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January 19, 2006WWJFDI am Stressy McStresserson today. For no particular reason other than, well, I am. Anxiety is back... I wonder if I should re-up the meds? Nah, just drink more. (Public Service Announcement: I kid. I am not condoning drinking for the sake of escaping one's stress, life, or problems. Work it out in some healthy way, my gentle snowflakes. We now return you to your regularly scheduled After School Special, already in progress.) I'm afraid Miss Marie is going to feel bad when she reads this, and that is not my purpose whatsoever. I need to write, this is on my mind, so there you have it. No Evil Agenda, no Guilt Trip Worthy of Grandma. Marie got in a bit of trouble yesterday, for the unauthorized expenditure of Parental Funds. It's not like she spent thousands, but the amount isn't the problem. It's the Principle of the Thing (tm Calvin). I understand that teenagers are supposed to be remarkably unmotivated by the concern that they treat their parents with respect, do what they're told, be a Good Household Citizen, ad nauseum. And I'm not going to regale anyone with tales of how I was a Perfect Child, because I wasn't (my sister's going to laugh... the worst thing I ever did as a kid was quit Band without telling my Grandmother. Have I mentioned how much I DESPISE the clarinet? She found out when the music teacher called her after a month of missed classes. She made me march in the Memorial Day Parade anyway. Call CPS!) I know that when it comes to Knowing Better, and Doing the Right Thing, a seventeen year old girl is hardly going to be swayed by "...what JESUS would frickin' do!" (Spot the reference.) Still. One tends to forget that kids can hurt their parents' feelings, until it actually happens. This isn't the first time Marie has done something to make my gut sink as I shake my head in bewilderment and wonder why she figures we deserve the treatment she's dishing out. When you feel like you're doing everything you can, everything you're supposed to, and a good deal more than what's required in order to be a good parent... well, that's the part where our actions have nothing to do with her behavior. There's Nurture, there's Nature, and then there's, "They're going to do whatever the hell they want regardless of what we say." The thing of it is, I trap myself into thinking that Marie (and it happened this same way with Michael too) isn't going to do anything to hurt me. I consider her and I to be good friends, so when she acts like my rebellious teenage daughter (gasp!) I get surprised by the feeling of being betrayed, somehow. Which is silly, because her misbehavior isn't specifically directed at me or formulated specifically to wound me. I just don't get how we can have the conversations we have together - about life, goals, friends, and everything else under the sun - and not be totally of the same mind about how to treat one another and conduct ourselves. Here's where I start to sound whiney. There just seems to come a time during the child-rearing process when it feels like there's nothing in it anymore for the parents. The kid gets the love, support, direction, guidance, money, hugs, clothes, goodies, consideration, and outright best effort from the parent. In return, the parent gets ignored, dismissed, taken for granted, taken advantage of, yelled at, disobeyed, deceived, and eye-rolled at. Dangling participle aside, I know that's not all we get from Marie. There are a bunch of intangibles that are just a given when you're a parent. Still. It seems Calvin and I get left holding the fuzzy side of the lollipop more often than not. I know that parenthood is mutable, and the relationship a parent has with their child grows and changes as the child (and parent, too) grows and changes. A child will misbehave at times throughout their life, but it doesn't seem as personal as it does when he or she becomes a teenager. I was one in the not-too-distant past, so I have the authority of experience behind me when I say that teenagers are selfish little fuckers. With Marie, this is the last stage before she moves into adulthood, and we re-approach our relationship as adult-parent to adult-daughter. Then, I think, her decisions - right, wrong, or otherwise (tm Calvin) - will lack the rebellion, angst, and defiance that has the potential to hurt us right now. At the moment, I'm not at all sure how well we taught them, but here's what we wanted our kids to learn from us:
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