As a mom of four, my greatest parenting challenge is my 9th grade daughter. I’m not sure if it’s because of the fact that she and I are different, or that she’s the oldest, or if I just am like every parent who has ever lived thinking teenagers are really tough to deal with!
The other day my daughter told me, “You always find something to yell at me about!” and I had to admit, she was right. I could pick apart her grades, her social media posts, her friend’s social media posts, her sleeping on the couch at all hours, her messy room… There was always something to address with her. I didn’t even realize I was doing it, until she said something.
We’ve definitely had our struggles since this girl started high school. She ended 8th grade at a private school with a class of only 5 and happily dove headfirst into a high school with 2000+ students. Within the first few weeks of school, she had a new “best friend.” My first encounter with this girl was hearing her say the F-word in a bathroom stall when she didn’t know I was there. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed from the start. Shortly after their friendship started, flyers were posted and thrown around the school with derogatory remarks about the girls. My daughter told me that she didn’t like a boy and it was his friend retaliating. About a month later, I was called by the police department because my daughter and this friend were caught shoplifting make-up at the mall. Happily, she is banned from the mall for a year and from the store for 5 years. This was one too many strikes and I made her distance herself from this girl. I made it clear that I didn’t think this friend was the bad influence. I thought they were bad together. Enter a new friend group and a text sent from daughter to me that she didn’t know how to tell me this, but she is bisexual. Oh for f*ck’s sake, was my first thought. Great, right? I’m supposed to be so enlightened.
I have a brother who didn’t come out for a very long time. I’m sure he agonized over this decision…now my 9th grader is kissing a girl between classes at her high school? As my own mom would say, “my how times have changed…”
Back to the same sweet, sensitive daughter who was completely boy-crazy by the time she was 3. Now she is almost failing three classes (admittedly they are high honors classes), and told me yesterday that because of her fall-out with her girlfriend, 50 kids surrounded her and told her they were going to beat her up. She started balling and said she felt unsafe because her girlfriend had turned on her.
“Time to switch schools!” was literally my first thought. My second thought was that I was going to beat up those 50 kids single-handedly myself. (Next thought: I can’t really do that, can I???) Thankfully, I calmed down.
A few weeks prior, she had made the JV cheer team for sophomore year and we had just paid a hefty amount of money for uniforms. (I use the term “made” very loosely as I’m quite sure they literally can’t find enough girls to pay the fees.) But, it was one of the first things she has been excited about, therefore, she did start putting in extra effort in the three (high honors) classes she was doing poorly in. That shot down my thought of switching school, running away didn’t seem to be an option.
Personally, I’ve done that a lot in my life. Now my poor daughter doesn’t have a chance to run because I think I’ve finally learned MY lesson…therefore, I won’t let her make the same mistakes. After I let her cry and tell me everything that happened, I asked her if she thought there was anything I could do. She said no. I was relieved because the last thing I wanted to do was bail my 14-year-old out of her own problems. She has to realize that she got herself into this mess, it IS her life (as she keeps telling me).
I know a lot of moms would disagree with this. But my job is not to go to her teachers and find out what homework my daughter isn’t doing at school. She is in high school and this is her responsibility. My job is also not to call the moms of the so-called bullies at school. I understand that this is my kid’s account of what happened. She might’ve left out the part where she spoke rudely to them, i.e. she might be the asshole here. I’m not sure. The point is that it is HER mess, not mine. I’ve told my kids 100 times, “I’ve already done (insert that particular kid’s) grade! I’m not doing it again!”
Yes, there are parents that step in for everything. They find friends for their kids, they do their reports, they make the posters and models for extra credit. I’m 99% sure (hopeful?) the teachers know which work is from the parents and which work is from the 4th grader. But if you do everything for your child, it is a big disservice to them and to society. (Just look at the college admissions scandal, hmmmm?!) They will never have the confidence to trust themselves and go out on their own. And you will never relish having your life back when they get out of your house! Don’t you want? Oh, is that just me??
I was bullied in 6th grade. I do not use the term “bully” lightly. I was chased home from school. No fellow student would talk to me, let alone look at me or they’d have the wrath of my ex-best friend. One day this girl decided to walk to school without me and put everyone against me. I still don’t know why or how she did it. I was crushed. I went from first picked in gym class to last picked. They would put signs on my desk calling me “It” because they said they didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl. They would get one girl to befriend me, only to tell me the next day it was a setup and they just wanted to spy. I never wanted to go to school. My mom talked to the teacher who then set up a meeting. It was humiliating. My ex-friend said in front of everyone, “I don’t think I should be punished for not wanting to be someone’s friend anymore.” She had a point. You should be allowed to choose your friends. Let’s just say my mom’s attempt to help the situation didn’t help at all. On the back of a senior year photo, a boy that was in my class that year wrote, “I still feel bad about how you were treated in 6th grade.” It brought tears to my eyes for YEARS thinking about what happened that year. It definitely changed the course of my life. My confidence wained. I became a bit of a pushover for the friends that I made in junior high. I just wasn’t me. It took me awhile to get a little of myself back.
I ended up telling my daughter that I know how she feels. And that these girls were all talk. As long as she didn’t negatively respond to them, they will go away. They will not beat up a girl that is just standing there doing nothing. I guess we’ll see on Monday if I’m right. If I’m wrong, my daughter and I will both need a lot of therapy.
