Coping with a Teenager and Other Impossibilities

Coping with a Teenager and Other Impossibilities
By Jeffrey Hauser

I m a survivor. No, I don t have a yellow ribbon on my lapel or a group that meets every Thursday night. Instead, I have a twenty-one year old daughter. And in order for her to have achieved that number, she and I had to go through her teenage years. It s what I affectionately call, the "Seven Years of Hell." Not that all of it was bad, mind you, because it wasn t. But, like a malignant fungus, it began slowly and kind of crept up on my wife and myself. I tell you how it affected me during that period. Two words: Oh, My God!

You see, now I can t even count anymore.

It began innocently enough. The day my daughter turned thirteen, I hid in the closet waiting to see what I had created. After a few hours of waiting, I realized that things appeared normal. So I went back to my routine and monitored her progress. It took months before I noticed any signs of the "transformation" as I like to call it. It happened one Sunday when she was doing her homework. She was working a math problem for beginning algebra and said, "What s an invisible number?"

I looked at her quizzically and replied, "I m not sure."

She gave me the strangest look and then hung her head. "You mean you don t know everything?" she asked in amazement.

I shook my head and admitted to the failure. From that day forward, the spiral of agony began. No longer did she consult me regarding every aspect of her life. I wasn t the all-knowing guru she clung to before. Rather, she began to ask her friends for advice. Now that s a scary thought in itself. But they were more than happy to tell her all they knew about every subject. Eventually, I would discover the wealth of totally absurd facts they exposed whenever approached.

"Lincoln was the first president, or was it Franklin? The capital of Europe is Paris. You can get a fake ID over the Internet." Good stuff like that.

As she and I aged together, the rift grew wider. Not only was I getting dumber by the hour regarding schoolwork, I couldn t be relied on for any of the right answers. She would ask to stay out later, or skip a class. When I gave a negative response, I was (a) unfeeling, (b) out of touch with what was going on, (c) not being fair, or (d) all of the above. What was I thinking?

I tried to think back to my teenage years but it was an unfair comparison. We didn t have (a) cell phones with text messaging, (b) cable tv, (c) computers or the Internet, (d) microwaves, (e) fax machines, or (f) credit cards and practically no money whatsoever. This generation was techno-charged and I was a dinosaur from the black and white television age. Geez.

Once she got her first car, I rarely saw her unless she needed money, food, or something was broken. We got her the requisite cell phone and credit card. They were for "emergencies," we explained. She decided that "emergency" meant any time she had to call anyone on earth or had to buy anything at anytime for any reason. The battle lines had been drawn. We spent the next few years fighting over her curfew, spending habits, friends with various addictions, and our "behavior."

There were always issues about our behavior, not hers. We were the unyielding parents that didn t understand her. The problem was, we did, and were constantly expressing ourselves. What were we thinking? The nerve of us actually questioning her judgment? Surely, we could recognize the vast unlimited experience and knowledge of someone who had been on this earth a whopping seventeen years! She was now the expert on practically everything and we had undergone totally lobotomies. Our minds were virtual mush and unable to perceive her brilliance. It was quite obvious we were now to be on the losing end of every discussion.

Toward the end of the teenage reign of terror, the wars were conducted with less frequency and we somehow regained partial use of our brains. She decided that we still knew a few basic things and didn t always question our decisions. Harmony crept back into our relationship as the birds sung and the crickets chirped once again. Now life is good and we got along perfectly. Did I mention that she moved out on her own at eighteen to go to college? Now I wonder if that had anything to do with it.

Jeffrey Hauser was a sales consultant for the Bell System Yellow Pages for nearly 25 years. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Advertising and has a Master s Degree from Monmouth University. He had his own advertising agency in Scottsdale, Arizona and ran a consulting and design firm, ABC Advertising. He has authored 6 books and a novel, "Pursuit of the Phoenix," available at amazon.com. His latest book is, "Inside the Yellow Pages." Currently, he is the Marketing Director for http://www.thenurseschoice.com/,a Health Information and Doctor Referral site.

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