Well, it's another beautiful Saturday morning in sunny, snobby Newport and I've just had the most fantastic morning surfing, the waves must have been 10 feet high at times. It's great to escape the house for a while and have some time on my own to process ideas and just generally clear my head. Also, having a 13 year-old son is making life rather interesting at the moment. I love him dearly, but recently we seem to be having the same old arguments all the time and I never seem to say the right thing… He doesn't seem to have many or even any friends at school, and that worries me so much, but whenever I tell him he's welcome to have people round, or suggest starting up a sailing or comi-I mean graphic novel after-school club, he either just looks at me like I'm insane, or tells me to stop interfering in his private life. He's also decided he wants to go away to boarding school on the East Coast somewhere, but Kirsten and I have discussed it and we still think he's too young to be living so far away from home. He didn't speak to either of us for a week after we'd said no, and god knows my son loves to talk. There have been a few problems at school already, in the form of verbal taunting, and if that were to happen far away from home, Kirsten and I would be even more powerless to help him and less likely to hear about it. As it is, we only found out about the bullying at a Parent-Teacher Conference, apparently Seth had promised his French teacher he'd talk to us about it when she'd heard some of the boys calling him names in the corridor. Seth claimed Madame Dubol is a crazy old woman with a bad memory and a tendancy to blow things out of proportion and was so upset at the idea of Kirsten and me taking it further that we didn't, something I deeply regret, but things seem to have sorted themselves out, so that's good.
It hurts that I can't even touch my son anymore, as physical demonstrations of affection are apparently for babies and it breaks my heart to remember how much he enjoyed being cuddled when he was younger. He was such a cute kid, always clamouring for a kiss and a hug, often for no particular reason other than I'd just entered the room. He used to love running into my arms when I picked him up from school and, once we were home, curling up in my lap and telling me all about his day, in infinite detail, but nowadays I'm lucky if I get a high five or a special handshake and I certainly can't drop him off outside the front gate at school anymore, he asked me to park round the corner and he'll walk the rest of the way, apparently everyone else's parents let them make their own way to school, but we don't think it's a good idea, especially not on a skateboard. Maybe he has a girlfriend and doesn't want us to know, as he probably thinks we won't understand, because obviously, we're old and didn't date until we'd « practically graduated from college », as Seth so eloquently put it. True, 13 is a little young to start being interested in girls like that, but if he is seeing someone, I'd like to think he could come to either of us for advice and that he'd know we were happy for him.
We don't really have conversations anymore, though we still exchange witty quips with eachother at mealtimes, but it doesn't really count as talking.
Right, nearly home, I'll just check if there's any mail. Bill…Another bill…A catalogue… an invitation to some black tie do that Kirsten will, claim to have mentioned ages ago and that she RSVP'd to, so now we have to go… Darn, dropped the whole lot ! Oh, the catalogue's for Seth, it's a school brochure of some sort, it's got a New York postmark. Great. Just great. He sent of for the darned thing anyway, even when we'd sat down with him and explained why we don't think he should go, at least not yet. It's tempting to trash it and never mention it, as Seth hates confrontation almost as much as I find it necessary sometimes, as it's a good way of clearing the air and getting down to the root of the problem, which is what I really need to do, as I feel there's more going on in Seth's life than he cares to tell me. It's just so difficult, I don't know how to read my son anymore, I can feel him slipping away, and I find that so frightening, as we've always been close up til recently.
His interests are a source of bemusement to me as well, it was so much easier when he liked Lego and board games, we'd spend afternoons building complicated models of forts or pirate ships or we'd have a Monopoly tournament. Now it's all depressing music by bands with strange names like « Killer Car for Sweetie », or something like that and instead of board games, it's X Box games with fiddly controls that I can't master and the games involve guys with big swords hacking away at eachother. I've tried so many times to master it, but just can't seem to get the hang of it, which makes Seth all snappy and moody and he'll ask me why I bother and I just don't have an answer to that.
I must get inside and get a coffee, it's an essential Cohen food group, as are bagels. It's our fail-safe staple, god knows what the world would come to without them. Oh, and cream cheese is a given too, it goes hand in hand with the bagels. In a happier moment, Seth once joked that if you cut open a Cohen, blood wouldn't spurt out, but coffee. That one certainly made us laugh, something he hasn't done in what feels like years. I'd give anything to see him smile properly, he used to do it all the time and seeing him all happy and smiley used to help me feel that way too. I used to call him Mr Megawatt or Seth-Smile-A-Lot, which are just two of the many pet names I used to call him by that have now fallen into disuse. Occasionally I'm permitted to call him Setheleh, but god forbid I do it in public and Sethini is strictly verboten now, as are countless others.
Seth probably won't be up for another couple of hours yet, so that'll give me some time to work out a plan of action and a firm but loving way of bringing up the whole boarding school debacle. Gone are the days when he used to come into our bedroom at 5 am asking if it was too early to go and watch cartoons or asking why there wasn't anything except pretty patterns to watch on TV, now he rarely makes an appearance before midday, and if he does, he'll come down in his PJs, make himself breakfast , grab the bits of the newspaper he wants and then he'll disappear again. Often he'll come down listening to his personal CD player, making conversation with him impossible, as he'd rather listen to depressing people mournfully wail about their despair than have an honest conversation with his mother or me.
I leave my surfboard in the porch, freeing my hands to open the door. Someone's put the coffee on, thank goodness. I shout out a greeting to whoever it is who's in the kitchen and make my way in there, following the intoxicating aroma of caffeine.
I'm surprised to see a dark, curly-haired figure hunched over the Arts & Leisure section of the paper. He looks up and waves a hand to acknowledge my presence. I address him with a friendly « hey » before noticing he has his earphones wedged into his ears. He raises his coffee mug at me and gestures at the coffee pot, almost spilling the contents of his mug and nearly knocking his plate containing a bagel schmeared in what looks like a tub of cream cheese to the floor. I have to catch myself to not reprimand him, as I remember my mother telling me to be more careful at that age, but it's hard when your arms and legs seem to get longer by the minute and there are hormones coursing all over the place, affecting your moods, spatial awareness and goodness knows what else. I dump the mail on the island and turn my attention to my breakfast, which should give me a couple of minutes to gather my thoughts before broaching the issue of schooling with my son. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Seth rise, grab a bagel from the bread bin and make gestures asking me if I want it. When I nod, he flings it at me and I only just manage to catch it. He grins mischieviously at me, knowing that such antics would not be tolerated by his mother and I smile back, trying to recreate an atmosphere of easy trust that we had before. He doesn't hold my gaze long though, and I notice the smile doesn't really reach his eyes, not like it used to. He pads back to his section of the paper and pores over an article. Whether or not he's truly engrossed in it, I can't tell and that disconcerts me, as I used to be able to read him like an open book. I finish preparing my breakfast and go and join my son at the island. He promptly proceeds to get up and fusses around fixing himself a glass of orange juice, at the opposite end of the room, so he's definitely avoiding me.
I take a couple of deep breaths and try to guess the course this conversation could take, but that's not easy when you're faced with an unpredictable teenager who could react in any number of different ways : a viscious outburst, stony silence or, worst of all, a torrent of tears. The moody silences I can live with, though they worry me, the outbursts are sudden and fiery but are usually followed by an apology a few minutes later. It's the tears that really get to me though, they pierce my heart and make me want to hold him close until they stop, but he won't let me near him, he keeps me at an arm's distance, both physically and emotionally, and it's so difficult to respect his wishes.
He's seated facing me again, this time taking a long draught of juice so he doesn't have to look at me. As he puts his glass down, our eyes meet inadvertently for a fraction of a second and I mime taking off headphones to him. He gives me a curt nod and does as he is told.
I reach over to the pile of mail on the table and pass him his brochure.
I've decided that the 'softly softly' approach is probably best at this time of the morning, so I let him open it and peruse the enclosed leaflets and other promotional gubbins that has come enclosed with the brochure itself.
He looks up at me, puzzled as to why I haven't yet said anything. I look down at the information pack in his hands and then make eye contact with him again..
I gently prise the booklet from his hands and close it, keeping it under my palms to prevent him grabbing it back.
« We've already talked about this Seth, « I begin, already regretting my choice of words and hoping that my tone doesn't sound too harsh or accusing.
« and I thought we'd decided you'd stick it out here for at least another year before we reconsider. « I continue, wishing for the millionth time that he didn't reject my attempts at physical affection. He's chewing his lip now and is pulling at the skin on his fingers, both signs that he's upset and worried about something.
« I'm not mad at you, I promise », I say, trying to sound comforting and reassuring, but that only gets me a suspiscious look.
« Your mother and I think it's for the best that we stay together as a family and that you don't disrupt your education. Changing schools would be a big shift, you might be really far ahead in some subjects and way behind in others, it might mean a lot of extra work on your part, and we know you're not very good at coping with transitions » I declare, trying to sound confident yet firm and loving and feeling I've blown it with what he might see as a criticism of his personality. What does the manual say, Sanford ? It says to not bring your child's personal failings into arguments, and what do you do ? You go and bring your child's personal failings into a discussion ! Bra-vo, Sir !
As the manual predicts, I get a stony glare from my son, who still won't speak a word to me.
Suddenly, he stands and looks at me and starts talking, well, yelling really. He calls me a hypocrite, saying I moved clean across the country when I was only a few years older than he is now, that he's not 5 years old anymore and that we should stop treating him as such, and that we suck and don't understand.
Before I can stop him and explain to him that my situation was completely different to his (I was a street-wise 16 year-old with a scholarship who had a dream of bettering himself, while he's a slightly naive and very innocent 13 year-old that we love too much to send far away, he's stormed off out the door, grabbing his skateboard on the way out.
The manual reccommends giving your teenager space after an argument, so I let him go. There's only a couple of places he's allowed to go, so he's either headed to the beach or the pier, or possibly the poolhouse, but I don't think that's far away enough from me at the moment. He'll be back in a few hours, or whenever he's hungry, as I don't think he has any cash on him. I wish I could make him see how much I love him, how much I want to help him and that I'm not being mean or petty by not allowing him to go away.
