I've Had It Up to Here with Teenagers Read online

  I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH

  TEENAGERS

  ALSO BY MELINDA RAINEY THOMPSON

  SWAG: Southern Women Aging Gracefully

  The SWAG Life

  I Love You—Now Hush (with Morgan Murphy)

  I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH

  TEENAGERS

  MELINDA RAINEY THOMPSON

  JOHN F. BLAIR PUBLISHER

  Winston-Salem, North Carolina

  Published by

  JOHN F. BLAIR

  PUBLISHER

  1406 Plaza Drive

  Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103

  www.blairpub.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Melinda Rainey Thompson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or

  portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address

  John F. Blair, Publisher, Subsidiary Rights Department,

  1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103.

  COVER IMAGE

  © H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/CLASSICSTOCK/CORBIS

  Cover design by Brooke Csuka

  Interior by Debra Long Hampton and Morgan Hawk

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thompson, Melinda Rainey, 1963-

  I’ve had it up to here with teenagers / by Melinda Rainey Thompson.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-89587-569-3 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-89587-570-9 (ebook) 1.

  Parent and teenager—Humor. I. Title.

  PN6231.P2T47 2012

  306.87402’07—dc23

  2011042558

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my three teenagers:

  Warner, Nat, and Lily.

  I love you more than my next breath.

  Contents

  A Letter from the Author

  LIFE LESSONS

  What’s with the Attitude?

  The Not-So-Sweet Sounds of Teen ’Tude

  Do I Have to Pay for That?

  Yours, Mine, and Ours

  Curfew Conundrums

  Sorry I’m Late

  Have You Considered the Consequences?

  Choices, Choices, Choices

  Where Did You Get That Idea?

  You Can’t Believe Everything You Hear …

  THE COMFORTS OF HOME

  Laundry Laments

  You Can’t Teach Teenagers …

  Don’t Look under the Bed

  Things I Have Found in My Teenagers’ Rooms

  What’s for Dinner?

  Things Teens Say That Enrage the Cook

  TEENS ON THE LOOSE

  Where Are You Going Dressed Like That?

  Clothing Complaints

  Can I Drive?

  Straight from the Mouths of Teenage Drivers

  Who Are You Talking To?

  www.Teenager

  Leave a Light On, Please

  The Mom Chaperon

  The Rebuttal by Warner Thompson

  Acknowledgments

  A Letter from the Author

  Dear Reader,

  Writing books is the most fun job in the world. No question about it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my books. As long as you continue to read, I get to keep writing.

  Is there anything I can get you, by the way? I really am very grateful.

  The most important job I’ll ever do in my life is to rear my children well. So far, they’re turning out nicely. They’re good kids. I like them. Other people do, too. I love them with a depth and breadth that frightens me sometimes. They’re no trouble for anyone but me. That’s the truth. It is also true that they make me absolutely nuts on a fairly regular basis.

  Because I am a mean mama, not one of those sweet mamas, I thought long and hard before writing this book. I knew that if I ever decided to “go there,” it wouldn’t be pretty. I write humorous essays. That means I use stories from my real life. I don’t get out that much. The humor in my books has always been at my expense, no one else’s. This time, the humor is a little bit at my teenagers’ expense, too. It is possible that I enjoyed writing this book a little too much. For months, when people asked my kids, “Is your mom writing another book?” they answered, “Yeah, she’s writing a revenge book about teenagers.” This response was accompanied by a teenage eye roll, of course.

  I’m not sure what my teenagers are going to think when this book hits the shelves. I gave each of them the opportunity to read the manuscript beforehand and the option to remove anything they found particularly embarrassing, but mostly they were too busy to bother. They may live to regret that. My older son asked to write a rebuttal, which appears at the end of the book. That seemed fair to me. After all, I got to go first.

  I hope that you enjoy reading about my very ordinary life. Every day offers moments of joy and sorrow. I bet my life is a lot like yours. Laughing at my highs and lows is sure to make you feel better about your own parenting. I guarantee it. We’re all in this together, you know.

  As always, I hope you find your life in these pages and laugh out loud. That’s why I wrote this book.

  All best wishes,

  Melinda Rainey Thompson

  LIFE LESSONS

  What’s with the Attitude?

  Teenagers know everything. If you are unaware of this well-known fact, then I can only assume you do not currently live with, nor have you ever lived with, anyone between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. In teenagers’ minds, their omniscience is a given. On teenager Fantasy Island, the converse is also true. Grownups know nothing at all. According to kids, we’re all dumb as dirt. This premise is well established in households throughout the country and, for all I know, the world. I’ve heard we parents smarten up again when our kids hit their early twenties. I look forward to that. It’ll be a nice change to have my wise counsel occasionally appreciated. These days, I receive eye rolls, deep sighs, and dramatic protests in return for my you-better-listen-to-what-I’m-telling-you-because-you’re-going-to-need-this-information-later sermons.

  In their minds, no one else has ever been a teenager before in the history of the world, so we cannot possibly understand the intricate complexities of their social lives. We know-nothing parents couldn’t possibly have had similar problems or experiences when we were young. I am not sure our kids are convinced we were ever actually their age. They simply can’t imagine it. It’s beyond their ken. I suppose they think we were born old, fat, wrinkled, farsighted, and boring. Certainly, they can’t imagine us dating. At the most, my kids may see the rare peck on the lips between my husband and me. (Who has the time, energy, or privacy for more than that? Tell the truth: if you have an extra hour and a kid-free house, which do you pick, a nap or a romantic interlude? Nap, right?) Their reaction is to close their eyes and say, “Gross!” Apparently, any public display of affection between people over the age of forty makes teenagers physically ill. It’s just another way they make the grownups in their lives feel special.

  I have watched the thoughts flitter across my teens’ expressive faces on more than one occasion and read the message loud and clear: my teenagers think I am too stupid to live. That’s not true. I’m not stupid, by God, and I have the degrees to prove it. It irritates me to no end to be condescended to by teenagers. When my daughter had the gall to say to me out loud one day, “What do you know about it?” in the middle of a heated discussion about boys and girls and the birds and the bees, my answer flew out of my mouth without a second’s hesitation: “I know plenty, missy!” Then I stalked out of the room in a huff, just like a teenage girl (which I used to be, contrary to popular belief).

  If I had to pick the one thing th
at annoys me most about living with teenagers—which I admit would be hard to do because the competition for that slot is tough and varies from day to day, depending upon who or what has set me off most recently—I would have to say that it is the classic teenage attitude toward … everything. Sometimes, it’s not so much the words they choose; it’s the tone in which they mutter those words under their breath. Most teenagers are too cool for school. The cockiness is usually not even a millimeter thick, of course. They can be brought down to earth in seconds with a few well-chosen words. Whoever said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” didn’t have my vocabulary.

  Even the most personable teenagers rarely allow themselves to display the excitement they revealed all the time as children. It’s as if they’ve all taken some kind of pledge.

  1.Don’t show too much excitement, no matter how tempted you are to rave over something. An overt display of excitement gives grownups a big head.

  2.Even if you are okay with a plan suggested by a grownup, complain about it. It’s just good form.

  3.Even if you still occasionally enjoy going places or doing things with your parents, don’t tell them. They don’t need to know everything. They just think they do.

  4.Avoid sitting with your parents in public settings, even if you have to sit alone. Too much voluntary interaction between the generations is creepy.

  5.Never do something the first time your parents ask. It makes you look overeager.

  6.Keep communication with your parents to the bare minimum. Respond primarily with indistinguishable grunts and monosyllables.

  7.Initiate chatty conversations with your parents only if you want something from them. Otherwise, it just gets their hopes up for more.

  8.Listen selectively to instructions from grownups. That way, you can always plead ignorance later.

  9.Perform only the minimum you are asked to do, in order to keep expectations low.

  10.Try not to agree with your parents’ opinions too often. It sends the wrong message.

  It used to take so little to excite my children. If I handed them iced cookies from the bakery, I was rewarded with beaming, ear-to-ear smiles. An extra half-hour of television time would result in squeals of joy and, “You’re the best, Mom!” I miss being popular. These days, I could probably wake my teens with a surprise we’re-going-to-Disney-World announcement, and they’d say, “Do we have to get up right now? Can we go later?” No matter what I tell them to do, how I phrase it, or when I impart any information or directions, my teenagers generally don’t want to hear it. The bottom line is that they don’t want to be directed by me at all—even if they desperately need my help, and we both know it. All this is a perfectly natural part of growing up. I understand that, but it still hurts my feelings.

  The personification of this phase is perfectly captured in a scene from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The bride’s aunt and mother are hatching a plan. The aunt says, “Tell me what to say, but don’t tell me what to say.” That’s how teenagers feel all the time, I think. It absolutely wears me out.

  I’m not a fan of the know-it-all teen or the I’m-too-cool-to-get-visibly-excited-about-anything teen. To combat such common pitfalls, frequent attitude adjustments are as necessary as teeth cleaning. There’s no way around it. We have minor adjustments at least once a week around here.

  One of my pet peeves that often provokes an attitude adjustment occurs when a teenager tells me what he or she is going to do as he or she heads out the door. Telling—rather than asking—skips right on over that pesky ask-for-permission step. I don’t like that.

  “Bye, Mom. I’m going to _____ with _____. See you later!”

  “Would you like to rephrase that, sweetie?”

  “Huh?”

  That’s when I give him or her the look. Every mom has the look. Words are unnecessary. The look speaks volumes. I can use it to control my children from all the way across the room. It’s quite handy.

  “Oh, fine, Mom. May I please do _____ with _____ tonight?”

  A question is a horse of a different color, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not running a hotel here. It’s my job to know where those people I gave birth to are at all times, which is tricky. They can be elusive. Sometimes, it’s like trying to get the governor on the phone to stay an execution, or trying to spot the Loch Ness monster in the middle of his/her foggy lake.

  I have even been known to pull off the side of the road if an immediate attitude adjustment is called for. On the way to a 6:30 A.M. baseball practice (which meant I was cooking breakfast at 5:45 on the first day of summer, like a farmer’s wife on the prairie), my son complained so much in the car that I pulled off for a come-to-Jesus meeting that couldn’t wait one more second.

  “What exactly is your problem, son?” I asked.

  “It’s stupid to have practice this early! I’m in a bad mood because I had to get up on the first day of summer! What do you expect? Why did you have to get me up so early?” He asked this with a martyred air, as if it were somehow my fault.

  I let his little tirade hang in the air for a few seconds and then took a deep breath to lay it on the line in terms my teenager would understand.

  “Let me tell you exactly what I expect. You will be polite and respectful when you talk to me. I’ll give you a pass on friendly this morning. It’s a little early for friendly. Polite is going to happen, or we can sit here in this car all morning long.”

  “Mom! Start the car! I’m going to be late!” he bellowed, panicked.

  “No way. You owe me an apology. Then I’ll give you a chance to start over. That’s the good thing about moms. You get unlimited chances to start over. That’s good because you need a lot of chances.”

  “That’s so stupid, Mom! You don’t understand anything!”

  “Do you want to play baseball, son?”

  “What? Of course, I do! You know that!”

  “Fine. This is part of it. I have no control over baseball. All I do is sign you up, write a huge check I can barely afford, wash your uniforms, and transport you, you ungrateful wretch. I assure you it is not convenient for me to take you to the school at this hour. I have two other children, a husband, and a job. Get it? You don’t have to do this. In fact, it will be much easier for me if you don’t. It will be cheaper, too, and I can think of a lot of fun things to do with my free time other than sit in sweaty ballparks all season long. If you want to play, that’s okay, too. I’ll support you. However, I am not listening to another word of complaint. Practice is whenever the coach tells you to be there. I do not have one thing to do with it. Those coaches control my schedule, too, you know. My work and vacation days are held hostage all the time by football, basketball, and baseball coaches. I am not going to argue with you about this. If you want to do it, I’ll make it happen for you. If you don’t, quit. This isn’t school. You have to go to school. You don’t have to play sports. It’s your choice. There will be early-morning practices, late-night practices, and homework to do at eleven o’clock—sometimes after you lose a game, when you are hot, tired, hungry, and in a bad mood. That’s the way it goes. You know that. Make a decision right now. Suck it up and play, or don’t. It’s entirely your call. Either way, you will not talk to me like this again. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And?”

  “I apologize. I do want to play.”

  “Good deal. Now, what do you want for lunch when you get home?”

  With teenagers, once it’s over, it’s over. There’s no point in dwelling on past sins. Onward and upward.

  Another stage most teenagers go through that occasionally requires some fine-tuning is the hermit crab phase. That’s when teenagers hole up in their rooms like they’re hiding out from the Mafia. The only way you know they’re still breathing in there is because the music is usually turned up loud enough to rattle the windows and send tiny rivers of cracking plaster rai
ning down from the ceiling. They emerge periodically like wild animals to forage for food in the kitchen and then scurry back into their rooms to talk for hours on end to their friends on cell phones or the computer. When guests—adults or teenagers—come over, we demand that the cave dwellers emerge to speak and engage in social interaction to keep up their people skills. But it doesn’t last long. Adults aren’t as interesting to teenagers as their own kind.

  The hermit crab stage didn’t last long around here, I’m relieved to say. My kids moved quickly from that phase to hanging out with their friends every single moment they aren’t in school, participating in extracurricular activities, sleeping, or eating. If one of my teenagers ever accidentally arrives home one minute before his or her curfew, he or she will stand on the front stoop and talk to friends until time runs out. Coming in before one’s curfew just isn’t done in teenager world.

  When family events roll around, I have to make sure to give my kids plenty of advance warning that their presence will be required. My people have to check with their people. You know how it is.

  “Don’t forget your grandfather’s birthday lunch on Sunday!” I remind them a few days beforehand.

  “We will all be eating together at 6 P.M., got it?” I shout as I hear the front door slam.

  “You have to get a haircut this week—no excuses!” I begin with that one on Monday and hope that by Friday, the haircut has happened.

  “I expect to see you at your sister’s play on Tuesday!” I warn the boys in my house.

  “Sure, sure, we haven’t forgotten,” they answer irritably. They always make me feel like a too-big-for-my-britches member of the White House staff who lobbies constantly to get on the president’s appointment schedule, confident that this will eventually result in an ambassador’s appointment to some small island in the South Pacific.