Parenting 101…or
…Did I Do Something Wrong?
Our babies came in the normal way: mom, dad,…then baby. We ooed and gooed over our precious ones, enjoying, nudging, and encouraging them toward “perfection.” Life was good. Until one day when we blew out the candles on our son’s 13th birthday cake.
Up to that point our most harrowing and challenging trials had been in trying to be “good parents.” Almost 20 years earlier I held a seven pound daughter and studied her minute fingernails in awe. Her baby brother followed in two years, and my husband and I set out to be the best parents we could be. We set goals, mapped out travels, and filled our home with educational toys and Sesame Street. All the while we focused on presenting the wonder of the world to our two young children, trying to mold them into future adults who would be conscientious, striving, and loving. We were doing all right until the teen years arrived.
Our daughter Jamie had been our first fledgling teenager, but she had been a teenager since the age of three. The only thing new to us on her thirteenth birthday was the numeral
“one” placed in front of the “three” to write her age. Much to my surprise, it was easy-going, get-a-long, no-problem Justin who knocked the breath out of me in 7th grade.
Justin’s band was almost ready for his first-ever band concert at the junior high, but we were moving to Tennessee for two months and would miss the concert by five days. We had asked his director if we might come to one of their regular rehearsals, and we had arrived just after band students finished settling into their folding metal chairs. One boy loudly approved, “Wow, I wish my parents would come and listen.” We were good. We were so good.
Dad and I took inconspicuous seats behind the band facing the director, but Justin had a clear view to us when he turned around to check. We smiled at him. We were good! So good.
The band kicked into the first song and played to perfection. Dad and I nodded and smiled our appreciation, knowing instinctively, as parents come to know, that clapping would be an ostentatious “uncool” thing to do. Justin turned around to check on us, and we smiled a big thumbs up to him. He frowned and turned toward the front. “Oh, dear,” I thought. Being the perfectionist he was, I was sure his mind had focused on some bad note in the song somewhere. He turned around to us again, and I smiled again in encouragement. We were so good. He frowned.
Our smile and frown routine continued after each song. I asked Vic if he knew what was wrong. None of the other students could see us, so we felt we were being properly low-key. Maybe we should be clapping. I asked Vic to check my hair. No spinach in my teeth. Vic’s trousers were zipped. There was nothing more we could do but smile encouragement to Justin from the back of the room and wonder: As our smiles grew larger and cheerier, why did his frowns grow bigger and angrier?
With only five minutes left in class, Ms. Verdi finished rehearsal of their concert performance with a few student challenges and then dismissed the class. Everyone rose from their chairs, clunking, and jostling their instruments into cases, laughing and talking with each other, ignoring us…as Justin suddenly rose, turned and made a beeline straight to us, anger pouring from his face. We both praised the band cheerfully, and with only four feet between us, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
He glared at me, “Do you have to do that?”
“Do what?”
“THAT!”
“Justin, what are you so upset about?”
“THAT!! Those teeth! Do you have to smile all the time?”
Well, now I was really in trouble. I should have wiped the smile, tucked my tail, and slunk away. Unfortunately, the shock of his unexpected torment struck every funny bone I had. I broke into incredulous giggles and “What’s-wrong-with-that’s,” as the corners of my mouth, all by themselves, pulled higher and tighter. I couldn’t help it. My grin enlarged, teeth and all.
Justin sucked in his breath, moved within inches, and whispered tightly, “Your teeth, ALL those teeth. Just STOP it. You don’t have to smile all the time!”
I tried to swallow it, but from deep down in my toes a bubble of laughter rose through my body, exploding from my mouth. Nobody noticed my laughter, except Justin. That was enough. He turned with disgust to put away his trumpet, Dad and I congratulated Ms. Verdi on the talented band, and we left the room shaking our heads, still smiling. We had another full-fledged teenager on the loose!
If you are anything like us, there is a day in your house when parent and teen look across the table at one another and find strangers staring back. For ten years you have lived in harmony. You know each others’ favorite TV shows and favorite ice cream flavors. You’ve hugged, laughed, tickled, and teased. Then suddenly, it’s as if the tooth fairy, disgusted because all the permanent teeth are in, returns late one night and sprinkles teenager dust over the house. You wake up, sit down for breakfast together, and wonder, “Who is this? Who is this new stranger in my house?” They’ve changed TV shows and ice creams, and you’re not sure if you should ask anymore, “How was your day?”
One day, flying away from my family on a business trip, I decided to write this book for my own kids. Today, I offer it to you, other parents and teens, as an attempt to breathe lightness, laughter, and understanding into those precious teen years as we grow to understand each other more fully.
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PARENTS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING
Years of parenting inspired 21 chapters of insights learned either just in the nick of time…or often, sadly, years afterward. Read and enjoy. May these pages encourage you as you make your way down the road of life!
See Table of Contents for all chapters.
Parents Don’t Know Everything…So What Else Is New?
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Copyright 2013. All Rights Reserved.