Okay, not entirely. David was out of humor and irritable for pretty much his entire 13th year and at the same season that he has now reached the sunshiny uplands of 14, he still has his moments. Jon, 16, has developmental disorders of various kinds so that no age is without challenges. But for the mostly part, the teen years here are actually — and common doesn't want to tempt the evil eye but — fun.
Well, of course, as the parent of a teenager you do have to be obliged a sense of humor about certain things — like socks. They one or the other fail to wear them when they should, or adieu dirty ones in places they should not. They are heedless of their appearance and submit only reluctantly to daily ablutions. They consume prodigious amounts of food but relate to two stalks of broccoli as a huge portion. When their hair is falling across their foreheads and tumbling down over the eyes to in some place near the nostrils, they pronounce it "too short." And they have a peculiar sense of time. After three hours on the computer they will bemoan plaintively, "I just got on!" But after six minutes of practicing the trumpet or clarinet they will testify that they spent a half-hour.
And yea, as the mother of a music-obsessed 14-year-old, I do yield radio bridle to whoever has chief called "shotgun" in the car and thus am subjected to more heavy metal than a middle-aged woman should be expected to endure. Did you know that there are genres of heavy metal? Oh, yes. There's hair metal and end of life metal and thrash metal and God knows what else. I once asked David whether every song amounted to its own genre. He was dismissive. David is very quick on the trigger. He knows my views and standards and posterior a year and a half of listening to heavy metal in the car, I don't design I've heard a single swear word.
But enduring ponderous metal is an investment because this boy also loves Rachmaninoff, Beethoven and Rimsky-Korsakov. We split our time betwixt the rock and classical channels. David be possible to play Hummel and Haydn on the trumpet, and hinder spending three glorious weeks at Interlochen music camp this year he returned appreciating opera, hop about, and even (his mother's skepticism notwithstanding) Mahler. If I can listen to Metallica and Rush notwithstanding David's consideration, I be feasible to certainly give Gustav another go.
Ben, at 12, is not technically a teenager yet, but that severely matters since Ben is unit of those people who was born mature. This is not to say he's solemn. Quite the contrary. Listening to the news on the car radio the other day, the announcer intoned, "Next, is Bill Clinton a racist?" "He be able to't be," quipped Ben, "he's the first hellish president." I guess it's possible that adolescence will transmute this smiling prankster (I got every vigilant on my PDA recently that make out "Buy Ben presents") into a brooding shadow at minutest some of the time. But it's hard to imagine. He has the gift of buoyancy, a talent as being keeping busy (mostly underrated in this screen-dependent age), and too much impishness to remain morose for long.
I so admire parents who are more strict and disciplined that I. Certainly against three boys a bit more martinet would not go amiss. (My husband is better, but he works long hours.) And I do see at teenage girls who seem to keep their notebooks so orderly and their hair combed and their permission slips signed and think — it's a different creation.
But I'm not complaining. I get in my car and the GPS spits out directions to our dear sushi restaurant and I think "Ben!" After haggling with David about practice time, he finally puts the bugle to his lips and out comes real music, beautiful music. Jonathan is learning the bass guitar, helping out with the junior kids at synagogue, and earning pocket money by gardening, cleaning, and caring for the four animals in our household. He's in this way contented when he's working hard, and that is no little thing in this world.
To find out more about Mona Charen and explain features by means of other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, inspect the Creators Syndicate Web serving-boy at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Previous: Teenagers
Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080808/cm_uc_crmchx/op_56980
