This past Friday I hit a milestone anyone would appreciate. My oldest son turned twenty-five. This means I've been parenting boys for a quarter of a century. I've been a parent longer than that, as my daughter is two years older. Since I consider her false advertising for what was to come, her two-year head start doesn't count in this particular discussion. A concussed monkey could have parented her and she still would have turned out stellar. She's that together.
The introduction of my darling, curly-haired, brown-eyed boy in to our family was like being thrown in to a 500-level course in Parenting when your other classes are online Interpretive Dance and Cake Decorating. He was defiant. He screamed. He threw tantrums. He was picky about food. He friggin' kicked me in the shins when he was mad. But, he also laughed wildly at everything, smiled every moment he wasn't throwing a fit, and enjoyed life in every sense a toddler can. That bit never went away as he got older, and I saw it over and over (and over and over) with the four boys who followed him.
It's this aspect that brings me to the third part of my series on Raising Teen and Young Adult Male Humans.
Part Three: The Joyous Random
It would be easy to whine about the crap my boys get up to and I don't give even a moment of resistance to the urge. Hence this blog. I whine all the time. I call it cheap therapy. But there is another side to the farting, smelly, punching, hairy creature we call adolescent male homosapiens that is just as compelling and provides the perfect balance for the crap that makes you scratch your head and wonder if there really is a brain between his ears. It's the part that finds bizarre and gross things funny, that thinks up ridiculous jokes, that pulls crazy phrases out of thin air. Think about American slang. Where does most of it come from? Teenagers. Obviously, not all from boys. The Joyous Random is part of teen girls as well, I simply have way more experience with this flavor.
From an etymological (no, not bugs. Look it up.) perspective, teen slang is one of the most powerful forces in society. We all know language evolves and is one of the fundamentally pertinent tools humans have that no other living species has. Clearly other species communicate, but there is a world of difference between: "Danger! Danger! Predator approaching!" And: "OMG, did you hear what Ashley said about Mackenzie after the dance when Tyler totes hit on her?" As obnoxious as the second example is, it conveys so much more than a basic survival instinct and reflects myriad permutations of society and human life. Language is Power (yes, with a capital P). And it is constantly evolving and adjusting to meet the current needs of society. This is why reading Shakespeare is a struggle for everyone other than grad students. Yes, technically it's English. And in his day, it was current and powerful and biting. But it's not the same language we speak today. It changed. What is one of the most powerful forces that drives this change? Slang. Where does slang come from? Primarily from teens and young adults and their desire to find new and insane ways to communicate and to make them sound much more suave than they usually feel. The Joyous Random drives that: the constant, impulsive, creative drive to find joy that is innate within all youth who haven't had it squashed out of them yet by college Statistics professors.
Let me give you some examples:
Friday morning, we are getting into the van to drive everyone to school. Jonathan and Matthew are blathering on about something or other, I've long since tuned them out. I'm in the driver's seat, they are each still standing outside the car, with their respective doors open. Jonathan stops what he's saying, turns around backward, switches to robot voice, and says, "Inserting," slides in backpack first, then swings his legs around and closes the door. He then continues on with whatever he was saying to Matthew, like he didn't just totally ad lib a sci-if scene into the morning. Just . . . What???
One evening around bedtime, Alex (then about 7 or 8) discovers he can fit both his arms and his legs into his long-sleeved t-shirt at the same time, so that each sleeve now contains and arm and a leg. Then he discovers he can run like this. "Look Mom! I'm a short-necked ostrich!" He squeak-laughs his way around the house and soon I have an entire flock of short-necked ostriches. Who knew I wanted one?
Another morning during the school drop off run, Jonathan and Matthew are arguing about something, but in a friendly way. Again, Matthew is in back seat, Jonathan is in shot gun. We come to a stop light, Jonathan grabs the handle on his seat that adjusts how far back the seat back leans, and lays the seat back flat, basically in Matthew's lap, all while announcing, "THERAPY MODE." He crosses in hands across his stomach and says, "Well, doctor, it all started when I was a wee lad . . ." They both start laughing so hard I think they're going to throw up. Again, ????
More than once, we've had solid weeks of sons speaking like they were in a Dragon Ball Z or Yugioh cartoon. We've also had weeks of discount Japanese -- where you add Japanese endings to normal American words and spit them out like samurai warriors. No special event accompanied these occurrences. Just . . . because they can.
Many years ago, Alex and Jacob were chasing each other around the house, around ages 10-12ish. We have one of those floor plans that creates a loop, which I hate. It allows for this exact problem. The mini-track. Only 23,958 laps to the mile, new flooring not included. So they are running the Davis Loop, Jacob is the chasee, Alex is the chaser. I have absolutely no recollection what the chasing was about. Either way, mid-sprint (and let's all take a moment to remember that Jacob is FAST) he slams to a halt in front of the phone counter, grabs a pair of Groucho Marx nose glasses (yes really, I think it was Halloween time? And that's why we had some in the house?), puts them on, turns to a fast-approaching Alex and says, pointing to the backyard, "He went that way!" WHO THINKS OF THAT AT 40 MPH WHO ISN'T IN A WELL SCRIPTED MOVIE?!
The Boys of the Joyous Random, that's who.
So when they argue with you about whose pee is all over the toilet seat (I am certain it isn't MINE so I'll be darn-tootin' if I'm cleaning it), when they lose it over a video game/football game/girl and put a foot through the wall, when they leave their socks all over the house so soaked in sweat and bacteria you can practically see the the sock moving on its own, remember the Joyous Random. It is a gift and one of the most powerful forces on earth. Allow yourself to be drawn in to. Laugh with them and revel in their brilliance. Remember that only a few years ago they didn't know how pants work. Now they can crack puns based on what they are learning in their US History class.
The best part is this: The Joyous Random lasts. It's part of the whole concept that men never really grow up. It's not a bad thing, it's part of what makes life, well, joyful. The adolescent moodiness will pass. The need to argue over whether this over-paid athlete or that over-paid athlete is better will, well it won't go away but it will get easier to tune out. The smelliness will take care of itself as soon as he discovers girls. And the ferocious tiger within him that springs to life as soon as Testosterone starts its dangerous but necessary work of turning your boy into a man will be tamed. Your walls may bear the brunt of it, but walls can be repaired. And the Joyous Random will remain. Take every moment to enjoy it. It's his gift to you for dealing with all the rest.
