Daily Gratitude - Day 3

Today, I spent about an hour and a half at the high school for parent teacher conferences. Other than attending sporting events, I haven’t really been in the high school much and definitely haven’t seen the building the way that students do. As I walked up a set of stairs and meandered down a hallway to find Seth’s science classroom, I saw posters advertising various clubs for all sorts of lifestyles, posters with information about bullying, notes left on bulletin boards with innuendo and lots of students in various formations: alone to large, rambunctious groups.

Instead of feeling any sort of nostalgia for this time of life, I couldn’t help but almost shudder at how confusing and hard it is to be a teenager. As I met with teacher after teacher, trying to understand the expectations of Seth’s teachers and how I can help him best, memories kept drifting to my own mind from my own freshman year of high school.  Memories of standing in front of a bathroom mirror, trying desperately to rat and tease my bangs and the hair along the sides of my face to volumes that my fine strands refused to go.  Memories of shopping in a mall, wishing I could wear the expensive guess jeans like the cool, skinny, popular girls wore. Memories of feeling tired from early morning seminary, embarrassed about the required post P.E. showers, and an almost desperate crush on a senior that I never, ever talked to.

I think that crush and the many others that followed dominated most of my teenage thoughts. Somehow I got good grades but they were definitely not at the forefront of my personal goals or effort. I have forced myself to remember this fact as I have wished for that very reversal of priorities for my own son.

I’ve had to parent today. The tough kind of parenting. The kind of parenting I hate. It’s made me grateful that I’m no longer a teenager who is constantly distracted by hormones and crushes.  More importantly, it’s made me eternally grateful that the mistakes I made as a result of those distractions and crushes could be forgiven and that the exact same opportunity and blessing is available to all.

Are You What You Are Or What?

Did you hear that Edie Brickell hit Paul Simon last week and their domestic dispute got them both arrested? I suppose I’ve thought about Paul Simon once or twice in the last few years as he has many hit songs that still get played here and there but I hadn’t thought about Edie Brickell since her big hit back in the early 90s. Her “What I Am” is quite catchy and her name resurfacing transferred her long ago hit into a bit of an ear worm this week. It was triggered again this morning when I miraculously managed to drop Seth off at his middle school before the morning bell and actually got to watch him walk up to a group of friends before driving off instead of hoping he’d pick up his gait to avoid yet another tardy.

Does it make me creepy that I wish I could spy on my children when they are away from me?  Seth recently turned 14 and there are so many things I love about this teenage stage but his new-for-me preoccupation with his friends and my limited ability to know who all these friends are and what they do and all the stuff that goes along with that takes up more space in my mind than I imagine is healthy. Sometimes, after visiting his Instagram page or clicking on the profile of his friends who like or comment on his pictures, I am left reeling. Teenage girls in bikinis for their profile pic. Drug references. Vulgarity. And they’re proudly showing it!

I’ve talked to him about social media standards and safety and what I expect from his end a few times but he’s a boy, nay, a teenage boy, and he seems to have inherited my aversion to talking about anything stressful so his ability to address my concerns vocally is kind of limited. What’s really interesting is right when I’m on the edge of total freaked-outness, a reassurance washes over me that he’s fine. All evidence points to him being a likable, friendly, funny boy who isn’t doing anything wrong. Do I wish he had a picture of a temple and some scriptural reference on his Instagram bio? Yes, yes, I do. But I need to acknowledge whatever comfort I’ve been given that he is who he tells me he is: a good boy.

Perhaps my cynicism or whatever negative emotion that causes the doubt comes from the knowledge of my own duplicity. I have days when I omit my lazy hours, binge sugar eating, toddler neglect or whatever less-than-proud behavior from the record. Those moments tend not to be reflected in the pictures that I take, conversations I engage in or recountings of our day that I give to Jay. In all honesty, when I used to blog more, I felt like there was a more accurate over-all picture of who and what I am. Now, I can kind of craft whatever image flatters me best.

Still, I know that my own online image isn’t false or made-up - only incomplete.  I suppose that is the root of the worry. What am I missing?  Most days, school and all that jazz consumes the bulk of my school-age children’s hours of the day. I don’t even think that schedule is odd or wrong. We are, after all, preparing these growing souls to eventually be independent enough to go away so it would be more weird to keep them by my side all day long. And yet...I wonder. What gets said in that group of friends whose circle he happily joins? Do his friends get the more real side of him or do we get it at home? Are the two sides even that different?

Oh, my goodness, I am out of practice thinking at this slow, blogger pace. I can’t remember what point I set out to make or why I felt like it was important enough to break the silence but I’m going to leave it as is. In conclusion, (my kids are learning how to wrap up an essay and I see this a lot in their writing) I worry too much. Edie warned me about that.

P.S. After much thought I decided that I’d rather blog publicly, stalker potential and all, than not blog privately. We’ll see. I’m hoping it’s not too late to try and write again.