I owe a lot to Warren Ellis, and that’s all you need to know about that.
Warren wrote on his blog that his daughter has just turned 13:
My daughter is now 13. You can tell this by the way she presents herself for dinner at a restaurant wearing red and black striped fingerless gloves, a black puffball skirt and tights, a t-shirt that’s the dilute 2008 iteration of an idea Vivienne Westwood scrawled on the back of a fag packet in 1976, and a pair of boots that appear to have been fashioned from the hollowed-out legs of a particularly unfortunate black bear. Also, by the way I’ve gone from being called “daddy” to being called “shut up, Ellis.”
[…]
She wears her mp3 player in the car so she doesn’t have to listen to “old, creepy” bands on the CD player. And then berates me for not listening to “dad music” in the office. Which is also often termed “creepy.” Most things are either “cool” or “creepy.”
[…]
Nouns have seemingly become optional: “I need to thing about thing with thing and thing.” Her mother understands every word. I do not. This may be why her mother is “cool” and I am “creepy.”
Warren says that he’s loving every minute of it, and since I’ve been there myself, I can relate. His post reminded me of an old post of mine, that I wrote when my awesome little guys were mysteriously replaced with Pod People:
So this weird thing happened two or three weeks ago: in the middle of the night, some aliens or MIBs or something snuck into my house while we were asleep, and they replaced my sweet, reasonable children with Teenagers.
Overnight, I went from pretty cool to really annoying, and questions that were usually answered with phrases like, “Okay,” or “I’ll do it in just a minute,” or “Yes,” were suddenly met with “Whatever.” or “GOD!” or my personal favorite, stony silence with the rolling eyes and exasperated sigh.
It’s so weird, man. And the thing is, my doors were all locked, and my windows were all closed . . . so my theory is that the Aliens or MIBs or whatever don’t actually enter the house. Instead, they use some sort of parabolic mirror to direct a tractor beam through the walls, which we can’t see or hear, and they pull the old switcheroo from orbit. I have no idea what they do with the sweet, reasonable pre-teens they take away, though. The current operating theory is that they need their youthful exuberance for fuel or something, but it’s just a theory.
I called my mom, and told her how things had suddenly gotten really challenging as a parent, and you know what she did? She put her hand over the phone, and shouted to my dad, “Finally! It’s Payback, Rick!” I’m pretty sure I heard my dad shout out something like, “Woo!” or “Yeehaw!” from another room . . .
Anyway, I’m taking a crash course in parenting Teenagers, which is fundamentally different from parenting pre-teens. It’s not even like switching from vi to emacs . . . it’s more like switching from vi to emacs and someone re-assigned your keyboard and changed the language and now the damn thing reboots randomly and though occasionally it makes sense, most of the time you’re so goddamned confused you wonder why you bought a fucking computer in the first place. The weirdest thing is how quickly the pod-people arrived. It really did happen overnight (or maybe in the span of two days, but not longer than that.)
A couple of things I’ve learned, that I offer up, free of charge, to anyone parenting a teenager, or about to parent a teenager:
- When we say, “no,” what they hear is, “ask me again in a slightly different way in about ten minutes, and act like it’s the first time you’ve asked me. Or you could go ask your mom, and pretend that we haven’t talked. The most important thing is, you must act as if we haven’t had this conversation, and keep asking me until you get whatever it is you want.”
- No matter what we as parents do, we are so unreasonable.
- No matter what my parents say, I was never this irrational when I was a teenager.
- Whatever it is they want to do, all their friends get to do it, with their parents’ blessing.
- Music is better when it’s so loud the bass distorts. (Yes, I realize the irony of my “If it’s too loud, you’re too old” T-shirt from 11th grade.)
- Even though they may act like they totally hate us, they still love us. It’s just that their brains are all fucked up right now, and they need our help to figure out what the hell is going on (but won’t admit it, and don’t know how to ask for it).
So there’s this interesting-and-cool thing happening: naturally, because they’re teens, they’re pulling away a little bit, figuring out who they are, and pushing against Anne and me as we define their age-appropriate limits, so a lot of the things we used to do together are so lame now . . . except for nerdy gaming. They LOVE the nerdy gaming, and it has become a conduit for me to communicate with them, as well as remain a part of their life. Ryan even told me the other day, “I want to start a club at school that’s for nerds to do nerdy stuff, but I want to have, like, Masonic Degrees for nerds.”
“What degree are you?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said, “But you are a 33rd degree nerd.”
I didn’t ask him if there was a secret handshake, because I didn’t want to be so lame.
I wrote that a little over three years ago, which at once feels like a lifetime ago and just yesterday. I’m not going to pretend that every day in between was unicorns and rainbows, but Nolan is a senior in high school now, and Ryan is in college. I am happy to report that the well-known Mark Twain quote applies.
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I am waiting for that fateful even to happen with my 13 year old. Still have a few more years with my 9 year old. It has happened when he is at his dad’s place, but so far the body snatchers haven’t happened by this homestead yet. I would be a fool to think the beam will skip my household but hopefully it stays away a bit longer. I am loving the fact my 13 year old boy still loves to curl up on the couch with him mom and watch movies. Now if he knew I was saying this, he would kill me.
The worst I have gotten from him (now that he towers me by at least 3 inches) is “Mom you’re a midget.” Or that he is disappointed in me because my hair is “normal”. Heaven forbid his mom is normal! My hair is normally at least 4 different colours, and while most teenagers would find this embarrassing, he is embarrassed to be seen with me with one solid colour because “Mom you’re weird.”
Great compliment if I do say so myself!
Where has the last 13 years gone…
If this is a double post I apologize in advance as my interwebs have been acting up
So here we go at attempt numero deux
I am waiting for that fateful event to happen with my 13 year old. Still have a few more years with my 9 year old. It has happened when he is at his dad’s place, but so far the body snatchers haven’t happened by this homestead yet. I would be a fool to think the beam will skip my household but hopefully it stays away a bit longer. I am loving the fact my 13 year old boy still loves to curl up on the couch with him mom and watch movies. Now if he knew I was saying this, he would kill me.
The worst I have gotten from him (now that he towers me by at least 3 inches) is “Mom you’re a midget.” Or that he is disappointed in me because my hair is “normal”. Heaven forbid his mom is normal! My hair is normally at least 4 different colours, and while most teenagers would find this embarrassing, he is embarrassed to be seen with me with one solid colour because “Mom you’re weird.”
Great compliment if I do say so myself!
Where has the last 13 years gone…
“33rd Degree Nerd” ought to be the name of your next book.
Ah, good blast from the past post. One day, when I’m ready to raise some kids of my own, I’m going to obsessively go through all the archives and find stories like this. Yes, some are in THDOOL but you’ve written a lot of good stuff.
For the record I was NEVER that irrational as a teenager. Nope. Never. Uh-uh. I was a shining beacon of rationality and calmness. For reals.
Cheers.
Hey Wil,
I just turned 24, and your post has me looking forward to having kids one day. Fathers have been somewhat lambasted by the media the last few years, so it’s good to see someone out there working hard to be a good Dad.
When a child turns 13, put him in a barrel, nail down the lid, and feed him through a knothole. When he turns 16, plug the knothole. ?
Thank you very much for this timely post Wil. My boy is imminently about to turn 13, and we are definitely feeling the pendulum swinging from moody irritable pre-teen to moodier, more irritable teen.
These days we can’t even look sideways without it being all about him, and how we are so mean/hypocritical/hyper critical/ humourless (at an obviously sarcastic remark).
But yet, there are still moments when he is my little boy that wants to cuddle up. Guess I’d better hold on to those moments.
My child development teacher says when teens try to argue about the parent thinking they might make a bad choice, to tell them that their prefrontal cortex hasn’t fully developed yet.
My youth ministry prof [I’m in grad school for theology] summed it up like this: “Teenagers brains and bodies are not working together. They are hormonally insane, surrounded by mixed messages and just found out their parents aren’t perfect. Buy a lot of kleenex and chocolate and get some earplugs when they share their music.”
I have to agree with Wil post. I have three children of my own,my two oldest ones are 17 & 16. They do have their own ways,alot different than I had when I was there age. I remember my mom telling me,”You’ll know what it’s like when you have kids of your own,” and I always told her “No I won’t cause my kids won’t be like me. Well low and behold they are. LOL I have to say my teenagers are good kids,they never got into any major trouble but when I’ve tried to tell them something I have gotton the “OK Mom” “Whatever Mom” and I just let it go and then I find myself telling my kids the same thing my mom told me “Just wait till you have kids of your own.” Thank you for the post Wil.Take care
Love & Peace,
Kelly P
No teenagers in the house here yet, but I’m a supply teacher (Canadian for “substitute”), and I sometimes have to deal with teenagers… my constant thought is one you mentioned:
“No matter what my parents say, I was never this irrational when I was a teenager.”
How sweet of your to share your wisdom on this topic and commiserate! =)
*smiles*
I first read that post of yours when I started out as a youth worker. It made me wonder what I was getting myself into. This time I giggled. I’m not a parent to any of these kids, but a lot seem to revert to a slightly diluted version of that behaviour when they get to know me and the other youth workers, especially when I won’t let them do things like climb onto the roof of the office or suggest that a residential to Spain on a budget of £50 simply isn’t feasible. I organized a music quiz for them yesterday, and apart from the tracks I picked that have only been in the charts for 5 minutes, everything else was, ‘ancient’ ‘sad’ ‘boring’ or ‘gay’. The chocolate laden prizes went down a storm though:)
I don’t think the aliens come and swap the kids for teenagers but they’re rather sleeper cells just waiting to be activated and unleash all their mutant teenage power on their parents. Much less troublesome (remote control activation included, no need for tractor beam) and pretty effective.
OK, now I’m reallllly looking forward to having kids one day.
“I am happy to report that the well-known Mark Twain quote applies.”
I used to have a coffee mug with that quote on it. A coffee mug I got while I was in High School. I think my mother gave it to me.
Maybe it’s some sort of chemical or mineral deficiency that starts to catch up with them by age 9, finally tapping out at 13 or so.
The child, as I safely and lovingly call my daughter, is 9 now. If her current behavior of arms-crossed high on the chest and a dainty foot tapping a tattoo into the wood floor is a precursor to teenage-hood I need to get that Thorazine prescription NOW!
But I do amuse myself from time to time by messing with her, builds character as my mom would say. :o)
Wil,
I just turned 23 and I hope to GOD that by the time I have teens; I have some kind of connection like you have with your kids. I’m a HUGE nerd-girl and mainly hang out with guys, where we spend most of our time chatting about comics, games, and TV shows. Lord help me if I end up with a daughter who wants to be a cheerleader or heaven forbid join a sorority when she’s older. I don’t think my little nerd heart could take it.
I love that the kid said his nerd club would have “Masonic degrees.”
That fills me with little girly giggles.
God, what does it mean that my 3 year old already rolls his eyes when I talk?
At least I have this to buttress my soul: my wife informed me that he went into catatonic ecstasy when she accidentally turned on my Tivo recording of STAR WARS: Clone Wars. At least I have that.
My little guy is only 2.5 years old, but I can already spot the nerd genes rising to the top. My wife just shakes her head and rolls her eyes when they rear their nerdy little heads.
Yowch, this really hits home. My stepdaughter is 11 – going on 16 and testing me in ways I am totally unprepared for.
Slowly, methodically, she is training me to:
1) Keep explanations to one sentence or less (see #3).
2) Not get excited when she actually asks me for an explanation of something.
3) Not get mad at her for apparently having the attention span of a brain-damaged parakeet.
4) Realize and admit that I am far, far nerdier than I ever imagined.
I still don’t understand how they can watch a DVD in a moving car. I couldn’t even read in a car when I was a kid, trying to watch a screen hanging from the roof = instant barf.
I don’t know what Masonic degree I would have, but my coffee cup proudly proclaims me a Level 70 Nerd!
(Bonuses:
+15 Resistance to Boring Work
+15 to Intelligence
-10 to Wisdom and Agility
Abilities:
Block Sunlight
Hide In Basement
Live On Pizza and Chips
Adapt To New Technology
Talents:
Bad Pun
Useless Trivia)
I am a 6th degree geek and have been proclaiming Wil as the Grand Master Geek of the Highest Order for better than two years now. But sadly no one listens.
Anyway… no kids of my own either. But I thoroughly enjoy the havoc my brothers teen wreaks on him and his household to the same degree with which I despised his antics at that age in our house.
Revenge is a dish one relishes watching others partake… hot or cold.
A phrase I repeat a lot: “You can’t raise a teenager.”
Just imagine, I get to do the same thing in a few years with TWO GIRLS dkakldask;dlf
Wil,
I have been reading your blog for a while and following the stories like this post and I wanted to share something that happened the other day.
My 14 year old son Wil…thats right.. any way.. He came in to where I was watching the History channel and he fell on the couch next to me and looked at the screen and saw “Band of brothers” was on. By the time he got there it was on the 7th part and we shared the next 3 hours, watching something we both enjoy..and we both have seen before..
After it was over he got up, put in the earphones from his iPod and was back to his own world.
Like the commercials tell us.. things like that are “priceless”.
Oh yeah Wil, today at work I got to watch some of “stand by me”.. every time someone walked in they looked a the TV and said “cool..thats a classic”
Anywho..
Cheers,
Mitch
The best book I ever read on parenting teen girls was:“I’m not Mad, I just Hate You!”. It helped me understand what my daughter was going through. My daughter is now 22 years old and we have a really good relationship.