This post was first published on RedBoots in February. I am reposting today as part of Finish the Sentence Friday on the delicious prompt: “I know my child would rather I not reveal this…” Or maybe it wouldn’t faze him at all. I don’t really know. Which is my point. Since writing this eight months ago, he has turned 13, had his bar mitzvah and moved up a grade but little else has changed. He’s still pretty far away from me most of the time.
My teenage boy is an alien. And by alien I mean foreign. Far away from me. It’s not so much that I don’t understand him, or that he communicates as if he’s from another planet. There is some of that going on some of the time, but I’m learning to decode and even speak that language (Mmm mmm mmm means “I don’t know” in Teenglish). It’s more like he and I are in different countries, and we call each other only when necessary. To check in. Or remind him to wash his face. Or ask me to email the karate teacher.
He’s actually not quite a teenager – he’s 12 and a half. Exactly. And I know much is likely to change in the next six months before his barmitzvah. His voice might break. He could grow a whole foot. The glimpses of sullenness and defiance I’m seeing now…
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