Don’t you give me that look!

January 9, 2009

Don’t you give me that look!

There comes a time in nearly every parent’s life in which they fully believe the curse works.  You know the curse.  Usually it’s from our parents, but I also got the curse from teachers and other adults when I was a teen.

Say it with me: “I hope you have a kid that acts just like you!”

Powerful stuff right there.  I have not just one, but two kids that are just like me.

Just.  Like.  Me.

They look  just like me, well, except they’re taller… Their personalities couldn’t be more different from each other, but somehow each one reflects me fully.

Just. Like. Me.

I remember, upon hearing the curse, thinking, “Wow, a kid just like me?  That’d be awesome!”   I was so stupid.

As a teenager, I was not only mouthy and rebellious, I also had a knack for being sullen and quiet.  The sullenness seemed to infuriate the adults around me even more than being mouthy, so sullen was usually my go-to attitude.

As they would lecture me, yell at me, threaten me, I would sit and look at a spot on the wall, just above the person’s shoulder.  My eyebrows would be arched, ever-so-slightly, and my mouth would be held firm in a not-quite-a-smirk position.

It was a good look.

The longer I held it, the more the adults would lose their composure.  When finally I would be told “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”, I would gaze at them with eyes that were all but dead.  No matter what was said, I wouldn’t flinch, drop my gaze, or change my expression.  I was untouchable when I donned ‘the look’.

Well, as I said, the curse works.  A couple years ago, my now-16- year- old started morphing from a perfectly reasonable, respectful young lady to a walking attitude.  The attitude slowly grew until it was all – out hateful, and came to the boiling point a few months ago.  The last few weeks of the attitude, she gave me the look every time I spoke to her.

The look.  THE look.  MY LOOK!

I found myself saying “Don’t give me that look!”, and in reply, in a voice that could have been mine 20 years ago, she would innocently reply, “What look?”

Thankfully, we seem to be past that phase.  I haven’t seen the look directed at me for a long time.  I have seen her give the look to her boyfriend.  I feel kinda sorry for him.  He’s got no armor against the look.  He is defenseless.  Poor kid.  But, I’m not getting the look, so I’m good.

Around the time my 16 year old seemed to come back to her senses and start behaving like a normal member of society, it seems that she passed the Attitude Baton to my 13 year old daughter.

Now, my 13 year old with an attitude really floors me.  The older one, well, she always had that glint in her eye, even as a newborn.  That “I’m the boss” aura around her.  But not my ‘little’ one.  From the time she was born until very recently, she’d been no problem.  I could tell her something once and never have to bring it up again.  She could look at situations that her friends or peers were going through and say, “I’ll never do that.”  and I believed her.

A few months ago, she started “seeing” this boy she met at church.  He’s 17, she’s 13.  Um… yeah.  I don’t like that math.  So, I said, “You can be friends, you can be acquaintances, but nothing more.”  And my little girl, to whom I never had to say the same thing twice, looked at me with those great big green eyes and said, “Okay Mommy.”  She still calls me Mommy.  Ain’t that sweet?

I just found out that she not only is friends with him, but somehow, she’s his ‘girlfriend’.  He gave her his class ring, which she wears on a chain around her neck at school.  Not at home.  I didn’t know this ring even existed, until circumstances brought the ring into my possession.  By then, I had been putting more and more pressure on her to end any relationship she had with him because it had clearly become more than ‘just friends’.  I had even involved the leadership from our church to be on the lookout for inappropriate behavior from either of the two.  I had already talked to the boy several times and explained that I did not hold anything personal against him, that I just felt that the relationship was not a good idea for either of them at this age.

So, the ring comes into my possession, I find out more and more details of this clandestine romance, and my composure begins to erode.  My little girl with the big green eyes and even bigger heart is in even bigger trouble.

At the time of this writing, she has lost some privileges.  For instance, I took her door.  Yep, I took her bedroom door.  Right off the hinges.  I also took her cd player, cd’s, personal dvd player, dvd’s, her makeup, her perfumes, her hair straightener, her nail polishes, her digital camera, her iPod, and her whiteboard.

She had this whiteboard in her room, she used to write bible verses on it every day.  Over the course of the past few weeks, she had taken to writing other things on it, such as “Life Sucks.”  “I Hate Life.”  She had written some quote about doing what your gut tells you to do, no matter what anyone says.  Below it, I replied that perhaps her gut is not as wise as her parents and the other adults in her life.  She erased it and wrote a note on it, suggesting I refrain from reading or writing on her board.  That’s why I took that too.

We had a long, loud ‘discussion’ about rights and property ownership.  It is my belief that it’s hard for life to suck when you have an abundance of electronics at your fingertips.  I did offer my phone (I took her phone too) so that she could contact the authorities, to make sure that I was within the boundaries of the legal system.  She did not take me up on the offer.

She did, however, give me the Look.  Those beautiful green eyes lost their luster, her perfectly shaped eyebrows arched just a millimeter higher than normal, and her mouth set in a not-quite-smirk.

To that, I gave her the only reply I could come up with.  “One day, you’re going to have a kid that is just like you, and I hope I’m around to see it!”

Ah, the cycle continues…

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