The balancing act

When Spielberg was little, I remember other parents raving about how parenting their little angel was so damn easy..."oh, she's never cries", "we taught little Johnny sign language so he can communicate before he can talk" and "little Janey has been pooping on the potty since she was 8 months old!". When your own kid cries nonstop because of colic/teething/ear infections, your one year old throws a full-on tantrum in the doctor's office, who comments "wow, that usually doesn't happen to that extreme until at least 2", and your 3 year old screams bloody murder every time to suggest he poop on the toilet instead of asking for a pullup, squatting behind the couch and immediately demanding you remove it now that the deed is complete, you wish those parents would just shut the fuck up and shove their oh-so-wonderful parenting realities where the sun don't shine.

In Spielberg's early years, my parenting style was "do whatever the hell it takes to gets us through the day" Because thanks to undiagnosed depression with a side of insomnia, I was not operating with full facilties and the effort involved to try my best to be a good mom and not ruin my kid left me exhausted and questioning everything I did. I read parenting books, I sought advice of other moms and I tried hard to find what worked for both my son and I. As long as he made it through those difficult early years and emerged a happy, healthy kid who does not require some form of therapy later in life, then I did ok.

Parenting a 13-year old is a whole different story. Because now? All those crowed-about,  perfectly-behaved darlings who never had a tantrum in the cereal aisle of the grocery store have turned into sullen,  often-belligerent creatures with a flair for the dramatic and ridiculous. They no longer talk to their parents in a sweet voice...they grunt, if they bother to communicate at all. They spend an hour in the bathroom doing god-knows-what, and they spend their free time attached to their computers or cel phones because it would be an international disaster if they had to go 5 minutes without talking to their friends about whoever they think is hot at the moment. These same parents who would spend an hour rhapsodizing about how their 7 month old could read are now bewildered by the C- in English.

Having a kid who was a difficult baby/toddler now gives me an advantage as a parent of a teen. Because I find dealing with a moody teenager far easier than a screaming toddler. I can reason with Spielberg now, where there is no such thing as logic and reason to a 3 year old. While he's still got those personality quirks that make him who he is (like extreme stubbornness, zero patience for stupidity and a willingness to argue his case in a way that would make a lawyer weep with pride), now those things about him make me proud of him because he's old enough to channel them into something tangible, like working harder to get better grades and developing a social conscience, where he percives injustice in the world and wants to take part in trying to solve the problem because he feels strongly that it's the right thing to do.

Of course Spielberg is a young teen and we still have several years for some scary-assed behaviour to rear it's ugly head. But my parenting style remains the same...fluid, because I believe you need to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. I don't want to hover or keep him trapped under my thumb. But my eyes are wide open to the realities of his age and the world he's growing up in. So it's constant vigilance, tempered with stepping far back enough so he learns how to find his way. It's finding that balance between wanting to protect him from everything and stepping back to let him soar. It's holding him close, but letting him go.