My son recently turned 13, and the last traces of that sweet little boy who thought I hung the moon seem to have vanished. In his place is a strange, slouching creature with a pencil-thin mustache and adolescent angst oozing from every pore.
This extraterrestrial I once called flesh and blood, whose mood swings dwarf the Grand Canyon, seems intent on bungee jumping from that rickety bridge connecting a child with adulthood. And I think he plans on dragging his rapidly aging mother along for the ride.
A drastic language change was the first indication of alien infestation in my once cherished offspring. The rosy-cheeked cherub who used to run to me, eyes shining with adoration and shouting "Mommy!" began to address me (and everyone else) as "Dude."
At 13 months, he was a sponge, joyfully soaking up new words, becoming more communicative every day. At 13 years, the hormones surging through his body have cut a swath through the speech center in his brain; his mouth, when it speaks at all, produces mere shrunken shreds of complete sentences apparently understood only by other members of his species.
"S'up" is a perfectly acceptable, all-purpose phrase in an adolescent's world.
"Mom, I love you," on the other hand, would burn his monosyllabic lips like acid and permanently corrupt his coolness.
Communication with this high-tech yet illiterate generation is fraught with frustration. My son, who can't seem to utter two intelligible sentences to me, airs his gripes through text messaging. Just the other day, a message flashed on my cell phone in fractured syntax designed to torture my English major soul.
"i no u h8 me. i try so hard 2 b good. y r u mad @ me?"
Cave men scribbling on walls were more eloquent.
Then there's the alteration in appearance. While I'm desperately trying to avoid bags and sags, this long-haired Neanderthal living in my house embraces them as fashion. Wearing gravity-defying pants slung low across his scrawny backside, he looks just like a baby with an overly full diaper. When I helpfully pointed this out, I got another overwrought, electronic missive that ended with the text message equivalent of a scream.
This modern means of communication does keep the house quiet.
Adolescent males seem to lose all capacity for living like civilized human beings. This means that my boy constantly raids the refrigerator but can't manage to close a door, that he can take 30-minute showers but never hang up a wet towel, that he stuffs freshly laundered clothes back into his hamper rather than putting them away. I find sticky cereal bowls in his closet because he was too lazy to return them to the kitchen, and the lunchbox he claimed he lost growing whole colonies of bacteria under his bed. I now understand why some animals eat their young.
The child who begged me to read to him daily now rolls his eyes in disgust when I suggest we turn off the video games and pick up a book. The angel who proudly showed me off to his kindergarten classmates now pretends not to know the deranged woman waving to him in the middle school hallway. My fall from grace, seemingly overnight, has left me depressed, bewildered and prone to emotional excess.
"You could cut the apron strings without slicing through my heart, you know," I whimper in one of my calmer moments.
"Mom," he mumbles in that teenage tone of voice, "why can't you just act normal?"
Normal is, of course, a relative term. In about 10 years, I will magically return to normalcy as my pubescent boy turns into an adult. At least I hope I do. In the meantime, I'm going to hang on to those severed apron strings. I may need them to strangle him.
Jackie Papandrew is an award-winning writer and editor. Her nationally syndicated humor column -- Airing My Dirty Laundry -- appears in several newspapers in the United States, as well as on numerous websites. You can learn more about Jackie at JackiePapandrew.com or visit her blog -- Airing My Dirty Laundry The Blog.
Jackie's hilarious book -- Airing My Dirty Laundry -- will soon be published. Visit her website to learn more.
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» left by Steve Radford(783) Steve Radford (1 year 55 days ago.)
Good stuff Jackie.
I can relate to almost every line. My son would say 'Dude!' and I would say 'no Dad'. After about 100 of those exchanges he just went back to using 'Dad'. He's 21 now and you are right, you will be smart and relevant again in 7 or 8 years. Respond to this comment
» left by Barney from United Kingdom (1 year 55 days ago.)
Boy, do I recognize this. My children are all now grown up, married and have their own children. Being British, they didn't call me (or anyone) "dude" during their teen years - they mostly used my given name or some version of it. It's amazing just how quickly parents become ignorant, gibbering incompetents in the sight of their early to mid-teen offspring. But we are rehabilitated once the said offspring get to be around 18. And when they become parents in their turn they understand just what patient miracle workers we were.
My wife and I always did our best to keep the communication channels open between us and our children, no matter what provocations came our way. Respond to this comment
» left by Jackie Papandrew(162) Jackie Papandrew (1 year 54 days ago.)
Reminds me of a famous remark by Mark Twain:
"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
» left by James P Krehbiel(1,366) James P Krehbiel (1 year 54 days ago.)
Jackie,
Great article and how true. I work with kids and have four grownups of my own. I hate to tell you but you are being set up for the next transition. Read my article on searchwarp entitled, WHEN YOUR KIDS GRANT YOU YOUR DISMISSAL PAPERS. Thanks and good luck! LOL Respond to this comment
» left by James Carrick(91) (1 year 54 days ago.)
Jackie, great article. My oldest son is 17 and we went through the same stuff with him. He is beginning to turn into somewhat of a normal human being as he approaches 18, but from 13 to 16 it was an up and down ride! Now my middle son is 13 and is beginning to show signs of what I call the "puberty insanity" so here we go again. Hang in there, it does get better! Respond to this comment
» left by Teresa Ortiz(5,727) Teresa Ortiz (1 year 26 days ago.)
Love it! Its true, they do re-gain some use of their brain. As I mentioned, my son is now 17 and has matured, so much so that the other day, he said "Mom, do me a favor", "what son"? "Please quit doing my laundry - I like it done a certain way." Again I ask - who is this kid? Although, he does continue to have an array of kitchen utencils in his room... Respond to this comment
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