When your first child is born, you worry so much about how to handle a baby. Is the child getting enough to eat? Gaining enough weight? How do you get him to sleep? How will you know why he is crying? How do you soothe him? Will I ever sleep again and why don’t the books answer all of my questions?
Turns out that’s all the least of it. As my oldest reminded me over breakfast today, on his 12th birthday, “What are you going to do with an almost-teenager in the house?”
Great question, kid.
Although I worry very little these days about him getting enough food and sleep (just try and stop him), we’re on the edge of a whole new world here with this tween.
Thankfully, there’s no shortage of online resources to completely freak out every parent about what challenges await us in this stage of raising kids. Screen time, social media, bullying, vaping, and more. The question from 12 years ago still stands: Will I ever sleep again?
To be clear, we’re not pushing the envelope on any of these dicey issues yet. I mean, yes, we have multiple daily arguments about screen time, but that’s sort of standard life on Earth now. He’s not on social media yet and thankfully shows no interest in it. He is not focused on who is hanging out with whom and what the popularity hierarchy entails — sort of like a social honey badger. I often vacillate between thinking this is great and worrying that he doesn’t pay enough attention to the world around him. But I’ll say this: I envy his confidence and his willingness to overlook what can be utter bullshit.
At this time last year, my husband and I were in the throes of making a decision about middle school. We live in a town with a very strong school system, but it’s really large. We found another school that we knew would be a great fit for our son, but had reservations about removing him from his friends here and starting over somewhere else. There was no wrong decision here, but it weighed heavily on us to figure out which was the better choice.
So, in September, off he went on a bus to the new school where he knew exactly zero other kids. Conjuring up memories of my 11 year-old self and how I would have felt in that situation, it took everything in me not to breathe in and out of a paper bag in front of him. But no need — he was calm and cool. Whenever I come across the photo I took of him that morning, I can instantly recall my fear for him, but also my pride in how he handled everything.
Turns out it was a great decision. Is he happy and learning? Yes. Is it the right place for him? Yes. Do we still argue about homework? Also yes.
Recently, his entire grade started participating in the World Peace Game — a long-term, role-playing/problem-solving game that entails being assigned to a fictitious country with specific traits and scenarios to achieve world peace while working with your classmates. There was a lot of build-up to the sixth graders starting this game, and my son anticipated it for weeks.
When he came home after the first day of play, I was eager to hear about how it went, but he hesitated to tell me for a moment. Finally, he sat back, propped his feet up on the table and put his hands behind his head.
“Well, Mom, unfortunately I had to stage a coup.”
“Wait, what? A coup? It’s a peace game — is that even allowed?”
“All’s fair in war. Plus, I really wasn’t happy with the direction my country’s leaders were taking. So I traded some weapons with another country, recruited some rebels and overthrew the prime minister.”
He seemed pleased with himself and, although I admired his strategic thinking, I knew there was a bigger lesson at hand here about cooperation, compromise and flexibility.
(Also, peace.)
I spoke to my mini military strategist and encouraged him to work things out with his countrymen. It took him a few weeks, but he got up the nerve to apologize to the ousted prime minister, work out a deal and reinstate her leadership — while promoting himself to head of the military and annexing some additional territory from the vulnerable neighboring nation.
And with that, you now know nearly everything there is to know about this child.
He is a lover of history, past and present. His convictions are strong and his compromising skills under development. He rarely wavers, stubbornly pursues his ideas, yet is secretly sweet and empathetic to others. He has a soft spot for puppies and babies, and will interview any parent of a small dog or child to get their essential details and promptly file them to his vast memory. He knows the value of wit and appreciates well-placed sarcasm.
With a few exceptions, he rejects sports and all of the team loyalty trappings that come with them. You can find him with a fencing sabre or — this year, for the first time, and at the expense of years off my life — on the wrestling mat. It’s not always easy to be a pre-teen boy who wants to talk about history instead of hockey. To be the kid who’d rather watch a mini-series about the Roman Empire than the Super Bowl. He does not seem to mind one bit, and a huge part of my goals in parenting him is to make sure he is always comfortable with who he is, despite what other people may expect. Many days, I think he will teach me more about this than I can impart to him.
So, yes — as of today, it’s the last year he’s not a teenager. And, no, I don’t understand how we got here so fast if I’m still 30. But regardless, my firstborn child will always stretch my heart to its very limits.
Happy birthday to my sweet, sweet boy.
