Caterpillar Girl

“Flowing in

And filling up my hopeless heart

Oh never never go”

Caterpillar Girl, The Cure

          My daughter just completed her first year of junior high. I think she may have survived unscathed! I admit I was terrified for her. She won’t be thirteen until October so she’s not technically a teen yet. I’m pretty sure everyone dreads having a teenage daughter to some extent. When I lament my fear of her impending teendom on Facebook, I’m met with the usual “karma” quips, basically implying I was a horrible teenager to my Mom so that fear is based on all the payback coming my way. And YES! I was a ridiculous pain in the ass to my poor Mom, wrecking not one but two of her cars by the time I was just a month past sixteen. I’m sure I worried and scared her to death. Truthfully, she doesn’t know the half of it still and why let the cat out of the bag now? I remember one screaming match we were having where she peaked her head through my bedroom door for the last word and I threw a pair of roller skates at her face. Luckily, she slammed the door shut in time to save her teeth. So yes, I was an asshole but I kept my grades at a 3.8 GPA amidst all the drama. I even graduated high school a semester early after Christmas my senior year. Not because I was some kind of whiz kid but more because I just wanted to GTFO! I babysat all the time and got a real job as soon as I was old enough, earning a job credit that allowed me to meet the graduation requirements a semester early. I put myself through an automotive technology school, managed to avoid getting pregnant until I wanted to, married and twenty eight, no teenage pregnancies for me. I stayed out of rehab and jail and feel like I turned out pretty ok. I smoked from age twelve to twenty and was definitely a terror at several points but that’s not why I’m afraid to have a teenager.

“Teenagers scare
The living shit out of me
They could care less
As long as someone’ll bleed
So darken your clothes
Or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone
But not me”

Teenagers, My Chemical Romance

          I know I’m going to lose my daughter for a year or two while she goes through the regular teen angst of hating everyone and thinking her parents are dumb as rocks. She’s already entering her emo phase, clearing everything out of her closet that’s not black or gray, totally convinced this is some kind of uber original thing she’s doing, like I didn’t wear black lipstick and convince myself that Robert Smith was my future husband, writing Dana Smith in my notebooks, hoping my sad poetry would turn into the next Pretty Hate Machine. I know she will eventually come back to me, even if it’s not until she has babies of her own and realizes how much she needs her Mom. I’m not scared to have a teen because she might throw skates at my face. I’m terrified of the innate cruelness in other girls her age and the stupidity of teen boys.

         I recently read Amy Poehler’s autobiography, actually I listened to the audio book in my minivan since that is how I imbibe my literature these days. In her chapter on adolescence, she mentions that week every girl goes through when her entire group of friends turn on her, deciding she’s ugly or unpopular until the world somehow shifts back and you’re forgiven whatever bewildering trespass and allowed back into the precious circle. Listening to Amy Poehler, this queen of comedy, confident and hilarious, mention this week that EVERYONE goes through absolutely blew my mind. This very thing happened to me repeatedly. Sometimes the “week” never actually ended and I’d have to scrap my way into a new group of friends or just eat lunch in the library like a pariah. Maybe I thought I was some unique snowflake which just shows you what a narcissist I can be I guess but it was crazily reassuring to me to learn that this happens to a lot of people, even celebrities. Not to play the total victim here, I was absolutely to blame for several of my friendships disintegrating. Teenage emotions and mouths are difficult things to train.

High school was straight up awful for me. You hear these stories or see the movie character who was student council president and homecoming queen or captain of the football team then stayed in their hometown, knocked up the high school sweetheart, eventually drowning their sorrows at the local pub, losing their hair, growing a beer belly while dreaming of their glory days when they peaked in high school. I’ve reassured myself that at last I’d never fall into that stereotype, but there are also guidance counselors or suicide prevention public service announcements that try to explain to teens going through a black hole high school nightmare that this is only a BLIP. These years are only a small piece of a lifetime of learning and growing. Sure, sure whatever…. but I can tell you that even at forty one, I’m still haunted by those years. I still have nightmares that I’m back in high school, that I haven’t been to class in weeks and today is the final, that people are laughing at me or threatening to kick my ass.

I’m pretty sure I could fill a book about my high school career with never ending disappointments and nights with my Walkman (look it up) on repeat with the saddest song ever until I felt cried out enough to leave my room and face my life again. Maybe it would even be therapeutic for me if not a bit heartbreaking. Just to give you a glimpse: I remember one Friday night, my friend’s cousin was to supposed to pick me up for a kegger in the mountains. (Names changed of course) Katie’s cousin had a super cool Jeep Wrangler. I don’t remember his actual name so I’ll call him Jeff. Jeff and Katie had already picked up our friend, Jess, a pretty blonde with a ridiculous rack, especially for a freshman. I gave them the embarrassing directions to my apartment. It felt like everyone at my school had money, a Mom and Dad, siblings and the requisite car as a Sweet Sixteen present so telling someone how to get back to my third story apartment building felt sadly shameful but they managed to find my home. I ran down the stairs and across the parking lot. Jeff looked me up and down then turned to his cousin Katie and told her he didn’t have room in his Jeep to drive me to the party, which she relayed to me as I walked up to the Jeep. They drove away and I walked back up the stairs to my apartment. To be clear, Jeff was a fucking loser that everybody only used for his sweet ride but that only made me feel worse. Even twenty five years later, this memory, one of many, makes me feel worthless. It’s one of the reasons I’m terrified of having a teenage daughter.

         My daughter and I recently read the book Thirteen Reason Why, then watched the Netflix series together, Maybe she’s a bit young to be reading about underage drinking and sexual assault. There are a lot of critics out there who say the book is actually causing an increase in teenage suicide rates. Children are discussing with their friends,  ‘I have five reasons so far, how about you?” Like having a shitty life or reasons to slit your wrists is some kind of twisted trendy competition. People, teens especially, will always find a way to distort things. I know the author of Thirteen Reasons Why never wanted his book to affect suicide rates. I think it’s a perfect opportunity to start tough conversations with my child, before she locks herself in a bathroom with my scripts. I recently heard a comedian on a podcast talking with his parents about his battles with depression. He struggled with depression on and off for years and hid it from his family. I remember his father’s bewilderment that he kept it a secret. “Why didn’t you ask for help!?” The comedian described the total helplessness he felt but also explained how he felt the need to protect his parents from his depression because he didn’t want to cause them more stress or feel their disappointment and worry even though he knew his parents would move mountains and DO ANYTHING to help him. I remember feeling this self-imposed alienation as a teen. That my Mom couldn’t possibly understand what I was going through and also feeling like she had enough on her plate without taking on my sadness. To her credit, when I asked to switch high schools the second semester of my freshman year, running away from my problems namely a varsity cheerleading squad hounding me with death threats in the hallway, my Mom fully supported my decision. As many mistakes as my Mom thinks she made raising me, a lot of it was me shutting her out. I think as a seventeen year old single mother in the seventies, long before MTV would give you your own reality TV show for getting knocked up, my Mom made the best of what we had, working her ass off. I think, completely un-humbly of course, I turned out pretty awesome. (haha)

     “… And these children
that you spit on
as they try to change their worlds
are immune to your consultations.
They’re quite aware
of what they’re going through…”

 Changes, David Bowie

     Parenting is fucking TERRIFYING! Especially in 2017, with Facebook brag offs and web cams and bath salts and Mango Mussolinis stripping away a recognizable America. I’m constantly convinced I’m messing my kids up and at the same time I’m convinced I’m not messing them up enough. My kids have everything, too much probably but I didn’t become a parent so I could give my children a crappy childhood. I’m pretty certain I didn’t get pregnant as a teenager or become an alcoholic or drug addict despite my genes because of my childhood. I learned from my families mistakes. Should I be exposing my kids to the scarier side of drugs and alcohol so they don’t drift after “something shiny” when they’re older? I’m terrified of losing either of my children down that rabbit hole. I guess I’m just like any other parent, pretty much winging it day to day. Desperately trying to keep this close relationship with my daughter by reading books or watching shows together that keep the conversations going about the scary topics like depression, peer pressure, drugs, sex etc. even as I feel her constantly slipping out of my grip like the slippery whip smart tween she is.

     I don’t want to raise assholes either. I try my best to keep them in check when I see any kind of pomposity creeping out. “Do you see all of your classmates up on this mountain snowboarding with us today? Do all your friends have their own dirt bike in the garage?” I’m happy to give my children the best childhood I can while maybe reliving mine a bit but I’m quick to knock them down if I see them acting ugly to each other or anyone. They are also forced to show recognition and appreciation for all that we give them. And yes, my high school career was nightmare inducing and still scarring after ALL these years but full disclosure, I was once a MEAN GIRL too. In junior high, I had my time as the big headed asshole, taunting the new girl who was prettier than me, catching the eye of the boy I liked, with the cruel nickname Jessica Vacuum. Maybe I didn’t deserve all the misery in high school, but payback IS a bitch and I definitely deserved a few of those whippings. I would be mortified to raise someone who relished in bullying anyone.

        I just have this sweet child of mine, dipping her baby toe in the cesspool of adolescence and I’m scared to death for her. I survived my trials with a head full of hate and distrust that I will probably continue working through into my sixties or beyond. And I survived in the 90′ before cellphones, or dick pics, or cyber bullying, or I Hate Dana Facebook pages, or any of the new horrifying ways children are discovering to tear each other down. I’m hoping my husband and I, with our family and her village, have what it takes to get these kids through the next years into adulthood intact with a sense of self worth and hopefully the skills to pay the bills and move their asses out of my basement, even in Denver’s skyrocketing rental market. I’m hoping my daughter reaches adulthood with a shred of respect and love left for her dear old Mom but I am so scared for her.

“The day I stop

Is the day you change

And fly away from me”

Caterpillar Girl, The Cure