The Epic Teenage Journey

Occasionally a friend will post on Facebook that his/her child has just turned thirteen.  Frequently, the comments below the post will read like, "Oh, I'm so sorry" or "My condolences" or "time to lock up the liquor".    While I will admit that I sometime smile at these threads, as time goes on, I'm more likely to sigh and feel a tinge of sadness.

Teenagers get a bad rap.

Being a teenager is hard.   It was hard for us, it's hard for them, and it will be hard for future generations.   Every person must go through the transition/transformation from being a child to being an adult and it is a bumpy road for almost everyone.

So many religions and cultures have rites of passage for teenagers and there is a reason for this.   When you are a child, you are taken care of, as an adult you have to take care of yourself, and this takes practice.  Sometimes lots of practice.

In some cultures, a young teenage boy is sent into the wild on his own to learn to survive.  The lesson is pretty simple, "Kill or be killed", "Eat or Be Eaten", "Survive or……….don't".

In other cultures, kids are sent to public high school.   The same lessons are learned.

A few years ago I attended the Bar Mitzvah of a family friend's son.   My friend and I looked at him in his fine suit and marveled at what a fine young man he had become.  Now we both chuckle at the idea that he was "all grown up" at that moment in time.   Yes, physically he had matured into a young man.   He filled out a man's suit quite nicely.   But, in retrospect, he still had a lot of growing up to do emotionally.   But that kind of thing is harder to see.

Most of the hardest lessons in life have to be learned through experience.   There is really no way around it.   We can lecture our kids all we want saying, "don't drink, don't smoke, and don't text and drive!"   Unfortunately, our words are often not as effective as a hangover, or a dented car.
This is a universal truth.  It was true for us, it is true for them.

Last September I listened to two teenage girls in my kitchen mooning (is mooning still a word?) over the same boy.  I told them, "don't let him come between you two.  Boys will come and go, but girlfriends are forever."  They listened to me and lived happily every after.  No.  As if.   Within 48 hours of that conversation they were at each others throats and the next few months were filled with brutal conversations and horrific texts that quickly tore apart a dear friendship with much collateral damage in their wake.   Nine months later they are slowly nursing the bruised friendship back together, but it will never be the same.   BTW, neither of them "has" the guy. I wish I could say it won't happen again.   I wish.

These days social media makes being a teenager even harder.   When I was a teenager, I spent many hours on the phone with my closest friends and we would share our deepest secrets, crushes, and yes, we might even gossip a bit about our mutual friends and classmates.  But, when we hung up the phone the conversation was over.   Now kids text each other, and those words live forever.   One kid takes a screen shot of someone else's text and suddenly the whole world is seeing it.  Secret crushes are quickly revealed, as are thoughtless catty remarks.    Of course, we all tell our kids, "be careful what you text" but they don't listen until they are crying in their rooms because no one is talking or texting them because of some idiotic words they thoughtlessly threw into cyberspace.  Even then they might not listen.  

Eventually, they do learn the lessons, one by one, inch by inch, bruise by bruise.   As parents, much of the time we observe with white knuckles, and hope these lessons are learned without any serious ramifications.   When you teach your kid to drive it is just a metaphor for raising a teenager.   You grab hold of the seat, press the "invisible" brake and pray that you don't hit a tree.

And, as hard as it is, sometimes you get brief glimpses of the adult that your child is becoming.   You hear your child say, "You know, I am kind of upset with X but I think I'll talk to her in person instead of texting her."  good idea.   You come home from work to find that your child has put all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and started the laundry and you didn't even have to yell at anyone!  Bonus!  Your child comes up to you and says, "Hey Mom!  Will you proof read my English paper?"  Haha!  As if that would ever happen!  (just some wishful thinking here).   But slowly you do start to see the insides matching the outside that fills out that man's suit so nicely.

Perhaps instead of treating the teenage years like the plague, we should acknowledge the tremendous journey that it is.   And, instead of offering our condolences when someone hits this momentous milestone, we should offer our support as the child sets off into the wild with only the crudest of tools in his hand.

And please, always remember, we look forward to your safe return.

Stop and Smell the Poop

Now that the snow has finally melted I like to take my dog out for a walk every morning.

He spent most of the winter convalescing from his back surgery and is still a little wobbly on his feet.

He was also quite inactive this winter so he put a few pounds on his already "sturdy" frame.

I'm just glad he's still with us.

When the girls get home from school, our lives are one big rush, with people coming and going all afternoon.   He usually just sits and watches and we head out and then come back again.   He doesn't complain, but he is usually ignored for most of the afternoon.   So, I like to give him a little time in the morning when things are quieter and we don't have to be somewhere "ten minutes ago".

His pace is slow, and he likes to stop every two feet to smell the grass, the leaves, and, of course, the poop.    After being covered with snow for so long, the world smells so good to him.   He smells it the same way I might smell a soup that has been simmering on the stove for a while, breathing in all the goodness.   Yes.  To him the smell of poop is olfactory goodness.   Eventually, we make our way to the bike path where we might encounter other people who are out and about exercising, etc.   We just plod along.

It's not unusual for someone to comment about his slow pace and say something like "not much of a cardio workout for you, huh?"  True.   Honestly, I don't walk my dog to get a cardio workout.   He is a shih tzu for goodness sake.   If I wanted a cardio dog, I would have bought a greyhound.    

Truth is, when he is "smelling the poop" it kind of forces me to stop and look around at how the earth is changing.   I watched as the snow receded bit by bit, and the ice finally melted on the pond.   I can see tiny buds slowly pushing their way up through the ground.   I notice a dead mouse who didn't make the great trek across the path.  You don't see these things when you are getting in your cardio.

I watch as a mother pushes her jogging stroller down the bike path and is multi-tasking, getting in her workout, getting fresh air for her toddler, and maybe texting from her iPhone.   The toddler might point to my pup and say, "Dog-gie" and the mother might smile and say, "Right.  That's a doggie." and off they go.    And more often than not I want to tell her to stop running.   Stop.   Take the kid out of the stroller and let him walk around.  Stop.  Let him see first hand the earth coming to life again.   Stop.   Let him pet the doggie.   Stop.

But I don't say anything, because that would be rude.

Later in the day, I am on one of my many trips back and forth to the high school and spot the most magnificent sunset ahead of us.  "Look!" I say to the girls "Look at the sunset!"   They don't even hear me.  They are talking about rehearsal, class, math quizzes, etc.   I keep driving because we do indeed have to be somewhere "ten minutes ago" but I know what I am missing.   And, I know the dog would get it.

Stop.