tuckova

eighteen

Once upon a time there was a usually sweet boy who lived with a little old woman and her friends in a big yellow building in a small gray town. The boy was usually sweet, which means that sometimes he was not, but only rarely. The little old woman was neither particularly little nor particularly old but this is a story so bear with me until snip snap snout this tale's told out.

When the usually sweet boy was about to turn six years old, the little old woman and her friends decided to have a party for him. They wanted to give him all the things he wanted and celebrate him with all the things he loved. In the weeks before the special day, the little old woman and her friends cleverly asked questions, all feigned innocence and misdirection. What, one friend inquired, might be the usually sweet boy's favorite food? And this friend then began gathering the ingredients to make that special food for dinner. What sweets, another friend (who was at the time pregnant with a future usually sweet boy) inquired, might be the usually sweet boy's heart's desire? And this friend then waddled into the kitchen and commenced to bake enough chocolate chip cookies to feed a small army of preschoolers. The third friend bought a puzzle with characters that the usually sweet boy loved. And the little old woman doesn't even remember now what she was planning, because what happened next wiped her memory clear.

On the morning of the day that the usually sweet boy's birthday was to be celebrated, the little old woman tiptoed into his room to wake him, as she had done on every birthday morning before. She held the usually sweet boy in her arms and told him the story of how he was born, which I might write down some other day and then nest in here, nested stories are cool. But today just this story. So the little old woman told the usually sweet boy his story, and then held out her hand to take him into the kitchen to see the pile of cookies and hear all the best wishes from the people who loved him on his special day.

At the doorway, the usually sweet boy tugged at the little old woman's hand. "For my birthday," he said, with the voice of someone who has just realized some of his dreams could come true, and has decided to harness that power.... "I want a cake. A cake with trains and cars and Harry Potter on it."

"Oh!" exclaimed the little old woman. "It's a little late to arrange that. We will have a nice birthday party, but we can't get a cake that fancy at this point."

"Then I do not want a birthday at all," replied the usually sweet boy.

The little old woman paused. A tiny piece of her heart crumbled. "Hm." she said, and tried to keep a neutral tone. "Well, you think about that a little. I'm going to go start breakfast." She went to the kitchen, where the pregnant friend was probably trying to choke down an egg because she did that every morning for her baby, even though she didn't like eggs. A lot of parenting is doing things we don't enjoy so that our children grow into strong and reasonable people. That sentence is called foreshadowing and it is also the moral of the story. The little old woman told the pregnant friend the story about the cake request, and she was very sad when she told it, because she could see the future even before you can.

The pregnant friend went to the usually sweet boy's room to talk sense into him, since sometimes the little old woman got carried away with emotion and what was needed was a cool head. The usually sweet boy told the pregnant friend that he wanted a cake with trains and cars and Harry Potter or he did not want a birthday at all. 

Back in the kitchen, the pregnant friend and the little old woman were joined by the jolly friar friend, who actually was more like Mr Spock than a jolly friar but once a pseudonym always a pseudonym. The jolly friar friend thought that the pregnant friend and the little old woman were taking things a little too seriously, and he went into the usually sweet boy's room to speak in his magical calm voice, which was known on two continents for its ability to soothe savage beasts of two and four legs. Murmuring sounds through the door were promising, but after five minutes the jolly friar returned to the kitchen to proclaim the sad conclusion: cake with trains and cars and Harry Potter or no birthday.  

The little old woman and the pregnant friend and the jolly friar friend conferred. On the one hand, plans had been made. On the other hand, the changeling in the usually sweet boy's bedroom had to be stopped. What to do? When the third friend joined them, the friend of mighty naps, he listened to the story and went back to bed. Sadly, they all concluded that this was the way of things: a cake with trains and cars and Harry Potter was not going to happen, and the magical day of cookies and favorite foods and fun puzzles was finished before it even began. 

The little old woman will confess here that she cried a little.

The little old woman took the usually sweet boy to preschool that day as usual and worked that day as usual. The pregnant friend and the jolly friar friend and the friend of mighty naps also had their days as usual. There was nothing else to do. It was not really a day as usual, it was a day of heavy hearts and the cookies were eaten without celebration. I'd say they were bitter but they were actually probably perfectly delicious. That night the family had dinner as usual and went to bed as usual.

The next morning the little old woman went into the usually sweet boy's room to wake him up. Sitting in bed, still blinking away sleep, the usually sweet boy said, "So... yesterday? When I cancelled my birthday? That was really dumb, huh?" And the little old woman agreed that it had been. "So can I have my birthday now?" asked the usually sweet boy. And the little old woman replied sadly that no, he could not. The usually sweet boy hung his head sadly and dragged his feet into the kitchen. 

In the years after that, the usually sweet boy had many adventures and many wonderful days and some sad days, too, but he never again acted like an entitled ass, and he never got a cake with trains and cars and Harry Potter. He grew into an aspiring artist, a beautiful boy, a creative cook, a dynamic dancer, and so on all the way through the alphabet. And the little old woman could not be happier or prouder. 

Happy Eighteenth Birthday, Squire. You are my heart.

a thousand words

Old photographs, childhood pictures, the ones you show people after they love you because it's too embarrassing otherwise. The crooked home haircut, the awkward mountain teeth, birthmarks, jangling knock knees. Horrible fashion choices, a combination of a different time and the clothing blindness of children. In photo after photo he is standing with a group of people, a crowd of friendly smiling faces, and sometimes he smiles too but he is always off to the side, always a step away from everyone else, looking away from the photographer at something we can't see, his hand shielding his eyes and the shadow hides his face, or turning away at the last minute, his face a blur. Unfocused, as life was then, and somewhat unreal. I remember this time as if it were a dream, a dream in which my feet were stuck in mud, and I was trying to run with my child in my arms but I could not escape and I was terrified that I could not carry him to safety; I was afraid we carried the danger with us. I look at these pictures and I cannot imagine how I ever thought life was normal then or would ever be okay when it so clearly was not and could never be, not from where we were. And yet now somehow it is okay; it's as if it always has been. I look at these pictures and I realize that when he shows them to people, they will laugh at the pants too short, the bangs he cut by himself, the goofy smile. There is a record here of something terrible, a shadow falling across the smile, but it is a visual dog whistle, a thing you can only see when you're tuned to it, the circles under his eyes could be just a trick of the light, and if I'm the only one who knows or remembers the truth, then that's not bad. The pictures don't lie, after all. 

I hope the revolution will be televised.

If you want to know how I got to have a perfect seventeen year old, I will whisper in your ear that television has been an important part of my child-rearing technique. Among other things, watching television with English subtitles taught him to be a great speller. But maybe more importantly: talking to Squire about difficult stuff was never easy when we tried to do it head on, and so I had to think of ways to approach things sideways. If we lived in the States, we'd have gone for long car rides where we talked about teen angst and teen pregnancy while staring intently at the road, but we're stuck with excellent public transportation and he walks to school so we have to stare intently at the screen instead. 

Partly we watch stuff because it's super entertaining. Battlestar Gallactica, Deadwood, every episode of Star Trek ever, the West Wing, Firefly. We seem particularly interested in the epic formation-of-society types of shows, we like a good battle in outer space, and we are partial to snappy dialogue. 

Some of the best shows we watched were American high school dramas -- specifically I would say Friday Night Lights, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Veronica Mars were helpful. If you don't know how to talk to your kids about bullying, social stratification, economic issues, vampires, sexism, racism,,, well, this triptych has you covered. We learned about people who love sports, witty repartee and trust, romance and heartbreak, the varieties of parent/child relationships. It was easy to talk about heavy issues after we'd seen it happen to other people -- wow, so that was a hard time for Matt... what do you think he could have done differently? Would you have trusted Spike after what he did? Should Veronica tell her father the truth or should she try to protect him? And through talking about these things we were able to practice talking to each other about most serious issues before they even became issues.

On Friday the Veronica Mars movie came out, and we sat on the couch in our old standard formation, popcorn bowl propped between us, and watched every character we loved light the screen. It has been ten years since the show was on, five years since we watched it, and it felt like it had only been days. Weevil! Mac! We got to talk about how some people change, but not a whole lot, just enough to give you hope that we are capable of change. How nice the respect and love that Veronica and her dad have for each other is. And of course some conversation (because we are way meta) about how entertainment gets funded and the future of media etc. It was great. 

That's all. Possibly the best parenting tip I've got, though: television. True story.  

question authority

A thing that is interesting about teenagers is that they think that much of what adults are doing is wrong. Either the act itself or the reason for it or the way it is done: wrong, wrong, wrong. I remember this feeling myself, as a teenager, that the grown-ups around me had missed some key ideas when laying out their lives. In a way, this is a pretty good thing, evolutionarily, that as they approach adulthood they're almost programmed to question every thing they've been told so far. If we didn't question, if we just kept doing things because that's how they're done, then we wouldn't improve much as a species. On the other hand, there are some things that we do precisely because they help us to survive, and so blindly playing the opposition isn't always smart either. 

I think that one problem for me was that people didn't often tell me WHY; they mostly told me WHAT. You have to iron your shirt because it's a rule. You have to be home by 10 because that's curfew (actually my parents believed in curfew as defined by the event, which I appreciated then and still do). You can't eat that because it's bad for you. This kind of logic is fine for kids, but it starts to backfire with teens. And ESPECIALLY if they've found out that some of the things that they were presented as absolutes are only true some of the time, if at all... well, everything else you say becomes doubtful. 

For example, if you say "You have to study or you won't get a good grade", then boy are you undermined when no study or poor study correlates with a good grade anyway. Talking to teenagers successfully involves so much conditional framing, and this at a time when they're some of them taller than you and twice as stubborn, and there you are with your wishywashy it might could... well, it doesn't feel nice.

I have noticed, though, that very specific directions with justifications tends to get things done better, repeatedly, than "because I'm the parent, DAMMIT" does. Even if that's what I very much want to say. I think it also helps to really encourage a teenager to question why every single time it isn't volunteered if they don't know. And (and I actually very much enjoy this part of parenting) it is very useful to have teens suggest and justify different ways of doing things, first because it encourages them to think through their alternate idea before they try making soup by dropping in whole potatoes and trying to cut them up later, and second because they may have a better way of doing things, since that is (after all) what their brains are supposed to be doing now, so it benefits everybody. Plus it's good practice for people to question what they don't understand and be answered politely as a matter of course, as it makes the world a more pleasant place to live when people are in the habit of not viewing questions as challenges, but as opportunities to explain. 

Just a thing I've been thinking about for the last week or so. Writing it down to help myself remember.

“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.”

When Squire Tuck was but a wee small thing, I read to him all the time. There were so many books that I had loved as a child and so many books that I had been introduced to as an adult that I wanted him to know, and so little time. And then there were the books that he loved that were new to me; you don't even want to know how many times we read "Dazzling Diggers" ("Diggers are noisy, strong, and big/ Diggers can carry and push and dig"). Striking the balance of getting a book into him at the right age -- not too early, so that it wouldn't be wasted, but not so late that it seemed childishly easy to him, was a frank delight. There were some missteps, of course -- like trying to read "The Once and Future King" to a nine-year-old obsessed with Arthurian legend was not my best choice ("The Sword in the Stone" was not so bad, but "The Queen of Air and Darkness" was... uhm, not age appropriate). But most of the time, reading to him flowed, and we both really liked it.

When he started reading for himself, he stuck mostly to books that were below level, which I know is normal for some kids, and which was fine because dude, nobody hated the Magic Tree House series more than I did, and I'm pretty sure the only reason they exist is so that kids can read below level. And it meant that the reading aloud could continue because even to a kid who can read pretty well, their own ability is usually not up to the speed of their comprehension yet. Plus (sing along with me, I know you know this one): I love the sound of my own voice ever so much. 

And then all of a sudden one day I realized we weren't reading together anymore. To an extent it's because he got old enough for movies and there are not quite as many movies that I love as there are books, but still so many great movies that you should see when you are still young, and we had a lot of watching to do. And to an extent his reading had caught up with his thinking and he didn't need me to read to him to make it fun. I mean, this is sort of a GOAL, right, so I'm not complaining. I tried having him read to me but as soon as I sit still enough to be read to I tend to fall asleep, so that didn't work.

And anyway, he was reading. Not as much as I thought he should, but more than most people, and not the best books but books that he really enjoyed. And since every study I've read says that basically: a) an avid reader has nothing to fear in terms of brain development, learning skills, etc and b) it really doesn't matter what you read, I figured: ehn.

Last week, it occurred to me that part of the purpose of reading was that I wanted him to be grounded in my culture -- the whole delicious American entertainment bundle; that he would know what an American 16-year-old student would know. Now, a lot of stuff that Czech teens and American teens know is the same, especially anything on the internet. But books, the books that you read in high school, are not something that seems to be actively taught here. In my experience, the average Czech high school student can rattle off Shakespeare's oeuvre in the order they were written, tell you what's a comedy or a tragedy or a historical drama, but odds are they haven't read a single one. This Will Not Stand.

So I started trying to find out what the books that are assigned in high schools are... it's interesting how hard it was to find a comprehensive list. I know that some of the books we read were ridiculous to assign to high school students (Gatsby, seriously?! Because as a teen I assure you I had no idea what that drunken mess was about), and some books are fantastic no matter when you read them (I didn't read "To Kill a Mockingbird" until I read it with Squire, and it was perfect for both of us), but there are books that you sort of HAVE TO read as a teen, because that's the ONLY time you're going to really, really get them. "The Catcher in the Rye" or "The Diary of Anne Frank" or anything by Robert Cormier.

Anyway. I'm working on a list, and I've told Squire he's got to read at least one a month off the list, and I have to read it too if I haven't already, so we can play book group about it. Anything you think I might have missed?  

 

Frank's Wild Argument of Insidious Intent

When Squire was born I thought he was the most amazing thing on the planet, and then when he got to be about a year old I couldn't BELIEVE I had thought that, because obviously one was so much more interesting and fun. It's been like that pretty much every year since.

This afternoon I was telling him the marvelous story of how I memorized the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and recited the first bit to show how awesome I continue to be at storing all kinds of things in the brain pan. He said it sounded to him a lot like Tom Waits and went on to demonstrate how Waits would sing about sawdust restaurants with oyster shells.

In short: still the most amazing thing on the planet to me. So lucky to live with him. Let's all remember this at the end of the month when grades come out: somebody who can sing Tom Waits parodies is almost certainly more fun to live with than someone with a good grade in physics.

facts cut a hole in us

Here is a post where I talk about facts! How about that?

Squire was flunking 8th grade because a lot of reasons including but not limited to both of us got really involved in the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He seems to be pulling out of that nosedive and there is much relieved wiping of foreheads. Distractions are only good in moderation, perhaps. He's awesome in general and the most fun person in the world most of the time and it's been kind of assy to have to go all parental on him with Worry and Concern and Some Yelling and With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility which is sort of funny because eighth grade isn't really a lot of power when you think about it but I guess ninth grade is like whoa. Anyway things seem better. I have a meeting with the teacher next week to discuss How Things Are Now and I don't know but I'm hopeful.

Friar moved out in November because of mostly one reason; I may have mentioned that? It's been a rough six months. Seven. I hope you all invested in tissues, because I drove that stock up like crazy. The list of places I have burst into tears is now only slightly shorter than the list of odd places I have fallen asleep (and there is some intriguing overlap) and I hope to keep it that way. It's getting better, and every month I say "Oh, now I'm ALL BETTER AND PERFECTLY FINE for real, not like last month when I merely thought I was all better and fine!" and now I have finally gotten around to realizing that I am going to get better and finer, but probably never all better or perfectly fine. Which is probably okay. We would have been married ten years this month, making it by far the longest partner-type relationship I've had, and honestly the best, too. And I think we're still friends, in the true way that you rarely get to be with an ex, so that's very good.

Work was patchy for rather too long for my comfort and I got kind of scared but now it is coming in as it should: enough to keep me busy, not so much to make me crazy. It is ridiculous how much happiness I can get from just doing a job, doing it well, getting the periodic pat on the head for a job well done. And I love editing so much, the more rigid assertion of rules, the delicate smoothing of a phrase, the focus and attention it requires. I'm expanding into different things, not just medical papers, and while I do like a good stereotactic needle in the foramen of Monro, I'm also really enjoying learning about Benedictine monks, and fracking, and how to calculate a fair tax on smoking. I know so many things, you guys! You totally want me at your next cocktail party. 

Last night I went to "night at the museums", which was apparently attended by the entire population of Brno. I met some old friends and made some new ones. There was dancing. Also I may have eaten some KFC around midnight, and found it both disgusting and delicious. Then there was foozball, at which I sucked 20 years ago and continue to suck today. I got home at 4, and woke up to breakfast in bed at 11, which was lovely. And Squire and I played "Can you answer this question about me?" which was ridiculously fun. It turns out we know each other pretty well.

Watching Doctor Who (FINALLY) and Community and season 6 of Buffy. Reading "1984" with Squire and "On Beauty" by myself. Sleeping in the middle of the bed. Generally doing well. And you?

p.s. that was kind of hard.

late birthday present

For my birthday, Squire said he would destroy my enemies. Apparently my enemies are people who litter, people who stand in the tram doorways, and people who are stupid on the internet. That sounds about right.

www.flickr.com/photos/53678649@N00/4672018463/

Someday I will figure out the scanner and then I will be unstoppable.

sweetheart, bitter heart

We had some Drama and Hurt Feelings this weekend. Apparently his friends' visit on Friday was not all that and a bag of chips. They were to come over and play cards and look at his photos from vacation, of which there were maybe a hundred, plus video footage. And the friends were not very interested. They were talking about other stuff while they were looking and sometimes they weren't looking at all.  I mean, I have to say: more than 20 photographs and you have to really love the photographer. On the other hand, your two best friends? On the first hand, the photos aren't all that good, since for example he views the whole "Don't photograph against a window using flash" as nothing more than superstition. But back to the other hand: who are they, art critics? It takes like 20 minutes to look at the pictures and be interested in them, or pretend to be interested because you care about the person who took them.

So we had this talk, with his long legs draped across my lap because he is too old to sit in my lap unless it's really, really bad. This talk that involved prolonged staring at the ceiling because he is too old to cry about just hurt feelings. This talk where I explained that being an only child means that you're used to having people who care about you pay full focused attention to you, and you're even used to paying full focused attention to the people you care about, but that other kids may not see this kind of attention as a kind of caring. Even some adults don't see it that way. That because you were brought up by adults who were pretty interested in your stories, that may give you the idea that the stories are interesting, and some of them are, but some of them are only interesting to the people who can make time for them. Which two adults who only have one child can make time for a whole host of stories, particularly when they think that the one child is going to be paying attention to their stories, but some adults don't act that way, and a 13-year-old peer might not feel that way. That it can happen through the course of your life that no matter how interesting your stories are, no matter how interesting you are, some people will never be able to pay full attention to you. And I think one of the important things about you is that because you know how important it feels to be heard, you are a very good listener. And this is a blessing and a curse, to be able to fully listen to people and hear their stories and the stories behind them, and to remember them, but there is nothing but sadness if you expect other people to have this gift, or even think of it as a good thing, because many people don't.

I said it may for example happen that you are in the middle of what you perceive as a pretty awful time, and you will be asked to pay attention to someone else's story about how one time somebody was maybe looking at them funny in line. And you will feel both like you need to hear this story because you are vitally interested in other people and obliged to listen to them besides, and you will feel hurt because they haven't asked about you. I said it may happen that somebody gives you eighty percent of their attention, ninety percent, and you won't feel happy because you wanted a hundred. A hundred and ten. You could live like this until you're forty. Purely hypothetically I'm saying.

But what you need to know is that most people don't think of things this way. Most people are thinking of themselves, and they seem to live in the doors of trams, in the grocery store lines. But many people, people who are worth knowing, devote the amount of attention that they can. So you can choose to be angry because people don't pay what you consider to be enough attention, and go through life lonely; or you can hold out this measuring cup and be hurt when you find it empty or only half full; or you can focus on finding people who are worth your attention, and hope that they will pay attention to you in their own way, even if it's different. In any case: I'm not kidding about photographing against the glass. Seriously, that has to stop.

kids these days

A bunch of kids in Squire's class have facebook accounts. They're posting things that I, as a parent, would not want my child posting. Even if the account is locked, one can still see all the things of which they are "fans" and so on. So for example, I know that this 12 year old classmate of his, real first and last name, is interested in meeting men, long passionate kisses, and looking at men's asses in tight pants. What to think?

a. The parents know, and they don't care.
b. The parents don't know, and don't care.
c. The parents don't know, but would care.
d. other.

An American friend of mine suggested bringing this up at the school; that the school should have some kind of program to address it. To my knowledge, nothing along the lines of internet-savvy behavior is part of the curriculum. I don't know if kids are taught about it at all. Certainly Czech television doesn't have James Lipton telling them to give it a ponder. Is this a situation where one sticks one's head in, or not? I worry about these kids just putting more of themselves out there than they would if they were thinking straight; I worry about somebody getting hurt. Some pretty shitty things happened to me when I was a teenager that would not have happened if I had been prepared for them; there's stuff I would have avoided if I'd known how to. It is also true that I was warned very sternly not to do things that I went ahead and did. So maybe this risking of yourself is part of growing up?

What would you do?