Preview of coming attractions…

: Frankly, I’m in the “I’d rather be surprised” school of parenting.

One of my best friends has a teenage son who consistently challenges both her and her husband in every imaginable way. Often as I watch their travails, I feel like I’m sitting at Harkin’s watching my very own preview of coming attractions. and much like I often feel at the theatre, the previews are too detailed, too graphic, and they ruin the movie by telling you exactly what’s “coming soon.” Frankly, I’m in the “I’d rather be surprised” school of parenting. I mean, what’s the point of preparation anyway? It’s not like I’m really gonna alter my child-rearing tactics in order to avoid a whole new array of potential parenting pitfalls.

So the latest one is this: Joey (not his real name), likes to dip into the alcohol and marijuana. Now we’ve all been 17 so that’s not really such an outrageous occurrence. But they’re conscientious parents and have instituted random drug tests in order to curb the undesired behavior. Now Joey, as might be expected, lies about ingesting both the booze and the pot in order to avoid negative consequences. Hard to discern which is worse, but my friends’ have focused more on the lying than the actual drug and alcohol offense.

Well, the other day Joey comes to his mom and says that he’s been invited to his friend Scott’s house on Saturday night for a beer pong party. They intend to get good and hammered and then stay overnight to sleep off the stupor. Joey preempts his mom’s concerns by clarifying that no one will be getting behind the wheel of a car, Scott’s parents will be home, and he really ought to be rewarded with the opportunity of going to the party since he is, after all, telling her the truth while not yet under any type of guilt-ridden duress.

What to do? She asked my advice. I wanted to say, “Are you kidding? I have no frickin’ idea on this one. My kids are children for Gods sake. They’re never gonna be 17 year old man-boys who want to partake in ugly adult activities. How in the hell would I know what to do?” But I self-edited and just said, “Um…I guess you should let him go. After all, I do remember being a teenager. If you say no he’s just gonna do it anyway and lie about it.” Then I added something to the effect of “I guess a vice you know about at a supervised party is better than one you don’t know about that drives around under the influence with five other teenage boys who all believe they’re immune to mortality.”

I’m not sure she appreciated my aphorism.

But the question hasn’t left my mind since our conversation. Eventually I too will have to make decisions of this magnitude. And frankly, I don’t have a clue about what the right thing to do is. I remember how my parents forbid just about everything. Consequently, I remember lying –a lot. I know some people consider their adolescent kids to be pre-adults and rather than participating in long, drawn out arguments, would rather just be “friends” with their kids so they green light pretty much everything. I’ve even heard tell of parents who actually enjoy a few puffs of the cannabis plant along with their youngsters.

I spoke with a teetotaler pal of mine the other day and she looked at me askance when I announced that in our house, a few sips of wine now and again wasn’t verboten. “We believed more in the European model of parenting,” I added, feeling more than a little ashamed to admit it.

What is right, I wonder. There will likely be scores of perplexing problems ahead. Yet I go through life wondering why I’m the only progenitor who missed parent orientation and is going through the experience blindly without access to that mythical handbook everyone else seems to have in their possession. It’s scary. And frustrating.

I guess that’s why I’d rather skip the previews and just be stunned by whatever reality awaits me.

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School supply shopping is now a full-contact sport

Ah...the dreaded back-to-school shopping list

Ah, shopping for school supplies. Is there anything…worse? It is truly one of life’s most horrible experiences. First of all, why do they need so damn much? I mean, honestly, are they really gonna use one pencil a week for the next 36 weeks? That’s a lot of lead. Isn’t that like bad for the environment or something? To add insult to injury, one mom I know told me that she had to individually write her kid’s name on each and every pencil. I thought she was joking. I mean, please. Have we resorted to purchasing pricey designer number 2 pencils nowadays? Who gives a crap if your kid uses the wrong pencil? And the stuff really adds up fast. It was probably wrong to tell my son he could have the Mario Wii game if we netted out at under $100. His subsequent tantrum was rather embarrassing I must admit. After he composed himself he looked at our $160 stash and said, “School costs enough. I think the teachers should just buy all the school supplies themselves and give them to students.”

Of course I used that as a teachable moment to launch into a diatribe about the shattered state of education in the country (and particularly within our own state confines) and shared with him the rather disturbing fact that Nationwide, teachers earn a whopping .88 for every dollar earned by those in “comparable” positions.* This might have gone over my 9-year-old’s head.

But back to the chaos of the school supply aisle. It reminded me of Passover shopping on Devon Avenue at Hungarian when I was a little kid growing up in Chicago. (While this image may only be accessible to a few of you, it is such a perfect analogy that I had to include it.) Only instead of large Jewish women with short, complacent husbands body checking me in the macaroon aisle, here we had hordes of over-privileged children violently grabbing the last few packs of sharpened pencils, staplers and highlighters with absolutely no regard for personal space, safety or courtesy. And their parents were even worse.

One lady literally raced me to the dry-erase pen section after I foolishly pointed out its whereabouts to my dazed son who’d been up and down the aisles three or four times without spotting them. She took the very last package of pens. “Um, excuse me,” I politely announced. “My son was on his way over to get those. I believe you heard me direct him to this section, and then you ran over here before he could get here and took the last package of pens. Don’t you think you’re being a little too competitive?”

“Hey,” she smiled with self-satisfaction, “You snooze, you loose.”

I thought about smacking her upside the head.

But then I decided that her husband was probably a personal injury attorney, (no offense, Barry), and that she’d end up suing me for like 18 million dollars because I somehow managed to puncture her breast implant while attempting to kick her in the teeth. It just…wasn’t worth it.

For a brief psychotic moment I thought about taking both of my children to purchase their school supplies at the same time. But, seeing as I’m organizationally challenged and probably undiagnosed ADHD, the image of myself hopelessly trying to follow two diverse lists, while fighting off insurgent parents and checking off appropriate list items as they landed in my cart was a little too much for me. Instead, I made it a “fun” mommy and me outing for each child individually, complete with a post shopping trip to the local fro yo shop.

While the signature tart, fat free, icy treat (that I insisted in smothering with Heath Bar sprinkles) did help to somewhat lessen the post traumatic stress reaction I was experiencing, truth be told, it barely took the edge off. What I needed was a Ketel One, double Martini, not too dry, just a little dirty if I was to go home and return to the battle field with child number two.

Luckily it was too close to bedtime to play out the second half of this cutthroat educational acquisition competition. We tabled it for the night. But let me tell you, come tomorrow morning, I am gonna be a force to be reckoned with. So if you see me coming down the aisle, accordion folder in hand, please, for the love of God, get the hell out of my way.

*Incidentally, “comparable” positions according to the report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center (EPE) includes reporters, insurance underwriters, and even museum curators to name a few. The report also noted that it is, in fact, teaching quality that matters more than anything else in a child’s education, and astutely added that a child’s likelihood of succeeding in life depends greatly on which state he or she is born into since education varies so erratically from state to state.

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Rejection

I had jury duty yesterday, and for the first time ever, I wasn’t able to get out of it.
Now I have to admit that part of me thought the whole thing was kind of cool; fulfilling my responsibility as an American citizen, and all that patriotic stuff. But after 20 minutes of sitting in the crowded holding room with 25 other potential jurors, I was pretty much over the whole civic duty propaganda.

Visions of “12 Angry Men” filled my head as I carefully assessed each of the other prospective jurors. would that nice middle-aged woman with the cute hair-cut be the Jack Lemmon character? Would I? Who can predict who will stand up for the downtrodden defendant and who will sympathize with the alleged victim?

Once we moved into the courtroom, the judge asked us a bunch of questions about our preconceived notions and biases. It was a DUI case so he asked us about our alcoholic drinking practices, our understanding of the drinking and driving laws, whether we were related to attorneys or law enforcement officers. And then came the fateful question: were we ever involved in a drunk driving incident. I raised my hand immediately, surprised that the memory was still so accessible. It had been 15 years, but you don’t forget having your car totaled by a drunk driver whose head going through his own windshield didn’t even sober him up. I thought it was odd that the judge didn’t even ask me the standard follow up question “would anything about that prevent you from rendering an unbiased opinion in this case?” Hmmm? Maybe that meant I’d be excused and could still run a few errands before pick-up.

After the questioning, they led us into the main hall to await their selection. When we came back into the courtroom, they read the names of the chosen jurors and asked them to take seats in the jury box. But here’s the really strange part; instead of feeling relieved, remember I didn’t want to do this in the first place, I felt rejected. Why hadn’t they wanted me? I could have been impartial. I mean, one drunk apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl. My heart sank. I looked around to see if the weird lady with the photo tote was disappointed too? What about that pretty law school student, was she disheartened?

The selected jurors looked proud, as if there was something special about them. I even detected a slightly haughty air as they glanced around the room at those of us still sitting in the cheap seats. They actually felt superior to us. I mean after all, they had made the cut. It reminded me of every cheerleading and pom-pon try-out I’d botched. It was weird.

My spurned feelings abated much quicker than usual, though. On average, I spend at least 48 hours berating myself for every rejection notice I get these days. In this instance, I felt fully recovered by the time I pulled out of the parking lot.

I consoled myself with a trip to Saks and a frozen yogurt. I only wish that would work with my more significant disappointments.