13 Is the New 18 (18 page)

On the other hand, the bit about the condoms at the gay pride parade and the plan to dress up as Trojan Man, well, it was so utterly juvenile that it actually seemed plausible.

Either way, though, whether it was true or false, Taz had outwitted me and I had no idea how to respond. Finally, I pointed out that none of the Perfect Mommies of our neighborhood were going to give candy to a hulking teenager covered in condoms; he'd be better off getting a chain saw and dressing up as a crazed murderer.

Just then, Sport called him from another room. He wanted Taz to come play Monopoly.

“I'm coming,” Taz said, and off he went.

“So,” said Elon, “how do you think our little talk went?”

“Um, good!” I said cheerfully. “We stated our values and we stated the rules. That's what we set out to do, and we accomplished our goals.” I smiled sweetly and added: “And I think I gave him some really top- notch advice.”

“About what?”

“About Halloween costumes.”

ometimes it seems like a cruel trick that I ended up with two sons, since I knew so little about the ways of boys when I became a mother. Not only did I spend my teenage years at an all- girl school, but I also grew up with a sister and no brothers. I practically didn't have a conversation with a boy my age until I went to college.

And yet somehow I am now a Lone Woman in a Land of Men, the only member of my household who won't walk around wearing nothing but underwear and who goes ballistic if the toilet seat is left up.

I am also the only one in my house who has no interest in watching, playing, or following sports in any way, shape, or form. And that's another one of those things from my childhood that has changed with the times— thank goodness. Like a lot of girls I knew growing up, I pretty much never caught or threw a ball, or watched an organized ball game, until my own kids started playing sports. I'm still mystified by the definition of a double play, and inevitably I am chatting with another mom or
reading the paper when a Really Important Thing Happens in the game.

Which always leads Elon to come running over to loudly cross-examine me.

“Did you see what your son just did?” he'll demand after Sport— who is a very good athlete— has done something amazing. “Did you? You weren't paying attention, were you? Your son scored the winning goal”—or shot, or hit, or run, or pitch, or whatever they call it in whatever sport was being played— “and, as usual, you missed it.”

I'm so pathetic, most of the time I can't even tell which team is winning, or whether our score is being tallied under “Home” or “Guest.” I'll try to fake it, try to sound halfway intelligent and attentive by saying things at halftime or between innings like “So, how are we doing? Are we still— I mean, is the score, uh, still, you know, two to … uh, what is it now? I think I might have missed that last play when I had a sneezing fit. You know, I think I must be allergic to something out here in the field!”

Inevitably, my ploy only makes me sound more idiotic than ever. The score is never two to anything; it is always some improbable set of numbers that I couldn't begin to guess at, like fifteen to nothing, or tied six- six for the past forty- five minutes.

But it wasn't just sports where my knowledge of boys was deficient. So ignorant was I in the ways of boys that I naively thought, when Taz was little, that all gender
differences were culturally imposed rather than inborn. I even got him a doll when he was about three, thinking, idealistically, that probably boys would love to play with dolls if only they had the chance. I showed him how to cuddle the dolly hold it, rock it, and pretend to feed it.

“It's like your baby,” I explained.

He immediately informed me that it wasn't a baby, it was a passenger on a train. He lined the dining- room chairs up and smashed the dolly down on a chair, then pretended to be the conductor, taking imaginary tickets and announcing imaginary stops.

Next, he went and got his little toy doctor kit and told me the dolly was sick. He proceeded to give it injections, take its temperature, wrap its leg up in a cloth bandage, and give it an operation. I'm fairly certain he was planning an amputation, but I managed to save the dolly before any limbs were severed.

All in all, he had a great time with that dolly, but he did things to it that I never would have dreamed of doing to a doll when I was little.

Despite this early and somewhat shocking introduction to the concept that Boys and Girls Really Are Different, gradually I came to love the Ways of Boys. And the more time I spent around Taz and his brother and their friends, the more I related to them, and the less I found myself able to relate to girls. Eventually, girls grew even more mysterious to me than boys had ever been.

For example, I loved the way boys carried out their friendships. There was no gossip, no meanness, no exclusionary behavior, no teasing or tattling. If they didn't like something, they'd just punch the other guy. And then, five minutes later, they'd be friends again. It was all so clear-cut.

In contrast, with girls, there was always a long, involved, complicated story involving alliances, nuances, guessing what the other one was thinking or saying behind your back, whispers, and tears.

I remember going on class trips with both my kids, and finding it so much easier to help corral the wild boys than to sort out all the emotional entanglements of girls. With boys, all you needed to do was yell at them to sit down and be quiet, stop throwing things, and quit poking the kid in the next seat.

But with girls, it seemed like one of them was always sitting alone in the corner of the bus crying, while a trio of her former best friends sat nearby giggling, giving her sidelong glances.

A few times, I was foolish enough to try to wade into this morass to make peace. “What's the matter?” I'd say, unleashing an unfathomable tale of double- crossing, sly insults, and betrayals. Eventually, I'd give up trying to make sense of it, and say something like “I don't understand. You girls were friends yesterday. Can't you just shake hands and be friends again? What's the big deal? Don't you see how silly this all is?”

It was quickly made clear to me that I was the one
being silly. No group of girls ever resolved their problems so straightforwardly, and somewhere in the back of my mind I began to remember my own complicated experiences with cliques and castes and judgments. I guess I'd tried to block it out after all these years, but, yes, somewhere at the edges of my memory, I do remember feeling weepy about being left out of this sleepover invitation or that round of phone calls about what to wear to school the next day.

Watching my boys and their buddies fall in and out of friendships with no hard feelings had allowed me to repress those painful memories of what being friends with other girls was really all about. It was totally different with male friendships, from what I observed. So what if they hadn't played with a certain kid in two years? If he was the only warm body around and they were short a man to get a game of street football going, hey, he was suddenly an old pal again, just like that.

A couple of mothers of girls I know also tell me that they all use instant messaging and MySpace pages to gossip about one another and say terrible, hurtful things. (And then there was the crazy case of the mother who pretended to be a kid, saying hurtful things to a teenage girl who eventually committed suicide.) Well, as far as I could tell, boys also insult each other online. But to them it's all a joke, or a competition even— an online version of the Dozens, the old insult- trading game that, in a more innocent era, began with “Your mother wears Army boots!”

There's even a website that automatically supplies “Yo mama” insults, or “snaps,” as they call them. I've seen Taz and his friends sitting at computers, trading these downloaded lines at rapid- fire speed while laughing uproariously.

“Yo mama's so fat, she could sell shade! … Yo mama's so ugly, even a blind man wouldn't have sex with her! … Yo mama's so nasty, a skunk smelled her ass and passed out!”

OK, so they're not the most sophisticated jokes you've ever heard, but you can see how they might sound pretty funny if two thirteen- year- old boys were shooting them back and forth every thirty seconds.

In general, though, I do think mothers of boys have it easier than mothers of girls when it comes to making sense of friendships. And despite the phenomenon of sneakers that cost a hundred dollars and pants that show your boxers, I also think it's easier to be the mother of a boy when it comes to clothing.

I don't envy all the moms out there who have to police their daughters’ necklines, bra straps, belly buttons, butt cracks, and skirt hem lengths. Things that my friends were embarrassed to be showing when they were thirteen, today most girls go out of their way to show.

“They want to look lascivious,” one mother of a teenage girl said to me. Another merely said, “I feel sorry for the boys.”

Arguing with girls over whether their clothing is too
suggestive makes my fights over Jordans look easy. But at least most schools have a dress code, so parents can always tell girls that what they're wearing is not going to pass muster at school. My son, on the other hand, will never be called to the principal's office because he spent too much money on his footwear.

While I am often shocked by the way thirteen- year-old girls dress, there have also been occasions when I have been moved to genuinely compliment a girl on what she's wearing. But my attempts to be nice never go over well. When a forty- something- year- old woman tells a thirteen- year- old girl, “Oh, I like your shoes!” or “Nice earrings!” she might as well be saying, “You are the most uncool person on earth. You look like you just walked out of a dressing room at Wal- Mart. You should strip on the spot, burn what you're wearing, and cover yourself with a sackcloth.”

Of course, the girls that I've made the mistake of complimenting have all been too polite to run shrieking in the other direction. But even their subdued thank-yous were not enough to hide the looks of sheer horror on their faces. Clearly, there can be no greater insult to an adolescent female than to have a middle- aged woman like your style. I can only imagine how many perfectly fine pieces of jewelry, sweaters, jackets, and boots have been discarded by girls in Taz's circle, simply because I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

As divine punishment for my insensitivity toward the clothing codes of teenage girls, the good Lord sent me
word of my very own thirtieth high school reunion. Immediately upon being told of the date of this momentous event, I started obsessing about what to wear. How could I prove that I was no longer as uncool as I once had been? And what about my gray hair? My wrinkles?

Well, after long deliberations (not to mention thoughts of changing my name and moving to Costa Rica), I finally decided on the perfect outfit. Then my friend Linda arrived from out of town to go to the party with me and announced right off the bat that my planned outfit— brown corduroy jeans that make me look really skinny and a really cute brown suede jacket— was totally wrong.

“Corduroy?” she said incredulously. “You're wearing corduroy pants in June with a brown suede jacket? You'll die of heatstroke.”

Glumly, I realized she was right. It was one of those hot, sticky days with about 110 percent humidity. If I wore what I was planning to wear, I would be drenched in sweat and passing out before I even got to the party. Linda was unhappy with her own choice of shoes for the event, so we set out to go shopping, and I figured maybe I'd buy something else to wear.

We went to a few stores, and she bought better shoes. I bought a few things, too, but when I got home I realized that one of the tops I'd bought was too trendy, and I didn't want to look like I was trying to act too young, while the other one wasn't trendy enough, which was even worse.

Suddenly, it hit me that getting ready for my high school reunion was making me feel like I actually was in high school again. I suppressed the urge to scream, “Oh my God, I HATE myself!”

I tried to get a grip, went back to my closet, and somehow managed to find something suitable to wear. But it was plain and boring and not really all that stylish. Just like how I dressed when I was back in high school. At least my pants weren't too short (now that short pants are in).