I’VE MADE NO secret during the last 16 years that I’m very happy not to be raising girls. I’m content with the worst arguments being about hair length and stains and holes in favorite clothes. I’m not sure how well I’d handle arguments over skirt lengths and cleavage.
And I was very proud to think I would avoid the hormone swings of adolescence. Wrong. Testosterone swings can be just as quirky as estrogen swings.
In fact, about the time Luke hit sixth grade, I noticed his personality develop into the extremes. When something upset him, it was a major crisis requiring raised voices or stony silences and slammed doors. Although I wouldn’t be raising any drama queens through the junior high years, I told him, apparently I was raising a Drama King.
During that period, I recall a discussion we had — or tried to have. Luke was unresponsive. Finally, he exploded.
“I DON’T FEEL LIKE TALKING,” he yelled.
“Luke,” I said in that calm Mom voice designed to irritate the most irritable teenager, “that’s all you had to say.”
Fast forward three years to the start of this school year. Luke, my high school freshman, was riding home with me. For some reason, he’s the only kid in the van with me.
“So, how was school today?” I asked.
“OK,” he said.
I keep going — What did you have for lunch? What did you do in English? How is Spanish going using the distance lab?
My son turned to me and calmly said, “Mom, this is one of those times I just don’t feel like talking.”
“OK,” I replied, caught in my own trap. “I was just trying to see how high school was going.”
“You’re no good at short talk,” he said.
That was a term I’d never heard before, so I tried for a definition.
“You mean questions that require simple answers?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Luke said, nodding his head, pleased that he got through to the older generation.
“Luke,” I explained. “I trained as a reporter. I’m not supposed to ask ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions.”
Just one more example of a parent’s job becoming the bane of a child’s existence. When I was Luke’s age, it was my dad’s job as my high school principal that was a thorn in my side. I imagine children of law enforcement officers and attorneys may have similar experiences.
I remember envying my friends whose moms ran clothing stores and hair salons, thinking of all the perks available to stay in fashion. On the other hand, maybe they got tired of Mom always trying to fix their hair just so or insisting on dresses instead of T-shirts and jeans.
Luke, meanwhile, decided to explain to me a little more about “short talk,” using an exercise they’d done in health class that day to illustrate. It was a mixer style assignment where students wore pieces of paper on their backs with names of famous people. The students had to ask classmates yes or no questions to find out who their person was.
Luke told me about his first name, a professional basketball player. Once he figured out the topic, he decided which classmate to ask based on professional sports knowledge. But Luke had a second name to guess, too.
“Mom, nobody knew who Chris Farley was so I had to ask Mr. Hatfield,” Luke told me as we pulled into the driveway.
Then it hit me. My son, who really didn’t feel like talking, had spent the last three miles talking nearly nonstop, telling me all about health class.
I guess I don’t always have to ask the questions to get the answers.
HillsReader (anonymous) says...
try duct tape
September 1, 2009 at 3:53 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
hottopics (anonymous) says...
I guess it depends on what questions you ask your teen to get a better response. I let mine choose the subject and then once the communication is going, sneak in the ones I want to know about.
September 1, 2009 at 9:37 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )