I have two teenagers. That’s a stand-alone statement. I’m a single mom with two teenagers. As Elon Musk (that tool) would say: Let that sink in.
Teenager One, at 17, has evolved beyond the developmental stage that the psychologists, I believe, call “separation” — those years during adolescence in which the terrible teenager goes mute, flinches every time mom or dad opens their mouth, and slinks up the stairs on cat-burglar feet, wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, to spend their mornings, noons, and evenings in secrecy behind a closed bedroom door doing lord knows what. Teenager One no longer hates everything her mother does; she hates only about 15 percent of my mannerisms and actions, hates me as a human being only about 3 percent of the time, and otherwise quite enjoys getting under a blankie beside me and to watch “Love Island,” imitating the love-contestants’ Liverpudlian accents and eating corn chips and queso. Teenager One actually climbed into my lap and sat there during a dinner party in the garden in July, with guests watching, and pressed her cheek to mine.
Teenager Two, at 14 going on 15, can barely look at me without a facial expression of physical pain. He is a very nice young man by nature, and sometimes even looks a bit surprised and sheepish to find himself acting like such a total teenager, but he cannot help it; he is deep in the separation phase. Teenager Two is like Michael J. Fox in the transformation montage from the 1985 movie “Teen Wolf,” amazed to find himself, round midnight, growing fur and howling at the moon.
The only person in this house Teenager Two will speak to in fully formed sentences is his cat. His mind is pretty much always elsewhere, daydreaming about who knows what. He used to tell me his daydreams (how he might affix the engine from a Sea-Doo onto a skateboard, or how, if you could travel far enough from planet Earth into space, you might zap the planet with a shrink-ray in order to make it temporarily small enough that you could feed the world’s hungry with the food supplies you’d taken with you inside the space capsule), but the workings of his engineer’s brain are no longer accessible to his mom. I imagine Meow-Meow — to employ one of Teenager Two’s cat’s many nicknames — has taken over as the listening audience for his brilliant inventions. I sometimes overhear him talking enthusiastically to the cat behind the closed bedroom door.
Teenager Two is, as I say, by nature an affectionate person and I know this too shall pass, and he will love me again when he grows up, et cetera, so for the most part I am trying to leave him in peace. I don’t have a great rate of success at leaving him in peace, I’ll admit, but I’m working on it. I’m not always able to resist the urge to follow him up the stairs, rap furiously on his bedroom door, and ask him why the hell there are dirty sweatsocks on the cutting board, but I try.
I do, meanwhile, find it humorous — at least in the morning, when I’ve had my espresso and have not yet had my irrepressible spirit of fun beaten down as it is each day by the quotidian hassles of middle-aged broke-mom-ness — to find novel ways to irritate him. Being the parent of a teenage werewolf involves a constant recalibration of who is ignoring whom, who is or isn’t getting enough attention. You have to be light on your feet. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Sometimes the expression of love is in the humorous pestering.
Eight Ways to Torment Your Teenager:
One. While he is talking to his best friends (a.k.a. Da Boyz) over Discord with a headset and his microphone unmuted at the kitchen table, and you are slicing a cantaloupe on the cutting board — which has been sanitized, post-sweatsock — busy yourself around the room singing the lyrics to a half-remembered nonsense song from summer camp, circa 1975: “Can’t elope? Can’t elope? Honey, do! Honey, do!”
Two. While he is talking to Da Boyz over Discord with a headset and his microphone unmuted at the kitchen table, loudly offer treats to the cat and dog using high-octane baby talk: “Sweetpea want bicky? Sweetpea stand on hind legs for bicky? Not you, you naughty cat. Meow-Meow want treat? Meow-Meow naughty cat who no get treat!”
Three. Step in front of Teenager Two when he is trying to walk out of the house to go to work, reach toward him with both hands, and attempt to straighten the name tag he wears on his beach attendant uniform polo shirt. He’ll love that.
Four. When he complains there is “nothing to eat in this house,” reply with a list of dishes he is fully capable of preparing for himself if only he’d stand up and look in the fridge. A fruit salad with blueberries and banana, an omelet with cheddar and avocado, a smoothie with Greek yogurt and peaches, a bowl of magnificent leftover Persian rice-and-chicken with currants his mother made him for dinner last night . . . do not stop, keep going . . . a turkey sandwich on white, a grilled cheese . . . do not stop . . . .
Five. When Teenager Two has collapsed on the couch in the living room with his beanstalk legs stretched out over the couch arm on a rainy afternoon, immobilized and staring at the ceiling in woe because he is “so bored,” grab his stocking feet and squeeze them, shouting, “Feets! Feets!”
Six. When he seeks a ride home from his summer job by texting you two rather impolite words of command, “Come now,” reply with corresponding brevity: “Excuse me?” Persist in pretending not to understand.
Seven. When Teenager Two complains that there is “nothing to do,” employ the time-honored teen-irritation stratagem of suggesting wholesome, educational activities that he has no interest in. He could go to the library and take out a book on sea navigation so he doesn’t run aground when piloting his uncle’s power boat with his new boat-operator’s license . . . he could go to the library and take out a book on celestial navigation and plan an overnight boating excursion with Da Boyz to Cartwright Shoal (actually, he would enjoy that) . . . he could jog to the Y.M.C.A. RECenter and work out in the weight room . . . he could jog to the beach, drink a grape slushie, and jog back . . . don’t stop, keep going . . . he could dice the excessive number of August farm tomatoes on the kitchen cutting board where he left his socks and cook a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce . . . he could take a paint roller and gallon can of eggshell white from the basement and paint the old kids’ nursery-playroom so it is one step closer to being transformed into a teenage-fun den . . . keep going.
Eight. When he is still sleeping at 11 a.m. behind his closed bedroom door and you have been awake and working on the computer since 6 a.m., grab your iPhone, go up the stairs, knock, then enter to stand over him reading aloud viral “Texts From My Teenager” from an Instagram account called @the_leighton_show that you find particularly hilarious: “Can I use a Christmas stamp in July?” Start giggling. “Where do you buy the pasta water?” Try to pry the pillow that he is holding over his head from his hands so he can hear the hilarity. “Happy birthday. I adopted you a donkey.” Don’t stop. “All my friends are there. Walk normal.” Giggle so much he couldn’t hear you even if he took the pillow off his head.