The temptation of Middle-Age Mom
It may sound very
”
After School Special,
”
but it really does happen. Teenage girl keeps journal, Mom comes
in to put clean laundry away and finds journal under the bed, along
with various other teenaged-girl artifacts.
The temptation of Middle-Age Mom
It may sound very “After School Special,” but it really does happen. Teenage girl keeps journal, Mom comes in to put clean laundry away and finds journal under the bed, along with various other teenaged-girl artifacts.
“She’s a good girl. What could she possibly have to write about?”
But then the “other” voice creeps in.
“You’ve heard what the other kids are doing. You’ve heard Oprah on the promos. You’re cool. What does she do up here all the time, with the door closed? Does she seem MORE moody lately?”
You’re standing there with pieces of clothing, plucked off the floor in one hand and a journal covered in colorful, juvenile flowers in the other. The very picture of Maternal Blind Justice.
Your mind flashes back to the slammed bedroom door of your youth.
“Mom, that’s not fair!” you’d wailed. She’d invaded your privacy, your space. You swore you’d never trust her again. Never mind that the worst thing that you had written about was that cute boy you had a crush on in English…and the cute boy you had a crush on in Math…and the one who winked at you on your way to drama class. Or did he just have something in his eye? You’d spent pages poring over every nuance of that wink.
You find yourself wondering if the world has really changed that much since you were a teenager. Not that long ago, you remind yourself, as you check yourself out in the mirror over the dresser. Sucking in your stomach and thrusting out your chest, in the vain hopes that any damage that gravity and childbirth had done can be erased by sudden good posture.
Your mother probably wondered the same thing, as she fearfully leafed through the doodled pages of your journal, a long time ago.
You begin to reason with yourself that if you did read it, it would be for her safety. What if she really is doing something you should know about, after all? Suddenly, you forget that her last report card held five As and one B. And the kids she hangs around with also sport similar grades, and you know most of their parents.
Absently, you finger the cover of the book, while sitting on edge of the bed.
It occurs to you that this is probably an age-old dilemma that many a Mom or Dad has found themselves in. You’d promised into your tear-soaked pillow that you would never do that to your daughter, whose existence seemed very far off, since none of those objects of your affection even knew you were alive. That, and you were only fourteen.
A smile comes across your lips then. This is your turn to be the Mom that you had wanted yours to be that day.
You make Middle-Aged Mom noises as you bend down to place the journal back under the bed in its dark and messy home; carefully placed, so she won’t know how dangerously close she’d come to having the same conversation with you that you’d had with your mother, a generation ago.
The clothes in your other hand? Those go back on the floor, in the same heap you’d found them.
You can picture it now – “A very special After School Special… ‘Kids Who Don’t Clean Their Rooms and the Moms Who Just Don’t Understand Them.'”
