Puberty comin'
They're doing it just to annoy us
My older kid is just starting the very first stage of puberty, it seems. It’s the earliest days and isn’t physically evident yet but it’s here. He’s more self-conscious. He wants to tell me less. He cares more about what his friends think and less about what I think. He seems to think he’s “cool” sometimes which is hilarious.
I have tried telling myself I remember what it’s like to be that age and thus I won’t let it bug me when he pulls away or acts obnoxious or dismissive but that doesn’t help. Talking to him like I get it does nothing. Kids don’t believe adults when you say you know what they’re going through. And reminding yourself of the change that’s happening doesn’t always help when the transition is less than charming. Turns out that it’s pretty enraging when the person whose whole life you facilitate acts like it’s a total pain in the ass to acknowledge you, even if you require acknowledgment to continue said facilitation (like, a meal I have prepared is ready to eat, please come eat it, now, HELLO?!) As a mom of boys, too, it’s hard not to take this personally — “Excuse me, sir, sorry to BOTHER you.” I am grateful to “The Puberty Podcast” for this validating and informative chat with Wendy Mogel who talks about a boy’s coming of age feeling like your cute boyfriend suddenly is suddenly turning on you and may possibly grow up to be a serial killer.
It’s also unpleasant to spar with a tween because hearing yourself respond to one has a rapid aging effect. Get all the tattoos and trendy sneakers and go to all the concerts and drink all the tequila you want, but the second you see yourself through a pre-adolescent’s eyes you’re suddenly the dumbest most irrelevant shapeless nag in the world. Finally, this stage is just a shock to me because my older one was always the compliant, sincere one. His younger brother has been exhibiting tween behavior since he was 1 and a half.
But I know this period is essential and right on time. First I looked for some kind of strategy out of my personal growing pain. Sometimes I think if I pre-think about an unpleasant or sad event, it won’t hurt as much when it happens. I won’t cry when my kids leave for college/my parents die/we put the dog down because I intelligently sorted it all out in the years prior. Nobody has ever tried that before me, a genius, thought that up.
But I don’t know shit, and as usual, turned to other witches. First I asked Jennifer Fink, author of the Building Boys Bulletin and a mother of four grown boys, what parents like me actually need to know about kids entering this stage of life and how not to take it so damn personally. Here was her take on getting through the moody years:
“Self-care is #1. Take care of yourself and fill up your own cup however you need to do so (exercise, walks, nature, journaling, art, whatever) because when we’re depleted, the tween sass hits hard and is that much more intolerable.
From there, it’s a matter of picking your battles. You can absolutely set standards for how you want to be treated. Problem is, you can’t really make your kids do it - you can’t make them talk to you respectfully or make them answer questions. All you can do, in the moments that they do NOT treat you with respect, is ignore, walk away. Sure, you can punish, but in my experience, that’s rarely effective. It escalates the conflict and creates a confrontational and antagonistic relationship at a time when your kid really needs to know that you’ll have their back. There’s a lotta deep breathing required during the tween years. And P.S. They don’t care that we're trying to keep their life/house nice. They don’t. They need us, but they don’t want to have to and don’t want to admit it.”
Read on for some additional perspective from other witches whose sons and daughters and in between are no longer little babies and everyone lived to tell the tale:
“The hard part for me is that parents with only girls don’t often seem to grasp the full idiocy of 9-12 year old boys. Like truly they are complete fucking idiots and really just unaware of how idiotic and annoying they are being, and I just want to make a PSA to parents of girls that parents of boys (or me at least) are trying so damn hard, but it’s a slippery goddamn slope and I feel like I’m climbing a slide that’s been coated with grease and dish soap. And because I can’t live my kids’ life for them, they are going to keep making dumb ass mistakes that make it look as if I must be the worst parent ever. But no, it’s on them.”
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“Literally this is what I say to my kid. ‘Um, I’m fucking awesome and so nice to you and so patient with your bullshit, like, what did you bring to this relationship today?’ Sometimes I literally list all things I did for him in a day and then I’ll be like, ‘Now what did you offer other than this shitty attitude? And why do you feel entitled to it?’ He wants to be sweet. He’s also just 12.”
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“There is no way to punish or discipline a tween into being a nice, kind, pleasant person (to you — they are probably better with other people). Most tweens are assholes a lot of the time (at home) and they can’t really help it. The tween brain is fucked up. Ignoring them and their tone and attitude is really the best you can do, because nothing else works and you do not want to damage your relationship with them. You need them to trust you or the teenage years will be worse. But if they trust you, the teenage years will actually be better, IME.
When I was a kid, I got in trouble all the time for my ‘tone’ and talking back. Half the time I was shocked when my parents got mad because I didn’t know I was doing anything. I think tweens just don’t have much control over tone and attitude and expecting them to be able to control it is a losing battle. A losing battle that ends in pointless screaming matches and overblown punishments that can't be enforced. I also remember and have watched kids ‘digging themselves deeper’ in the middle of a fight with a parent because they can’t shut up. They literally can’t. If you ignore it, there’s no fight, and everything is so much more peaceful. That doesn’t mean you can’t tell them they can’t do something: just don’t fight with them about their attitude. Also, they don’t enjoy feeling like this, it sucks for them, too.”
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Comments are open to all on this post if you have additional coping tactics or memories of your own tween self to share.
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Thank you for reading Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers —if you haven’t become a paid subscriber yet you can do so at 31% off until 10/31. When you become one you get subscriber-only posts and threads where we solve the world’s problems and talk about what we’re cooking and buying and reading and who we’re mad at. If you have topics you’d like to suggest or questions for me to try to crowdsource/research for you please let me know — you can reply right to this email. We live here on Twitter if you ever want to give us a mention or RT.
If you want to dip into the archives they live here. Here is one from a few years ago I thought of with fondness after emailing with another witch about laser hair removal:
I have this little kernel of dread in my heart that soon enough my sweet, loving almost 6-year-old son who routinely tells me how much he loves me ("I love you more than Super Mario, Mom. I love you so much I could cry.") will be a smelly, moody tween/teen.
But, I also have a kernel of hope because there has been minimal friction through puberty with my 16-year-old daughter. I know they're different, but I'm ever hopeful. Not sure I'm prepared for him to break my heart while she's away at college. Maybe I'll just get really in to yoga during that season, right?
OMG this is so timely for me. My eleven-year-old will FIGHT TO THE DEATH on any topic, as long as she is on the opposite side of me. At first I would try to be right, but now I just let it go.