Chapter Six: House with a Teen Diva- part I

Ch 6. House with a Teen Diva

Raising a child today, especially a teenager, is an amazing experience. You have those beautiful memories that stay with you for life. Like Halloween when she was ten and dressed as a pop singer. No one knew who she was supposed to be, so the teachers made her wear a sign around her neck.

Like having the sex talk when she was twelve. She sat on the bed with a blanket over her head the entire time. I was delicate. I’d rehearsed for weeks. When I was finished, she said from underneath, “Yuck! Old people do that too?”

My daughter ran away once, to our front lawn. She was seven at the time and we’d just had an argument. She took the necessities with her − pretzel sticks, her feather collection and her Big Bird purse. She left a note that said, “I guess I have to live in the wild and be without a mom.” I joined her on the lawn and we settled our differences before dinner.

When she was fifteen and home alone one day, a firefighter knocked on our apartment door saying that a unit downstairs had had a small kitchen fire and she should leave the premises and take our important possessions. She took her iPod, her cell phone, her purse and the cat.

* * *

Like other Generation X-ers, I was a kid in the innocent seventies. We grew up with television shows like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers and The Magic Garden, where hippie girls, Carol and Paula, strummed guitars and picked jokes from the ‘giggle patch.’ Our cartoons were Woody Woodpecker and Tom and Jerry. Land of the Lost was as exciting as it got. Even in science fiction programs, like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, the actors had feathered hair and bell-bottoms. Video games were archaic: Pong and Asteroids. Most families didn’t own a VCR until the mid eighties. As a result, we became the most air-headed generation on the planet. We were gullible idealists.

This new generation of young people, referred to as Generation Y, astounded me. They grew up watching sharp, witty cartoons on Nickelodeon. Their television programs delved into subject matter that was far beyond their parents’ understanding at that age. These kids had access to technology we could only dream of. They learned to type at age six. They took subjects in school that didn’t exist when we were young. They matured faster and proved to be more intelligent, shrewd and insightful than we were in youth. Generation Y was simply more adept and skilled in life. How else could you explain all those creative You Tube skits?

My daughter was an amazing multi-tasker. I have personally witnessed her doing the following things at the same time:

·        work on a research paper at the computer

·        study for a math test

·        instant message seven friends

·        check her social network page

·        listen to an iPod

·        text on her cell phone

·        eat a bag of Skittles  

·        watch television

(And she still had time to ignore me when I asked her to put her dishes in the sink.)

This generation made us accustomed to folks talking to themselves in supermarket aisles. They’re not crazy; they’re using a Bluetooth! We got used to asking a question and then having to repeat it after the salesperson pulled an iPod bud from their ear. We no longer mind waiting for the checkout person to finish a text message before ringing up our purchase. We hear song lyrics that were so raw we wouldn’t even whisper them under the sheets on our wedding night.

I’ve learned that today’s teens don’t consider nicknames embarrassing. In fact, the more outrageous, the better. They are usually a description of one’s affinities.

“Who’s coming over this afternoon?” I asked my daughter.

“Let’s see…Smoky, Lushy, P-love and Taco Madness. Revs it Loud might come by later.”

“Well, there are plenty of snacks in the cupboard.”

I’ve also learned that this generation had no qualms about flirting with their elders. At a high school basketball game, I passed a group of eleventh grade boys. The leader of the bunch, who was decked out in Abercrombie & Fitch, looked me up and down and uttered a suave, “How you doin’?” I was so taken back that I blushed and dashed into the ladies’ room. When I got back to the bleachers, I complained to my daughter about the boy’s disrespectful behavior. She laughed and said, “Oh Mom. Hot parents are in! You should be flattered.”

It’s a whole new game. Daughters don’t beg their mothers anymore to let them get their ears pierced. They beg to get their belly buttons pierced. They beg for tattoos! There is a fashion precision in how teens dress, one that parents can never hope to attain. It is based on a style algorithm so complex that even biochemists cannot figure it out.  

Online lingo is a mysterious second language. Just when we applauded ourselves for knowing what LOL meant (for a year, I thought that it meant “lotsa luck”) along came more acronyms. POS “parent over shoulder,” SMH “shaking my head.” I don’t know who teaches these or where the schools are located, but I need a refresher course!

There are some positive things my daughter taught me about how things have changed. I stood before my bedroom mirror once, complaining about my rear end. She said, “You don’t have a big butt, Mom.”

Then she looked into the mirror at her slim, model-like frame and sighed, “And I have the same booty as you. We wish we had big booties.”

“We do?”

“Oh yeah. Big butts are popular. The most popular girls at school have big butts.”

“What?” I grimaced. That went against years of ingrained fitness obsessions and gaunt models I’d seen throughout my youth.

“Honey,” I explained. “In high school, we purposely didn’t buy jeans that had pockets on the seat, afraid that it made our rear ends look bigger!”

She shook her head.

“I kill myself on a Stairmaster three times a week to eliminate my booty!”

She replied somberly, “Stop doing that.” 

I stared perplexed into the mirror. As she walked out of the room, she called over her shoulder, “Butts are the new boobs.”

I was delighted. Thank goodness, someone told me!   

 ***