The Book On Boy

If you were to peruse the shelves of our household library, you’d have a pretty good biography of me. There’s still a few how to plan a wedding books, followed by several (marked and underlined) how to get pregnant books, then books on adoption strategies, and finally, the long-awaited pregnancy advice books (or, as I tended to call them, What To Expect While Expecting, If You Are Totally Unrealistic About Both You and Your Child).

And then there are the child-rearing books. At first, like most parents, I looked to the gospels of Dr. William Sears, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and Dr. Penelope Leach (who, as a bonus, had an actual daily chat show airing while my oldest was a baby). They advised me to understand my baby and attach to him – but always with sensible firmness. And they were rounded out by Dr. Richard Ferber (bless him!) who taught all of us how to get some sleep.

It wasn’t long before I began to think I had gotten the hang of this parenting thing. That delusion lasted about two years, until it became apparent that some more experts would need to be called in. The gentle titles (Understanding Your Baby and Child) gave way to grimmer, more problem specific names.

The Strong-Willed Child.

The Difficult Child.

The Explosive Child.

The Challenging Child.

Dare To Discipline.

Bringing Up Boys.

We had entered the Land of Boy, determined to assert our authority. Every morning was a struggle to get him up, dressed, and out of the house on time; every afternoon, we braced ourselves for the bad reports from caregivers and teachers, ranging from “he bit another child” to “don’t bring him back for two days.” (Really, how do you get suspended from day care?) Evenings ended in tears all around, as the battle to keep him in his bed escalated to nuclear proportions.

I scoured every volume, looking for just the right answers. I learned about picking my battles, about putting issues in separate “buckets,” and I began to consider organic brain dysfunction. We took Boy to a therapist who gave us the psycho-babble equivalent of, Eh, it’s too soon to tell whether it’s just him being a boy or something else.

Stanley Turecki’s The Difficult Child was a life-saver. Dr. Turecki basically said, Hey, stupid! Your kid is wired differently. Work with it! Stop fighting it.

I learned that Boy had sensitive skin (now I know, post ADHD diagnosis, that it’s all about stimulation), so I cut all the tags out of his clothes, and gave away anything with a turtleneck or long sleeves. He ran on a different schedule, so instead of Eat your food, now!, the rule became, You must sit at the table at dinnertime, but you can eat your (warmed up) food later, when you’re hungry. Likewise, I told him nightly, You don’t have to go to sleep right now, but you do have to stay in your bed.

I learned to count down to the end of activities, instead of expecting Boy to stop whatever he was doing on a dime. I still give ten, five, two, and one-minute warnings, even with Doodle and Scooby, and it still works. I learned to separate behavioral issues from disciplinary ones. (Don’t get me wrong; Boy sometimes does stuff that is absolutely and defiantly against the rules, and we come down on him like the Hammer of Thor.) And I learned too, when all else fails, to find humor in his over-the-top reactions, because, well, they’re funny.

One of Boy’s other nicknames is “Fred,” as in when he gives us this attitude, he stomps away down the hall on his big bare feet, and you can practically hear that distinctive descending-tuba theme from The Flintstones. It gives me the giggles every time.

But lately, I’ve been noticing some of the things I love about Fred, er, Boy. Oh, he’s still difficult, strong-willed, and, honestly, more sullen than explosive, but he’s also, smart, funny, and very, very cute.

This is the kid who, to pay for a jacket he designed online, agreed to read six books by the end of the summer, leading to the astonishing, breathless phone call I received at work from him: Mom! An Amazon box came with your name on it, can I please open it and get my book? It can't wait until you get home!

He’s the kid who, with indulgent amusement, let me hide my face in his shoulder during all the scary parts of Cowboys and Aliens (something Rev would never allow), and smiled when I insisted that I hadn’t really been all that frightened . . .

When he smiles, he shows his dimples, curiously at odds with the rumbling deep voice and stocky six-foot frame.

He politely holds doors open for people, and, without my asking, gives up his seat on a crowded bus.

He cooks for himself without complaint (a trait that his future girlfriends will eventually love him for), and does his own laundry.

He pulls up his sagging pants when I ask him to, struggles to master the Windsor knot as he dresses for church, and only pauses a few seconds before he mutters, “Lovey’too,” at the end of a telephone call.

Sometimes I can imagine additional chapters to Dr. Turecki’s book as I look at my teenaged son. Hey, stupid! Your kid is wired differently – he thinks that his new Mohawk and the attendant squiggles carved into his hair was a good idea, so keep your opinions about it to yourself. Hot sauce tastes good to him on everything, even chicken salad; stop nagging. Why do you care if he sleeps from 2 AM to noon on a Saturday, as long as he gets his ten hours?

It’s the twenty-first century, so my library collection has stalled. Now my research on how to do this parenting thing has moved on-line, and my current biographical status as a perplexed mother of a soon to be 15-year-old is told in the bookmarked and favorited websites on my laptop. I’m too embarrassed to even name them.

It occurs to me that life might be a bit easier for those of us navigating the shoals of teenager-hood, especially those of us with “difficult,” “strong-willed,” or otherwise adjective-challenged kids, if those kids themselves had access to their own library: The Strong-Willed Mom; The Difficult Parent; Dare to Be Different From Your Mom’s Fantasy Of Who You Should Be.

I know I’d read them.