teen is a Four Letter Word, by Joan Ander, Why Do They Act That Way, by David Walsh,  Yes Your Teen is Crazy, by Michael Bradley, The Agony and the Agony by Betty Landergan, and my own special favorite by Peter Marshall, Now I Know Why Tigers Eat their Young.

There was so much I didn’t know about raising this age group of kids. I’ve since done some searching on the internet. I found an entire list of laws about parenting teens…, many of which are actually unwritten laws, for example; The Law of 20 Feet - This law of distance states that at this certain age, you must walk at least 20 feet away from your teen if you are in a public place. Thirty feet if you're at the mall.

I also read about a study that was reported in the Journal of Child Development that explained ‘Why Teens are Lousy at Chores’. The researchers actually came up with a reason, other than pure laziness, for why teenagers can't shower and brush their teeth or unload the dishwasher and wipe down the counter. We can blame it on "cognitive limitations" they explained.  Their brains can not multitask as well as those of the taskmasters. The part of the brain responsible for multitasking continues to develop until late adolescence, with cells making connections even after some children are old enough to drive.” (Now that should cause us some concern)

That would certainly explain the high car insurance rates for our  teens who actually attempt to text message, drink a latte, put on makeup and catch up with the drama from the rider in the back seat;  all this while the music is blaring loud enough to re-form the Sand Dunes!

And who knew that I should have been reading the decisions coming from the American Bar Association, especially concerning juveniles and the death sentence.

         “[They] frequently know the difference between right and wrong and are competent to stand trial. Because of their impairments, however, by definition they have diminished capacities to understand and process mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others…. Their deficiencies do not warrant anexemption from criminal sanctions, but they do diminish their personal culpability.”        Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 318, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 2250 (2002)

So, my son was right when he tried to persuade me that his personal culpability was somewhat diminished when he lit the trash can on fire, and singed off his best friend’s eye brows. As well as the time he tried to pry loose the tennis ball that was wedged in the palm tree by slinging a hammer up at it?  Do the words ‘impulsive’ and ‘poor judgment’ come to mind?

But alas, I smile for I have made it through the tunnel.  My children are now all adults.  Perhaps you have the journey still to come and want to gird yourself for the coming challenges. In closing, I offer you Michael Bradley’s 10 commandments from his book Yes, Your Teen is Crazy, by Michael J. Bradley.” And best of luck when you are handed the ultimate test of parenting an adolescent:

1. Thou Shalt be as the Dispassionate Cop Unto Thine Own Child: Be cool, Not the Fool
2. Thou Shalt listen even as Thine Own Child Shouts
3. Thou Shalt Not Shout: Speak Thou Wisely
4. Thou Shalt Add 15 minutes to every interaction involving thy teen
5. Thou Shalt Vanquish Thy Foolish Pride
6. Thou Shalt not kill (Even though thou may entertaineth thoughts of killing)
7. Thou shalt apologize at every opportunity
8. Thou Shalt honor thy child’s identity (even though it maketh you ill)
9. To Thine Own Self Be True
10. Know that this too shall Pass