My kids were convinced that friends with no rules, no limits, and no parental supervision had the best gig going until something happened that made them realize that all that freedom was not necessarily a good thing. The realization came at different times with my kids, of course, but each one had an almost identical wake-up call, a day when they “got it.”
My kids attend big public schools in our neighborhood. They’re terrific schools, deeply rooted in the community. They offer award-winning academics, sports, and extracurricular activities. They are supported by thousands of volunteer hours from parents and big stacks of tax dollars. Each class looks like a television spot for diversity in color, race, religion, and ethnicity. My kids have learned valuable life lessons in their public-school melting pot.
At some point or another, each of my kids has had a classmate who said these words: “I wish I lived at your house.” The first time I heard that, I thought it was a joke. I quickly realized that it wasn’t. The emotion of that realization haunts me to this day. It changed forever how I parent.
In my oldest child’s eye-opening experience with one of the lucky no-rules kids, he learned a life lesson. The classmate was seated at my kitchen counter after school one day. He was eating his way through my snack basket. It was his first visit to our house. He and my son were working on a project together for middle-school social studies. He was obviously shocked when my son went to the project drawer where we keep supplies like poster board, glue, scissors, glitter, markers, string, stickers, and anything else we find on the side of the road, in the junk mail, or in the trunk of the car that we think may come in handy one day for crafts. I like to think my husband and I are very “greenwise” with our repurposing of trash. My kids call us dumpster divers. In case you are wondering, that is not meant to be a compliment.
While I heated up the glue gun and sorted out some old magazines and catalogs for the kids to cut up, the new friend’s eyes followed me all around the room. I couldn’t figure out why he was staring. I’d actually made it to contact lenses and lipstick that day, so I didn’t think I looked too scary. I smiled reassuringly and decided to feed him. That’s generally a good way to bond with boys. First, I laid out grapes. The boys polished those off in no time. Then I made peanut butter crackers. Those vanished in the blink of an eye. My son was focused on braiding yarn hair on his puppet, so he wasn’t too interested in snacks, but his guest was clearly starving. I opened a tin of cookies and shoved it toward him. He ate every crumb, pausing only long enough to wash the feast down with a quart of milk.
My son stopped his gluing/glittering frenzy to comment, “You sure were hungry!”
“Yeah. Do you have food like this every day after school?” the friend asked.
“Sure,” my son said.
“You’re lucky,” his friend said.
When our guest left at twilight to walk home—alone—I made sure to invite him to come again.
When he was halfway down my front steps, weighed down by a backpack bigger than he was, he turned to me and said, “I wish I lived here.”
On the way back to the kitchen, my son looked thoughtful. “Mom?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“I think he meant it, Mom. I think he really wishes he lived here.”
“I think he meant it, too, son,” I said. “You never really know how hard things are at someone else’s house. Remember that. Everybody doesn’t have what we have.”
“Yeah,” he said.
The second time it happened, my middle child got in trouble at school for sharing his lunch with another student.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked his teacher. “How is sharing food a bad thing?”
“It’s against the rules,” she replied.
Sigh. Okay. I told him not to share food in the lunchroom anymore.
Later the same week, he was caught giving the lunch he’d brought from home to a kid in the hall. He’d ordered a lunch for himself from the cafeteria. I got another phone call.
I knew there had to be more to the story. I decided to fish for it. “Son, why did you ask me to make you a lunch if you were going to eat in the cafeteria?” I asked.
“I needed it,” he answered.
“For what?” I asked.
“I had to give it to somebody.”
“Why?”
“That way, he can take it home for supper,” he explained.
“Why does he need to take your lunch home for supper?”
“Because there isn’t any supper at his house.”
That was it, the sum total of our discussion. My son shrugged his shoulders at me and walked away. He’d identified a problem and thought of a way to solve it. He didn’t understand why the adults in his life were giving him a hard time about it. As you might expect, I got on the horn, and that teacher and I had a powwow.
By the time my children were teenagers, the kids in their lives with no supervision were easy to spot. Everyone knew who they were. My kids still complain about the rules at our house—which are way more strict and unreasonable than the rules at any other teenager’s house in the whole entire world, as they will tell you with very little prodding. But they know they are loved.
It has become an inside joke.
“If I didn’t love you so much, I’d take the easy way out!” I’ve been known to shout. “I’d be upstairs asleep in my bed! I sure wouldn’t be staying up until one o’clock in the morning to smell your breath after the homecoming dance!”
“Could you love me a little less on Friday night, Mom?” my son has been known to ask, flashing a smile (which cost me five thousand dollars) that makes my knees weak. “I’m going to need a little slack on my curfew.”
YOU CAN’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR …
FROM OTHER PARENTS
1.“My daughter tells me everything. We’re very close.”
2.“My son doesn’t really need to study.”
3.“He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s those other boys who are trouble!”
4.“The coaches don’t like my son. He’s a gifted athlete.”
5.“My daughter would never do anything like that! She’s a good girl.”
6.“Of course, I know where my son was last night! He was in his bed—asleep.”
7.“My daughter would never say that! She is a sweetheart.”
8.“All I want is for my son/daughter to be happy.”
9.“Party? What party?”
FROM TEENAGERS THEMSELVES
1.“None of my friends has to make up the bed before school.”
2.“Everyone else is going to the beach for spring break.”
3.“Nobody cares about chaperons anymore except you.”
4.“All of my friends have a car but me.”
5.“Everybody goes to see R-rated movies.”
6.“Nobody else’s parents are going to be there.”
7.“I don’t need any help. I can handle the problem myself.”
8.“I don’t need to read the booklet. I already know how to drive.”
9.“It’s not really a date. We’re just friends.”
THE COMFORTS OF HOME
Laundry Laments
I can’t seem to write a book without including a chapter about laundry. I am not sure what that says about me, but I don’t think it is anything good. How interesting can my life possibly be if I spend this much time whining about laundry?
I live with three teenagers, so I have a staggering amount of laundry every single day. Someone has to do it. Sure, my husband throws in a load in his annual nod toward laundry-room equality. Theoretically, my children are old enough to do their own. If I were willing to stand over them with a whip and a chair, I could probably make them wash their own clothes, but it wouldn’t be worth it to me.
Moms like me can fight only so many battles at one time. The model for our armed forces says that the United States of America should be able to handle two wars and a small skirmish simultaneously. Going to war bears a striking resemblance to chil
d rearing. Just as America had to keep worrying about the Germans when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, parenting teenagers never offers the luxury of fighting one battle at a time. There are always long, entrenched, ongoing wars in addition to small dustups when you least expect them. It pays to keep your guard up and the alert status at DEFCON 1.
The more I think about it, the better the war metaphor works for parenting. For now, I’m concentrating on winning the war in the long run. I’m thinking big picture. I want my kids to be kind, responsible adults who take care of themselves and their families. I also want them to help those less fortunate than themselves. It’s a lot harder than you might think to grow people from the lima beans they look like on the first ultrasound pictures in the obstetrician’s office into six-foot-tall, tax-paying adults.
Navigating the teenage years is hard on everyone involved. Some days, I’m just happy if no one goes to the emergency room or the principal’s office. Right now, I’m focusing on the biggies: upstanding morals, loyal friendships, good grades, smart money choices, active spiritual lives, and healthy minds and bodies. That means I have to let some things slide. I am going to teach them to do their own laundry eventually. Really. I am. It’s on my to-do list for the summer before each of them leaves for college. That way, I won’t actually have to watch them do it for long.
In the meantime, I live in four-loads-a-day laundry hell. My kids change clothes more often than Barbie and Ken. No kidding. Teenagers have a shocking number of clothes-specific activities. I often feel like I’m a costume designer to the stars. Football, basketball, baseball, gymnastics, cheerleading, dance—the costume changes go on all day long. Just keeping up with accessories like cheerleading ribbons, musical instruments, and sports equipment makes me tired. When my daughter was small, there is no telling how many hours I spent looking for two matching shoes for a ridiculously expensive American Girl doll. That is time I will never get back. No matter how many sports bags you give kids, they forget something important at least once a week—something you’ll have to quickly take up to the school to avoid a fine, a demerit, a scolding, or a beating.
The demands of fast-turnaround laundry are especially tricky. When you’re bleary-eyed at midnight trying to wash three loads of baseball clothes, you have to watch out for collateral damage. I ask again, for the umpteenth time: why in the world are baseball pants white? They are designed to slide in the dirt when used as intended. Ridiculous. I have been known to attack baseball and football pants with my own highly successful cocktail of stain remover, bleach, detergent, club soda, bathroom cleaner, profanity, and prayer. My arsenal of chemicals looks like I’m preparing to beat back an outbreak of Ebola in the jungle. It is entirely possible that I may be personally responsible for another gaping hole in the ozone layer because of all the environmental toxins I sprinkle, spray, and pour with reckless abandon.
At least once a week, one of my teenagers leaves something expensive—a cell phone, an iPod, or some other fancy gadget—in a pocket of an item headed for the washing machine, and the result is an expensive trip through the spin cycle. By the time I hear it clanging around in the dryer, it is too late for rescue. Since my kids have much nicer cell phones than I do, I am every bit as sad as they are when those state-of-the-art gadgets drown in the washing machine. When valuable cell phones, permission slips from school, and lip balms get waterlogged, guess whose fault it is? The teenager who failed to empty his or her pockets before tossing the item into the dirty clothes bin, you say? Of course not! Somehow, my teenagers always blame me for everything from rainy spring break holidays to acne breakouts during prom week. Of course, they know better than to blame me out loud where I can hear them, but I can tell they secretly believe it’s my fault that they have homework on the same night the collegiate national championship football game is played.
I should really take it as a compliment that so many things are my fault in their eyes. Although my powers are admittedly great, I do not, in fact, control the weather, nor do I determine who makes the cheerleading squad. I assure you that I don’t accept any guilt in such matters. I have a lot more sense than that. Also, as a little perk of the job, I keep all the cash I find in the pockets of dirty clothes—and I think you should, too. I like to think of it as a thoughtful tip for the laundress from the self-absorbed adolescents who live in my home.
When my kids were younger, I was especially careful about emptying their pockets. Little boys put anything and everything they encounter during their days into their pockets. At the very least, the contents are disgusting. Sometimes, they’re downright dangerous. I’ve removed live, wriggling animals from my sons’ pockets, as well as rusty nails, snotty tissues, wads of chewed gum, and something my son found in the park and assumed was a balloon. I’ve spent thankless hours picking out sunflower seeds from the teeny-tiny holes in my washing machine when I failed to empty baseball pants pockets before washing. I’ve washed a wallet with a brand-new driver’s license in it, and a steady supply of single dollar bills, which suggests my teens are secretly moonlighting as valet parking attendants.
Now, I check movie stubs to make sure my kids aren’t sneaking into porn flicks. I look at fast-food receipts to see what they’re eating and where. I check to see if the time stamps on receipts match up with my kids’ curfews. I read any notes I find. In my experience, it pays to be a nosy mom. You’d be surprised how often teenagers rat themselves out. My kids have no future in espionage. I am way sneakier. This pays off when I occasionally spot-check to see if they are actually at the parties they said they were going to attend. Teenagers could call you on their cell phones from Pakistan and say they’re one block from home. How would you know? I think parents should insert GPS trackers under babies’ skin when they’re born, just like people do with puppies. I am not at all concerned about my teenagers’ right to privacy. That privacy guarantee is inferred anyway. You can’t point to a single line in the Constitution about it. I am sure the Founding Fathers would understand. Most of them lived with teenagers, too.
Laundry is a big job—like cleaning up an oil spill in the Gulf. Serving as the laundress for teenagers it is a lot like working as a mail carrier during the holidays. No matter how many cards and catalogs you deliver every day, more keep coming. It never ends. No matter how many loads of laundry I do, more is always waiting. It’s overwhelming and discouraging.
The absolute worst part about laundry duty is that teenagers do not appreciate the fact that clean clothes reappear in their rooms each day as if by magic. They are quite comfortable with having a laundry fairy come in to quietly remove the clothes from the conveniently located hampers and return them the next day freshly laundered, pressed, and ready to wear. Well, who wouldn’t like a laundry fairy? In a pinch, the laundry fairy offers overnight turnaround service for please-Mama-I-just-have-to-wear-it date outfits, and she often works a midnight to 3 A.M. shift during tournament seasons. Those are not union hours.
Do you know what the laundry fairy looks like? I’ll tell you. Most likely, she’s a menopausal, saggy-fanny, slightly overweight mom with yesterday’s eye makeup clearly visible underneath her reading glasses from the Dollar Store. She is utterly unflappable. Bring her your stained and tattered garments, and she’ll return them to you miraculously healed. You can’t get that kind of service at a five-star hotel. Of course, there’s a catch. The laundry fairy must have given birth to you and love you more than anyone else in the world to work under such appalling conditions.
Every day, I wade through an overwhelming pile of laundry thrown to the bottom of the basement stairs by my middle child in his one backbreaking (just ask him—I once caught him researching child labor laws on the Internet—like I care about that) morning chore. First, I separate the clothes by color. I even have a “special needs” pile that requires serious, up-close-and-personal attention. This is the moment when experienced mamas like me really shine. You wouldn’t expect a sweet young mama to successfully remove a stain caused by blue Slushy
, ground-in grass, and bicycle-chain grease. You need a battle-hardened, mean mama like me, a woman who is not afraid to spray harsh chemicals that come with warning labels that suggest blood tests every three months to check for liver damage.
Out of the kindness of my heart, I wash the clothes, fold them, place them in individual baskets that have my children’s names on them (there was a week or so when I thought that was going to work), and deliver them upstairs to my kids’ rooms at the end of each and every day. For this work, I think I should be nominated for sainthood. I’d be a shoo-in. The pope would put me on the fast track, for sure. I’d blow by the beatification requirement. I have amassed an impressive body of work. I think my kids should thank me on bended knee for all those clean clothes. It would also be nice if they wrote me thank-you notes, which would be especially meaningful if they included cash. I think it would be a smart move by my children if they kissed me on my cheek at least once a month and told me how much they love me and appreciate their clean clothes. I’d like that even better than cash. Don’t worry. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that little fantasy to come true.
The little rodents do not appreciate their clean clothes or anything else I do for them on a regular basis. That’s the nature of the beast. We didn’t fully appreciate what our mothers did for us either, not until we were parents ourselves. Now, I think there should be a statue in my mother’s honor at the very least, or maybe an airport named for her. It’s not possible to appreciate your parents when you’re still a teenager, and that is a crying shame. I hope that in retrospect, when they’re grown and doing their own laundry and hopefully are not in prison, my kids will remember some of the sacrifices I made for them and be grateful. I hope they call me on the phone and tell me about that in elaborate detail while I sip on a cocktail and chuckle to myself. That could happen, right? Wouldn’t it be fabulous?
I've Had It Up to Here with Teenagers Page 6
