Boys Will Be....

When I was pregnant with William and we found out he was a he, my first thought was "What are we going to do with a boy?"  We were a house of powder pink and naked Barbies; we knew girls and girl things.  We knew tears and drama and tantrums and playing dress-up. I was not sure I would be up enough on boy stuff for my boy to be a happy boy and me to be a good boy mom.  But then I held him for the first time and looked into his little crossed eyes and knew we were going to be okay.  

Now fast forward eleven years and join me in the shock that my boy is smack-dab in the middle of puberty.  Yes, the boy who hit every developmental milestone late and sometimes barely, is now leading the charge into pubescence, hormones and attitude.  His voice is changing and cracking.  He is smelly and messy and doesn't care. He is brimming with testosterone so palpable you can see it coming off of him like heat waves.  Testosteroni we call it.  It makes him angry, it makes him do stupid things and again I find myself thinking "what am I going to do with a boy?"

I realize that puberty is a phase and he will test things out and we will get through it, but I also work in a high school. I work with boys who are past puberty and who walk around practically vibrating because they are chock full of testosteroni and unsure what to do with it.  I have had kids slam doors and explode at me because they can't come in at lunch time.  There are boys who say inappropriate and horrible things at the same time their eyes are looking like a scared little boy and I am wondering, why are these boys so angry and making such poor choices?

My coworker and husband reminded me that boys used to fight.  They used to fight at school, when they were out, or when they were in sports.  They would fight just to fight and then be friends again right after.  A fight today means detention, suspension or worse depending on your history.  I am not saying that we should set up team fighting like we do football or soccer, but maybe boys weren't so angry when they had an outlet for all that testosteroni.

or were forced to dress like little men and have a job.

Sports aren't always an option for these boys.  They aren't for my boy.  We jokingly say that his eyes are just for show, but there is a lot of truth in that.  He has horrible vision and no depth perception.  Try to catch a ball with those eyes, or shoot a basket while moving, or judge where the goal is.  It's hard stuff.  Sports are also expensive and a huge time suck for parents, so again not always an option and we are left with this generation of angry, young men.

I have tried and failed at home and at work with how I have handled this anger.  Being angry back definitely does not work, so take that right off the list.  They have more anger and carry it on longer and it is exhausting.  My boy can hold a grudge indefinitely.  Taking it personally or being emotional about their angry outbursts also doesn't work.  They might be angry, but nine out of ten of them are actually good kids and your being upset makes them angry for making you sad and you've just set the whole thing in motion again because somewhere in their little dark boy brains they are now mad at you, again, for making them feel bad.  It has been hard with my boy to not be emotional because it is hard to have the kid who always picked you first, wanted you to help, loved you so completely to be mean, to be dismissive and rude and hurtful.  Ouch!!

Sometime, I would like to scoop them all up and set them on a little island Lord of the Flies style.  Looks of disdain and outright hate make me keep a running list in my head as to who would end up being Piggy first.  However, as I am the parent and adult, I have had to come up with better ways to deal with this. I have found that being interested in what the boy is doing seems to take the anger down a notch.  Can I admit to not being interested in it at all but feigning it so well I should win an Oscar?  If I never hear about Pokemon again it will be too soon.  I have no idea what I am doing when I play Xbox with him, but if I sit there and push buttons for twenty minutes, he is happy.  A little validation seems to go a long way.  The other thing that works well is humor because right under all the anger is a layer of hilarity.  They want to laugh and joke and use their words to show you how smart they are by wrapping everything up in a thin layer of sarcasm.  This I do not have to fake at all because I am apparently a 14 year old boy at heart.  (this also explains my taste in movies.)  

It is definitely easier for me with my girls and girls at school because I was a girl. I know how they were feeling and what they are thinking and why they do what they do.  I get it.   I think with my boy and these other boys it comes down to not getting it at all but not trying to fix it or judge it either.  It is just about trying to be patient, trying to not be offended and in the boy's case, trying to trying to not breathe through my nose when he comes in from playing outside. It is also about showing him that I am listening, that I am here if he wants to talk or laugh or play stupid Madden 11.  Validating and being available, that is what it might come down to.

Currently, on this non-ice-ice-day, my boy is rewatching the same epidsoe of Brain Games so he can yell out the answer earlier each time he watches it.  I don't get it, but he is happy and I can do what I want so I am happy too.  I am still not always sure what I am going to do with him, but I guess as long as I love him, we'll figure it out.

Things That Make Me Go UGH

Things have made me angry this week.  Bill did comment that the women in the house were a bit hormonal lately.  I know: he is a brave or silly man.  One dead-eye-top-lip-sneer from SG was enough to stop his commentary though. I wish you could have seen that look.  She didn’t even have to say a word; her face perfectly read “who are you to tell me what is happening in my body?!”   I am not sure if I have ever been more proud. 

Anyway, lots of little things made me angry but there were three that stand out in particular as fueling the raging fire.  First up was the fact that I pulled in my driveway and saw that the Yellow Pages had been delivered to my door.  Why does this still happen?  This annoys me to no end because I am not going to use it, I am not sure it is actually recyclable and my hands are already full coming through the door.  I tried to opt out of it being sent but you have to register to opt out and there is no way I am giving them my name and email address.  I just picture emails about Yellow Pages and its nifty features every ten minutes.   Surely these people have heard of the internet and google, right?  I bet that even the people who work for Yellow Pages don’t use the Yellow Pages.  Who does that leave, old people?  If old people are actually still using Yellow Pages then they should be stacked up by the doors of places that old people shop: Walgreen’s, Radio Shack and True Value Hardware.  Stop harassing the rest of 

us.

Stop the insanity!

Next on the list: door-to-door salespeople.  I know that there was once a time when door-to-door salespeople were a necessity.  However, I also know this was before cars, mail-order or, again, the internet.  There is absolutely nothing they are selling that I can’t get at Target, HEB or Amazon.  I don’t like to open the doors to strangers and I especially don’t like to open it up for pushy strangers trying to sell magazine subscriptions.  Actually, I have let all my magazine subscriptions run out because I got tired of the monthly notices letting me know that my account would expire in four years and eleven months, four years and ten months, etc.  Plus, you are a STRANGER at my door, why on earth would I give you my credit card information? 

My final grievance for the week is Nextdoor Neighbor.  This is an online thing you sign up for with the other members of your neighborhood because we are all too terribly busy to actually get to know our neighbors.  Ideally, it is supposed to be a messenger board with information about the neighborhood: things going on, items for sale, dogs that are missing, etc.  What is actually is a public bitch fest for neighbors to talk about their neighbors without calling them out by name.  Messages come across like “I noticed that there is a car on blocks close to the school.  Does anyone know if our HOA has regulations against that?”  You know, and the author knows, that there are, they just want the chance to let their neighbor know, without actually letting them know, that they have had it with their white trash ways and are one step away from actually telling on them.  I was also shocked because people would post their address and the dates they would be out of town and ask if anyone knew a plant sitter? I am no plant sitter, but I felt like breaking into their homes and moving things around to show them how stupid they were being.  I could unsubscribe to it but every now and then, amidst the banal, the whining and the plain dumb, there come some gems and I would hate to miss out on the gems.  The first gem was when they posted the Christmas Light Map.  Yes, a map of the houses in the neighborhood that planned on lighting their homes for Christmas.  God forbid, you just amble around and see which houses were lit, we must have a map!  Next up, the woman who actually used all three of her neighbor’s names to call her out for running in the street when it was dark and making her swerve her car to avoid hitting her.  Something like “MARY KATHERINE SOANDSO, I know it was you this morning on THIS STREET- wear some reflective clothing and run on the sidewalk”.  I laughed until I cried about that one.  However, my favorite one by far was the one where this woman commented that she had seen a large snake and was letting us know about it.  We get a lot of these but this one stuck out because she titled it “big ass snake”.  I am not sure why this woman and I are not drinking beer in my driveway every Friday; she sounds like my type of person.

I keep giggling thinking about “big ass snake” greeting hundreds of people in their inbox and this makes me feel less angry.  Which is good because I don’t enjoy being angry; it takes a lot of work and makes me feel sweaty inside.  Plus, given the look on SG’s face, I am up against some stiff competition and I think she can take me.