I'd like to give my mom a standing ovation, pour her an enormous glass of wine, and commission a monument of her, for having to deal with my adolescence. Seriously. I was every bratty stereotype rolled into one-- loud, crass, emotional, a crappy driver, and passionate about wanting a nose ring. When I was age 13 to, say, around age 17, there were tens of thousands of times my actions warranted a swift karate chop to the jugular, or maybe long-term internment in a dungeon. But, through those teenage years, I spent a remarkable 0% of my time in a dungeon, which vividly demonstrates my mother's self-restraint.
To the woman who taught me to be tough, think quickly, and not take shit from anyone, thank you. Here's a little list of all the times you were right.
The Hermit Crab Debate
This is actually a bonus story! It happened in middle school when I was still a pre-teen. I wanted a hermit crab. It wasn't a passionate want, an emotional yearning, passing thoughts of "I must have a hermit crab or I will explode." No, I simply decided I wanted a hermit crab one night at dinner, and I wouldn't stop pestering my mother about it. She said I'd lose interest in my pet immediately. I went upstairs to pout and promptly lost interest in what I was supposed to be pouting about.
Mom: 1, Hermit Crab: 0.
The Emo Hair
Around 2009, there was this godawful trend of layering the everloving crap out of your hair, dyeing it black, and adding neon-colored highlights. If you had your hair like this, it meant that you were edgy and cool and you didn't care what other people thought. As a 13-year-old girl with a penchant for buying Aeropostale T-shirts with rhinestones, I wanted to step up my fashion game and look edgy and cool and like I didn't care what other people thought. For weeks, I'd beg my mom for this cool haircut, even going so far as to bargain a DIY solution: "I could dye it with a box kit! It would be cheap and look just as cool!"
Points to my mom, who convinced me that emo hair would look dumb and that dyeing your hair from a box will never look salon-done.
The Great Douche Parade of 2011-2013
"What did I tell you? People don't change."
This was my mother's mantra during those teenage years, where I'd date a guy, convince myself that he was Prince Charming, and cry when it was over. She'd change her delivery of course, whether I was crying on my bed or creating schemes to ruin his life, but the message was always the same. My mom has always wanted me to have hope and optimism for my own future (I mean, what are moms for?) but she wanted me to manage my expectations about how others would be included in it.
I feel kinda bad for my future daughters. They'll be feeling bad about a recently-deceased relationship, and their grandma and I will be sitting in the kitchen, drinking wine, and toasting to the fact that d-bag boys never change. And then one day, as my own daughters grow up, they'll join us in the kitchen for wine-drinking and mantra-reciting, and all will be well.
The French Horn Debacle
"Mom, I hate the French horn, I wanna quit!"
"Well, that's too bad, because we don't quit things in this house."
Who would've known that, five years after that conversation, 13-year-old me grew into 18-year-old me who decided to major in music at the University of Michigan, thanks to my mom who drove me to auditions, petted my head when I cried over playing wrong notes, and told me that we don't quit things in her house.
