In my posting titled Jet Lag, I talked about catching up your beliefs, behaviors, and mindset to who you are today. The same type of "jet lag" can happen with catching up to who others are now.
For the last few years, I’ve been struggling with jet lag when it comes to my sons, as they’ve grown into the teenage years. One is 13 years old, walking between the worlds of boyhood and adolescence. The other is 15 years old, firmly planted in the teen years, on the precipice of being a new driver.
When they were too old for me to take them trick-or-treating, I felt as if someone had laid me off from a well-loved job. What, you don’t want me to go with you? What, you want to go with your friends? And you’d rather take your dad’s bucket, the one he uses for gardening instead of the hand-sewn candy bags that your babysitter made for you when you were four? When my older son stopped going altogether a couple of years ago, I was reminded of his real age when I asked him why he didn’t want to go trick-or-treating. He replied, "It’s a lot easier to wait a couple of hours and eat the leftover candy." He said this with all the sentimentality of a shopper waiting for the after Christmas sales to start.
In years past, Labor Day meant going to our small town’s parade. It’s one of the highlights of the year in terms of local events, filling Main Street with thousands of onlookers, glistening fire trucks, high school marching bands accompanied by slim and perky cheerleaders, displays of Model A Fords, classic Thunderbirds, and hunkered down Corvettes, and politicians with awkwardly assembled supporters, passing out American flags and candy. My kids have always loved it, especially the candy part.
This year, things were different. My husband was playing in a baseball game and I had invited my sister to join me with the kids. Fifteen minutes before we were due to leave the house, in time to get a shady spot on a prime block for viewing the parade, my older son told me he didn’t want to go. He had gotten back in bed, after reading the paper, and looked as if the sun (or in this case, son) had risen before its time. I was frustrated and tried the usual parental tactics–guilt, cajoling, and bribery.
"Hurry up! Aunt Charlotte will be here any minute and we don’t want to keep her waiting." My son seemed to stir slightly under the covers but it was only out of respect for my sister, rather than a confirmation that he had agreed to accompany me.
"But we always go to the Labor Day parade. Didn’t you have a good time last year?" His reply indicated that he couldn’t remember if he had a good time last year, and therefore, he probably didn’t.
"Okay, I’ll buy you cotton candy if you go." My younger son sat up at this point, excited at the thought of clouds of pink sugar melting in his mouth. My older son was unmoved.
Finally, I realized that I had jet lag–with my sons. I admitted to them that I looked forward to the parade, as an annual ritual, when they savored stuffing their pockets with Tootsie rolls and Dum-Dum suckers thrown in the streets. Now that they were older, I could understand if they no longer wanted to go. My older son said simply, "I just don’t see anything appealing about going and I’d rather get another hour of sleep. I also have homework that I need to finish up." The 13-year old added in, "You don’t want us to grow up." Yeah, it’s true. And I know that that’s not realistic. In fact, in most moments, I’d glad they are growing up.
I went to the Labor Day parade with my sister. I told her what had happened, that the boys were staying home, that the older one had decided not to go, which makes the younger one not want to go. She was matter of fact.
"That’s why you have sisters. Husbands don’t get it. Sisters will go with you to all the activities that your kids are too old for now." Her son is twenty years old. She’s had practice at this.
After we had settled into a spot on the curb in the downtown area, shaded by a large leafy tree, I looked around us. On one side was a mother with a toddler in a stroller and a kindergartener. On the other side of us was a young couple, dressed in the style of Abercrombie and Fitch, with a sweet two-year old dressed in pink. We were surrounded by young families with small children. The only adolescents were the ones participating in the parade–the Boy Scouts and drum majors and dance studio leaders.
"The kids would have been bored."
"Yeah, you’re right."
One by one, the rituals that I’ve established in my sons’ childhood and as a young mother are falling away. I’m middle-aged now and my sons are teenagers. I’m slowly getting over jet lag.