Brand new enormous size 11 big man leather dress shoes … triple tied.

My son has said all of four words to me this week. They are:

“Pizza”
“No”
and, “I forgot.”

So I’m working at the school bookstore yesterday and the mother of one of his friends approaches me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “I just have to congratulate you on your son,” she says. “He is just charming.”

“Oh my God,” I think to myself. “This is just brutal sarcasm. What the hell has he done now?” And yet, she continues, smiling. “What is your secret? ” She asks. I stare at her paralyzed. Does she know who she’s talking to? Is she on acid? Does she need money?

“We had the most wonderful conversation last week,” she continues (probably in a polite way to cover up the fact that I am just standing there squinting at her.) “He just loves the middle school and how ’bout that new girlfriend?”

I’m lost. Now what? I can’t let this woman know that I have NO IDEA WHAT SHE’S TALKING ABOUT. I can’t let her know that while thrilled with the notion that my son could have an actual conversation, let alone look up long enough to identify a girl and separate her from the pack, I am completely confused by what she is saying. Another woman strolls over. “Are you telling her about what Danny did at the field trip?” she asks the first mother. Then she turns to me. “He gave his lunch to a crying kid who forgot his.”

Okay. This isn’t funny anymore. He noticed something? He gave away his lunch? Who am I living with? Well I can tell you. I’m living with non-communicative primordial ooze. So why is it that when my little neanderthal is out in the world, he’s Ralph Freaking Lauren?

The answer is obvious. It’s to spite me. It’s to keep me off balance. It’s to make me into a raving maniac. (Like I needed any help with that.) Have you seen the classic movie “Gaslight?” Well, this is his version of that. This is how he begins his control of my life. This is how he makes me believe that he is sane and I am not. And dammit if it’s not working.

And then the report card comes. “Danny is always happy.”

Oh COME ON.

“I am so impressed with Danny. He has a natural maturity and willingness to try just about anything.”

This is just cruel.

“Danny is a fervent lab partner who seems to really enjoy the discovery aspect of this course.”

No. Danny is a sullen, angry teenager who despises anything that requires him to rise from the couch and regrets ever being born. What is actually happening here?

Okay. There are a few times that he is attentive and willing to help out. But this is always in trade for a ride to a distant friends house or the purchase of an extremely murderous X-Box game. So of course, the question here is, why is he so completely lovely at school and when visiting friends, but at home I get the exasperating back-breaking hypochondriac whose life I ruin on a daily basis? Honest -to-God I have sat here for the last thirty-five minutes trying to figure out the answer. Finally I decided, screw it. I went into the den, paused the television and read him this entry. “What is it?” I asked. “Why are you like this?”

He turned to me, thoughtfully. I could see in his eyes that he was interested and trying to find the right words to help me. “This is it,” I thought. “I can see the beautiful human being that all those other mothers were telling me about.” He opens his mouth…

“Dunno.”

Five words.

Can I just ask why I try this hard and still look this bad??

These days parenting is all about building children’s confidence. “Give them some authority,” is the new rule. “Let them know you value their opinion.” “Invite their input.” I bought into this completely during my son’s elementary school years. I made him feel as though he could do anything. I went out and got all the books. I used the words that they taught me. Words like:

“I sure wish I’d had half your ability at math when I was in school.”
“Can you help me organize the closet? You’re so much better than I am at figuring out where things go.”
“How do you think we should do this? I can’t decide.”

The end result is that my kid thinks I’m a bumbling moron. When I go to turn on the T.V., he holds his hand out and says, “Oh my God. Give me the remote.” As we walk out the door he asks, “did you at least remember your keys?”

This can’t possibly be what the psychologists had in mind.

Not only that, he’s very sure that since he’s the only capable one in the house that he has a say in everything that happens around here. For example, a simple Saturday morning will sound like this:

Me:” Okay sweetheart, we need to go run some errands.”
Him: “No.

Obviously I’ve lost control when I’m required to come up with a valid reason for him to leave his computer. Whatever happened to “Get in the goddamn car?” When I was a kid in Michigan, and my parents told me to get in the car, it didn’t matter where they were going, I just got in the car. I got in the car once and ended up in California. I had no idea. New house, new school, no questions. Because my parents weren’t interested in my input AT ALL. If someone had told my father to let me have a little authority, he would have taken a sip of his J&B and uttered his famous phrase. “The door swings both ways.” I remember being horrified. If I didn’t like his rules, I could leave. I tried that little gem out on my son. He replied, “Not only that, the window in the bathroom won’t close.”

And I’m beginning to think it’s too late for me to regain our former master/slave relationship. I suppose it’s my fault for listening to the “experts” who decided that children should have power. Where are these geniuses now that the kid is 5′11″ and ripped? Surely there must be a follow-up book out there explaining the procedure for taking down a teenager who thinks he has it all figured out. I’m thinking Fruity Pebbles, netting and bungie cords.

Me: “Tomorrow after school, we need to get your hair cut.”
Him: “No.”

Seriously though, he’s not rude. And eventually he will become a strong man with solid well thought out opinions. It’s just that right now it’s hard to believe that someone who draws monsters on his arms with a Sharpie pen can be so freaking sure of himself. And you know, maybe that’s what’s so irritating. I think I might be mad at him because I’ve NEVER felt that sure of anything. Never.

So, let’s review. I now resent my son for being exactly what I tried to make him. Someone more confident than I am.

Damn it to HELL.

Rae

My house is nothing if not an enormous communication system. It happened little by little but at this point I’m pretty sure that the U.S. government is tracking what goes on in our den.

My son sits at his computer and next to him is a phone on ’speaker,’ which is running a conference call between him and all his friends playing a particular computer game. It took me a while to figure out what was going on but eventually I realized that when I talk in my house, it’s being broadcast through his phone to no less than five other people’s homes, all of whom have their kids on speaker phone. So in essence, when I stand in the kitchen yelling, “Get your hideous dog out of here, he’s farting into the dishwasher,” that information is being simultaneously transmitted out to families across the city.

But to be fair, their daily household events are also being sent to us. I now realize that if I pay a little attention, I can hear all kinds of intimate things coming from other people’s homes. I know that Sebastian’s mother has a raging yeast infection which is why she has refused to have sex for the last three weeks. I know Zachary’s family is selling their vacation home because his dad lost his job, which according to Zachary’s mom is “Exactly what happens when you pour a half a bottle of scotch into your morning Starbucks you freaking LOSER” and it turns out that Eric’s mom found a very revealing photo of Matthew McConaughey in Eric’s dad’s sock drawer.

When you think about it, all this socializing is kind of good for an only child with a working mom. It’s like he always has friends over. At night, I come home to the sound of kids yelling and talking and phones ringing and texts dinging. It’s warm and fun and a good time is being had by all. “Hi everyone! I’m home.” No response. “I’m home from work you guys!” Nothing. So much communication and yet, no one has any desire to talk to me. “I suppose you’re all desperate to know what kind of day I had.” Sure they are. “Well I’ll tell you. My day was so good that I’m going to go slit my wrists in the shower.”

My son’s computer is also equipped with I.M. which means “Instant Message.” As best as I can tell, the guys use the I.M. function to talk behind each others back while they are on the conference call. Occasionally I’ve noticed that my son also speaks into a headset which it turns out is attached to “X-Box Live” where he is monitoring a game of Halo being played by people all over the country on our 50″ high def television. Oh, and also, about every six seconds, there is the sound of breaking glass. That’s his cell phone ringing, so yet another genius can inquire as to what’s ’sup at our house. If you do the math, the kid is now communicating with up to twelve people on four different devices at any given time while I continue to fuck up call-waiting.

Last night I finally got my son to bed and went downstairs to lock up. Everything was quiet. The t.v. was turned off, the dogs were asleep. I turned off the lights and glanced over to his computer. The phone was off the hook and the little red light was glowing. I leaned toward the phone slowly…

“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Who’s this?”
“This is Eric.”
“Aha. Well, Eric, it’s a school night. Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the shower slitting your wrists?”

I guess someone was paying attention.

Oh! P.S. If you really listen, it turns out Sebastian’s mom does not have any kind of infection at all. She’s just taking a little break.

Rae

I wake up five hours before I have to go to work so I can get my son up, make sure he’s got everything he needs in his backpack, give him a hot breakfast, hug him, wish him a good day and send him to the bus stop. As best I can tell, this pisses him off

Is it possible to describe the way a person walks down a flight of stairs as “resentful?” Can one characterize the intake of toast as “outraged?”

I guess it’s not just the clean clothing and hot nutritious food that makes him so angry. I think he also has a problem with the way I relentlessly call out the time as the morning goes on.

“Six-thirty five! Twenty-five minutes ’til the bus!”
“Six-fifty! Ten minutes ’til the bus. That’s ten minutes!!”

And he lays there. Fully dressed on the couch under a throw, staring spellbound at recorded episodes of Family Guy that even I can quote verbatim. He has ignored his bagel and licked a piece of cantaloupe.

“Eat!! Eat!! Do you have your shoes on? You hair isn’t combed and you need to pack up your stuff. NI-IIINE MINUTES ‘TIL THE BUS!”

The blessed bus. I love the bus. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Instead of driving him all the way to school every morning, I now have time to walk the dogs, take a real shower, occasionally wash my hair. The school sent us a photo of the bus driver. I put her picture up in our kitchen and I thought about her all summer. Her name is Loretta and it’s because of her that I can exercise. I can straighten the house before I leave. I can be an actual adult working woman instead of a sponged-off raving maniac wearing a baseball cap and one earring.

“FOUR MINUTES!” I see some movement under the blanket. I have aggravated the situation to the point where he may even speak. He rises slowly and moves into the bathroom where he brushes his teeth and grows two inches.

“Time’s up!” I call out. And yet, there’s still so much more to do. He needs to find his shoes, do a little dance, pet the dogs, put on a shoe, pet the dogs, put on the other shoe, check out the t.v… oops, his sock is inside out.

Does anyone else remember that commercial where the businessman races into the mini-mart and asks for a fast cup of coffee and they cut to the back of the store where Juan Valdez stands at a coffee bush counting as he picks… “One coffeeeeee beeeeean….. two coffeeeee beeeeans….” That’s what this feels like to me.

Sweat is trickling down the side of my head. I give up the facade of him getting himself ready. I grab a kitchen towel and scrub it over his face. I throw his I.D. and his phone at him, place his backpack in his hands, physically turn him around and shove him out the front door.

He gets on the bus, and I stand at the front door waving. “Goodbye, Loretta… I love you… have a good day…!”

I am the oldest of six and my mother was born on Christmas.  There was no way to win.  If you spent time with her on her birthday, she cried because you didn’t like your new Christmas toys.  If you played with your toys, she ran in her room and slammed the door because clearly you thought  Christmas was more important than her birthday.

On a normal school day if you were to say, try to  read a book, she would yell upstairs that she “wishes she had time to just read.”   If you were a teenager and asked to go out to a party, she’d mutter,  ”So, your plan is to just leave me here  by myself with all these kids ?”  And when I sold my first T.V. show she wondered if  I’d,  ”finally  be able to get her a job.”

It’s possible I am predisposed to guilt.

The thing is,  I have been through literally decades of therapy.  I recognize guilt.  I  wave at it as it approaches.  Guilt is an old friend I think I’ve outgrown but because we have so much history together, can’t quite bring myself to cut off.  She shows up without any warning (no way Guilt is a guy), embraces me, and to tell the truth,  I hug back.   We feel so comfortable together, that I’m honestly glad to see her.  ”Oh, there you are!” I cry,   “You certainly got here in the nick of time. Listen to this!  I almost went out to dinner with some friends rather than rushing home to be shunned by my son.”

This is a very long way of saying I’m worried that I’m  passing this hard-wired guilt on.

In really ugly ways.

My son asks to have a couple friends sleep-over after I’ve worked until 11:00 the night before and I say, “Oh good.  Let’s make sure you have fun.  Don’t worry about me.  I’ll just serve all of you several meals, clean up and lay in bed at two in the morning praying you’ll all go to bed soon.  I’m pretty sure the six hours of sleep I had last night should be enough to last me for the rest of the weekend.”   Or I will be trying to get out of the house to do something for myself and he will suddenly need to be taken to a school thing or require help on a project.  ”That’s okay, honey,” I say,  ” I didn’t really want a massage.  I don’t actually need new shoes.   It doesn’t matter.  Nothing I want to do ever matters.”

I don’t want to be this person.  This person is my mother.  I-am-not-my-mother.

Yet.

So one night after two (read: four) glasses of wine, I decided to help him through this flaw in my character . I sit him down and tell him all about the way I was brought up.  I explain my mother and what terrible guilt she inflicted on me and how sometimes I can’t help trying to make him feel guilty because it’s so ingrained in my blood.  Then I made the mistake of a lifetime.  I tell him that when I try to give him guilt, he should refuse to accept it.

Wa-aaay too much ammunition.

First of all, and this is key… no more wine before mother-son talks.  Secondly, I have to find a way to take this back because now it appears I have absolutely no leverage.  I used to be able to make him feel really terrible.  I can’t tell you how much I miss that.  Now he looks at me and asks, “Is that guilt?”  ”No!  No,” I cry. “Not guilt!  This is all medically documented.  My back is actually broken from working all day to support this house.  Raising you has literally taken years off my life.”

And now armed with his new information, he laughs at me.

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s a good thing.  Maybe I have kept my son from drowning in my bottomless pit of guilt.  Maybe I have broken the ugly pattern and saved generations of children from misery.

But I have screwed myself royally.  Don’t worry.  That doesn’t matter.  I wanted to be screwed.  Really.

Rae

So this morning I'm staggering around, still asleep making coffee and feeding the two hundred pounds of dog we've managed to adopt and out of nowhere, my son mumbles something about going out for the debate team.

My initial response to this is for my heart to leap into my throat, to throw my arms around the dogs and yell "OH THANK YOU GOD HE'S INTERESTED IN SOMETHING THAT'S NOT ON X-BOX." 

But, no.  I'm smarter than that. 

I know that if I move too fast or show any actual excitement, he will back away from whatever he is interested in like it was writhing on the floor and rattling.  I look up. I tilt my head slightly.

"Hm," I say.  "Let me know how it goes."

I drop him off at the bus stop, race home and spend an hour looking up articles in the school newspaper about the debate team.  The debate team is good!!!  They win a lot!! It's incredible preparation for both researching and public speaking!!  I Google "Middle School Debate Questions."  I momentarily consider e-mailing the dean, (posing as my son, of course,) and asking what the try-outs entail. 

During a break at work I start to think about the question upon which they've been asked to speak.  "Does Wikipedia do more Harm than Good?"  I come up with some captivating opening remarks on the subject.  I write them down, thinking maybe I can casually drop a couple of these gems during dinner and nudge him in the right direction.   

I order a sandwich and sit down at my desk to learn the rules of debate. Forget my actual job.  That's a drag.  I need to find out how one persuades an audience that their argument is the correct one.  That their reasoning is flawless.  Convinces judges that theirs is the side of truth and righteousness

And then it occurs to me. Do I want my son to have this ability? 

Huh.  I mean, the concept of "debate" is such an educational Ivy League kind of thing that I just jumped in and started pushing for it. But let's think about this.  Why the hell would I want my kid to learn how to argue? Why would I want to live in a house with someone who deals only with absolute and irrefutable logic?

"Time for bed!"  

"Oh, Mom.  You silly thing.  In 1997 the Brookheim Institute of Teenage Sleep proved that I actually get more rest if I nod off at the computer while playing violent games." 

"I said, go to bed."

"I'm sorry… 'I said??'… Is that supposed to be an argument?"

"I don't need to argue.  I am your mother."

"Again, I must point out to you that your title is not a rational defense."

This could be a real problem. 

Okay, well now I'm praying that he fails the try-outs.  My mind wanders and I begin to picture the debate room.  I can almost smell it.  I see the judges.  The nervous kids. The moderator smiles sincerely.  He turns to my thirteen year old who stands at a lectern.  He speaks. "The question we will explore today is: Does Wikipedia do more harm than good?" My son looks at him thoughtfully.  His mouth opens.

"What?"

"Wikipedia."

"What about it?"

"Does it do more harm than good?"

"When?"

"When people use it.  In general, does it do more harm than good?"

"I guess."

It's possible I don't have anything to worry about.

Rae

I have often thought that it would be far more constructive for pharmaceutical companies to come up with, rather than new diet drugs, simply a drug that makes one taller.  For example, I myself at 5'2", would have a perfect body without losing any weight at all if I could just add on, say, two feet.

Consider it.  If they could figure out what the chemical is in my son's body that grows him taller every night wouldn't it then be possible to extract some of that chemical or hormone or whatever, make a synthetic version out of it, package it nicely, say in a pretty green (for growing) box and sell it? It's a billion dollar idea.  We could call it, "Rotundanol" or "Short-Be-Gone."  I would buy stock in a company that was doing that. They do it for penises for God's sake, why not fat women??

I admit I am frustrated when I watch my son eat.  He got up this morning and devoured two blueberry muffins, 3 eggs and 3 waffles.  Two hours later, he consumed 18 Bagel Bites. At the school picnic this afternoon he had french fries and Kettle Korn. The rest of the day, while he sits completely stagnant on a couch for 6 hours playing X-Box, he will eat a full bowl of spaghetti covered with parmesan cheese, buttered bread, an orange soda, a bowl of cereal (just so he doesn't get hungry) and a couple brownies. Tonight he will grow a half an inch and when he wakes up in the morning his ribs will show through his skin.

I on the other hand today had a banana, a yogurt and a glass of wine.  I walked the dogs two miles and did 106 sit ups.  Tonight while I sleep, my spine will contract and when I wake up in the morning, I'll be shorter, stiffer, uglier and able to dent a Volkswagon with my hip.

Is it wrong that I am jealous?  Shouldn't I be a bigger person than this? Shouldn't I know that my time is over and be thrilled that my beautiful son has the good fortune to possess a spectacular lean, graceful body?  I guess I should.  It's just that —  I'm so hungry. 

Skele-Tall… Elongatrin…Moreovyu…ElimaChub.  Somebody, please. 

So, as you've probably gathered, I've started to become quite disturbed about my son's (lol) "cleanliness."  

Let's take the other night.  We were in the middle of a bonding moment.  We have Netflixed "Gladiator," and the scene is the Roman Coliseum where there appear to be ravenous tigers who want to jump on Russell Crowe.  Well yes.  So do I.  But in a horny, naughty way, not in a way that will cause him to bleed to death. So to avoid seeing my sweet, sweet Russell mauled beyond recognition, I turn my head to the left where my son is sitting (probably yearning for the bloodbath). 

Even in the low light, I detect a conspicuous globule of wax nestled in the kid's right ear. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?" I demand, as I (because I can't help it,) start to stick my index finger directly into his ear. He karate chops my arm away.  "What the hell!," he says.  Ooh.  Hell.  I've forgotten that he's not three anymore.  That I'm not allowed to stick my fingers into any of his orifices without permission.  

"Honey, really." I say, rubbing my poor arm.  "When was the last time you cleaned out your ears?"  And of course he tells me that he "showers every night."

Well I don't care that he showers every night.  That's just bullshit.  I don't know how, but he comes out of this 'alleged' shower each time with wet hair that smells like rainforest mushrooms.  He comes out with dirt rings under his "cocaine dealer" fingernails and Sharpie on his arms.  He emerges having been in there under streaming hot water for no less than twenty-eight minutes and the BOTTOMS of his feet are still dirty.  You know. The bottoms.  The part that's actually been submerged  for the entire SEVENTY GALLONS of water.  Still dirty.  Still.

I open my mouth to explain to him that it must have taken weeks for that kind of wax to build up in his ear and that if he doesn't start seriously cleaning himself, I'm going to take a washrag to him here and now and… 

…probably ruin the bonding moment. 

I glance over to the television.  Russell is triumphant.  He has managed to slaughter along with two enormous angry tigers, a small army of Roman foot soldiers.  

And he's still cleaner than my son.