Mid-CenturyModernMoms

The best medicine

Rebekah and Aising went to a party the other night.

I did the mom thing: Where is it? Who's throwing it? Will the parents be around? How are you getting home?

They did the teen thing: resist, resist, resist.

"His name is Josh."
.
.
.
"No, I don't know his last name."
.
.
.
"He lives on Franklin Street."
.
.
.
"No, I don't know the house address."
.
.
.
"I didn't ask about his parents."
.
.
.
Each sentence, you understand, hauled bodily past lips of iron. Or that's what it feels like. If babies wear you out with the physical demands, the lack of sleep, the unceasing needs, teens wear you out with the emotional/psychological demands. Making a teen divulge something they'd rather not is WORK. Exhausting work. So, when you have to work that hard, you look for something to lighten the load.

Like, say, humour?

The husband and I have gotten waaaay past the point where this annoys us. It's tiring, sure, but it's also so utterly standard. We've been down this road far too many times to waste that precious emotional energy being annoyed by it. (Okay, well, mostly we have.)

You know how that whole "NO!" thing is hard-wired into a toddler? Ask a 2-year-old if they want a cookie, while waving it RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, and odds are very good they'll say "NO!" Then cry when you put it away, laughing. Or even better, eat it yourself. (What? You can't tell me you never played with YOUR toddler's head! Not even once? You know you did; we all did.) Humour, remember? Learn it with your toddlers; perfect it on your teens.

Just as toddler have their "NO!!", teens have their "NOT TELLING". It's all about asserting their independence and autonomy -- for both sets of offspring, large and small. (This whole toddler-teen thing is a recurring theme around here, isn't it?)

So, we don't get mad any more. We laugh. We're even past laughing quietly, just the two of us. Now we laugh AT them, RIGHT IN THEIR FACES.

"Josh on Franklin Street. Uh-huh. And if something goes wrong, and you need us to pick you up, or we need to call the police to go there, we're going to tell people... what, exactly?"

Here we mime talking to a police officer.

"Oh, it's okay, officer." I bat my eyes and hold my folded hands to my cheek. "I'm a responsible parent! I know EXACTLY where they are! Yes, sir!"

The husband chimes in. "Not to worry, officer! They're at Josh's house on Franklin Street!"

Is that not truly hysterical??? We kill ourselves, the husband and I. Fall about laughing. Our audience, strangely, is entirely silent. Which only makes it funnier. Do they honestly think their position is REASONABLE? Hoo, boy. These kids are a riot.

Okay, then. Wipe those tears of mirth, stand up straight, make the eye contact, bring the voice down to "firm" instead of "giddy", and we'll try this again.

Want to go to that party, girls? Name and number, kiddos, before you set one foot out that door.

Teens. They're so funny.

*Censored*

I know every generation is the bane of the previous.

The clothes.

The hair.

The music.

My grandparents were horrified when my parents danced to the hip gyrations of Elvis.

My parents were appalled at the shaggy-haired Beatles and rolled their eyes when I SWORE I was going to marry the cute one.

And so it is left to me to suffer from chronic ear bleed at my daughter's choice of tunes.

However.

And this is a GIGANTIC However with a capital H.

Elvis gyrated, and the Beatles shook their shaggy locks. But what they sang about mostly was whether we were lonesome tonight and that they wanted to hold our hand.

My daughter sings along to this.

Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho
Won't trust a ho 'cause the ho won't trust me.

Catchy stuff.

So catchy, in fact, that our local radio station actually bleeps out the word "ho" when this song is played. But Roo-girl? Can fill in the blanks. (And for the record, in my search for the Youtube version, I was stunned to find additional language issues that I didn't know about.)

It's not the only song that is slightly ... ahem ... edited before it can be played on the radio.  I am regularly appalled by what is routinely OUT THERE for young kids.

And for the record, I am no prude. I think my family's birthday dinners are proof positive of THAT.

However.

And here comes the however with a capital HOWEVER.

This song makes me insane.

Please note the opening lyrics:

Let's have some fun, this beat is sick.
I want to take a ride on your disco stick.

EXCUSE ME??????????

Now, I only know one possible interpretation for a "disco stick," used this way.

And to hear my daughter sing these lyrics makes my skin crawl.

This is the generation we're "grooming" to take over in a few years.

We're doomed.

Times Gone By

Guest Post by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

The power has gone out.  If you live in Spain, you get used to the occasional power outages. They often only last a few minutes but you never know: it might be hours or even days. We have a generator for exactly such situations but it's been acting up and today it doesn't seem to want to start at all.

Luckily, I've already printed out the paperwork that I need to proof-read, so I'm set. Alex is a bit more stressed about the lack of electric devices and begins to scurry around, looking lost.

Desperate for entertainment, he gets out my boyfriend's wind-up gramophone and asks for permission to play with it. My boyfriend is thrilled. He pulls out a tatty  box covered with thin blue leather-like material. Inside is all of his old records, a beautiful and eclectic collection started by his grandfather and inherited by his mother.  He shows Alex how to use the gramophone and then goes out to see if he can get the generator working, leaving him to play.

Alex plays Que Sera, Sera at varying speeds until I snap. For God's sake, enough!

"But it's in Spanish," he says, enchanted by his first exposure to Doris Day. "It's a beautiful song. I've never heard it before." I relent.

"Last time, then," I tell him. "Then check what's on the flip side."

"The what?"

"The other side." He is still looking at me blankly.  "The record? Turn it over?"

Comprehension finally dawns. "Oh wow, is it two-sided?" He's thrilled. I close my eyes in pain. I've never felt so old. Doris Day warbles We'll Love Again but at least this time it's at a fairly consistent speed.

"What else is there?" He goes digging through the records. Meanwhile my boyfriend returns to break the news that the generator is dead and looks to see what Alex is pulling out of the box.

"Not that one, that's a modern record," he says.

"Modern?" It's an LP. Alex's face is a picture: this is clearly a use of the word modern that he can not comprehend.

"What we bought when we were kids rather than what your grandparents bought when they were kids." As the words escape my mouth, Alex puts on When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along, circa 1926. I know my mother, whose first musical purchase was G.I. Blues by Elvis Presley, will not be impressed when Alex starts talking about "her" music and asking whether she had a gramophone like this when she was little.  Oops.

The lights flicker back on and before I can say "put it away if you are done," Alex has disappeared, his new toy forgotten. My boyfriend and I remain there, winding up the gramophone and listening to the hissing vocals of times gone by.   But it turns out Alex hasn't gone straight for the XBox, he is rummaging through the cupboards in the TV room, looking for more ancient treasures.

"What's this then," he asks, holding up a cassette tape. "It has Love Songs from Geoff, 1986 scribbled on it. Who is Geoff? Do you have a wind-up thing for listening to these, too?"

"Give me that!" I snatch it and make a mental note that I need to start  hiding my stuff. Meanwhile, we must have a tape player here somewhere, right? Just so I can have a quick listen. I haven't heard Journey in ever so long...

It's only Rock 'n Roll but I Like it

First, let me introduce myself. I am Amy, the new kid on the block on Wednesdays for awhile. You can also read me daily at i could cry but i dont have time Please bear with my stream of consciousness, conversational writing style. I promise, it will grow on you. Check out my profile and get to know me. Please be nice to me and let me sit at the cool table in the virtual cafeteria.

Ok, so maybe I am a bit old to be worried about that cool table, but those of you who live with teenagers know all too well how we tend to relive the adolescent years when we are raising those raging hormones.

As they have been for the past 7 summers, both of my teens are away at sleep-away camp. When they were young, their absence used to give my husband and I a chance to remember our life before we had kids. Now we find ourselves in a foreshadowing situation...

What life will be like AFTER we raised kids.

Ouch. We spend 20 some-odd years raising them, living our lives around them and then they have the nerve to grow up and move on!! Outrageous!

Or not.

The natural order takes hold. And quite frankly doing the things you once enjoyed are not a bad thing. Not bad at all.

I thought I would share an experience I had this past Friday night. We went to a local bar to hear some live music. This particular place has a great outdoor space on the water and it was a perfect summer night. A friend from town was singing and people turned out in droves to support her. The place was packed. Standing at the bar drinking an ice-cold Corona, I looked around and had an overwhelming sense of dejá vu. Not since I was in college had I been in a bar with live music where I knew so many people. Now I have a daughter in college! Experiences like these are HER world. But to be honest, I was mighty comfortable in that scene.

Does that make me suffer from a Peter Pan syndrome? Perhaps. Or maybe what makes us good parents to teens, what keeps us going and helps us to be sympathetic to their trials and tribulations is the fact that we can still relate so clearly to their lives. The music changes (although we all listen to a lot of the same things in this house), the clothes change (come to think of it Urban Outfitters looks like my closet from the '70s), the world has changed, but the experiences are very similar.

The net of it all for me is the ability to keep that sense of wonder. To pass on to my kids that vibe of excitement about life. In my book, that is the best inheritance we can leave them.

May we stay forever young.

Sometimes Even a "Concert Mom" Has to Say No

My sons, like many college students, are concert-goers.  They come by it honestly, I suppose.  I’ve been going to concerts since 1976.  My first was The Beach Boys.  The ticket was $5.  Times have changed.  And while I’ve gotten much more selective in my concert attending, they know there is one performer I will go to extremes to see.  They respect my dedication.  Partly because they know it makes it easier for them.  I’ve crossed several state lines, a time zone, and driven 7 hours round trip (on a work night, with two broken legs) to see Springsteen, and they’ve done the same (without the broken legs, I should add) for Dave.  The Dave Matthews Band for the uninitiated.

So, when my #1 Son called to get my take on his latest concert plan, I was ready to say yes.  In the past few years, I’ve said yes to he and his two best buddies taking a 10-day driving tour of the Midwest to see 7 shows.  I said yes to him leaving a family vacation a day early so the same two friends could pick him up and head to NYC for two shows.  I even said yes this past fall when he’d won two tickets to a show at West Point which required him to buy an airline ticket from Ohio (where he’s in college) and miss two days of classes.

But this time, I had to say no. 

Because it would be the night before his college graduation.  The night when family from several time zones would be congregating in Columbus, Ohio to watch him graduate and celebrate with him.  Now, as he pointed out to me, this was a once in a lifetime event.  The concert, not the graduation.  Dave would be performing at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.  His (#1 Son's) hometown.  His favorite band playing in his favorite team’s home.  He said to me, “Mom, it’d be like Springsteen playing at Wrigley Field.  Or Lambeau.”  I told him I understood that, and I sympathized, and I wished I could say yes, but I just couldn’t. 

He asked one more time if that was a firm no.  It was.  He sounded unconvinced and I suspected he’d still check to see if there were any flights that might make it workable—you know, him seeing the concert and being back at OSU in plenty of time to don his cap and gown.

But then, a few days ago this same son called to thank me for making him do the right thing.  As he said, it would be rude to not be with all the people who had supported him and looked out for him his whole life. 

It felt good to know that not only had I passed on a love of concerts but also a love of family.

Labels: college, concerts, Dave Matthews Band, Family: Never a dull moment, parenting, Springsteen, teens

Questions You Live For

   

    

Posted by Neener

Last night, 11:00 pm, comes a knock on the door, and one of those questions you live for.

 

"Mom, if you could only afford to download 1 Bob Dylan album, which would it be?"

 

We kicked it around for awhile, debating electric Dylan vs. acoustic Dylan, and on his very own, G decided on: Highway 61 Revisited. 

 

I guess I done good raising this boy after all.

(cross posted at Voted off the Island)

   

          

Labels: Bob Dylan, music

    

Posted by Neener

Last night, 11:00 pm, comes a knock on the door, and one of those questions you live for.

 

"Mom, if you could only afford to download 1 Bob Dylan album, which would it be?"

 

We kicked it around for awhile, debating electric Dylan vs. acoustic Dylan, and on his very own, G decided on: Highway 61 Revisited. 

 

I guess I done good raising this boy after all.

(cross posted at Voted off the Island)