Is It Just Me? – Teenage Mutant Normal

“They wouldn’t give me a new burger without the receipt, Mom. It’s ridiculous!”

I had sent my almost fourteen year-old, Charlie, to our local fast-food restaurant to exchange the burger I brought home for seven year-old Harrison’s supper. It was slathered in everything, looking like a Jackson Pollock painting from one of his angrier days. Harrison can only eat ketchup on his food. Any other condiment turns him into a prolific puking machine.

Charlie had flown up the street like an angel of mercy for his little brother because he remembered how it felt to be small and fearful of burger fixings. These days, Charlie eats pretty much anything you put in front of him or anywhere in his line of vision. He is a starving goat. He is a teenage boy.

“Did you tell them that I requested just ketchup?” I asked.

“Yes! I even showed her where it says ‘special order’ on the wrapping. She didn’t care – she said if I didn’t have the bill, she wouldn’t exchange it for me. Where else would I have bought it?”

Exasperated, I threw on my jacket, grabbed the burger and drove up the street like Clint Eastwood in drag. I was on my way to a show-down.

At the fast-food place, I explained to the clerk that I’d ordered a hamburger with just ketchup but received one fully dressed. “No problem”, she said and quickly replaced the sandwich. Oh, but there was a problem. Why hadn’t she responded to Charlie with the same prompt service? When I asked the server her reason, she shrugged and mumbled something about not remembering.

Society constantly reminds and instructs us to refrain from racist, sexist, and any other prejudicial behaviour. All people are to be treated with respect and dignity. But, I have learnt that adolescent boys are excluded from this umbrella of humanity. They are different, dirty and dangerous, at least in the minds of their greatest critics who are comprised of, well, almost everybody who isn’t one of them.

I understand why adults might feel uneasy around teenage males. A lot of them are rather large. When they travel in packs, they exude an insolent group swagger that carries the potential of aggression, the rumour of violence. Adolescent boys are often noisy and many appear to be incapable of looking adults in the eye which leads to a perpetual verdict of guilty from their detractors. Consequently, they are either ignored or treated with stern suspicion. I have often witnessed this mistreatment. I recall seeing a teenage boy politely ask for help finding something in a convenience store. The clerk nodded in the general direction of the back shelves, but dispensed with the courtesy of answering the request directly. It was only when the teenager turned away that the clerk stared after him, watching his progress, clearly anticipating thievery.

Many teachers and high school administrators expect nothing and assume the worst, accusing teenage boys of foul play when they are simply engaged in horse-play, demanding meaningless apologies for unproven transgressions. When these adults and role models make a wrong accusation about a student, they would rather eat a dirty gym sock than say they are sorry. Did these people hibernate through their own teenage years?

I must admit I was leery of these kids, too, until I became the mother of one who I had known since he was a sweet-cheeked, gurgling purveyor of joy. Charlie is my barometer of the typical male teenager. He constantly requires sustenance. He loves disgusting jokes and horror movies, the bloodier the better. He engages in acts of bravado with his peers. Together they are physical and foul-mouthed and loud. Hair-brushing is for girls. Sensitivity is for girls. Or is it?

This same young man sometimes brings me flowers for no reason other than that he had a few bucks in his pocket and wanted to be responsible for cadging a smile from his mom. We share the guilty pleasure of watching a soap opera together and love to dissect the plot-line and characters like scientists over a new species of frog.

Charlie has done some stupid things early into his teenage years, all of them without malevolence or much thought at all. His young brain is twisting and turning into its adult shape, as restless as its owner’s knee which almost never stops bopping up and down at the dinner-table.

Now, when I see a group of teenage boys walking down the street, they don’t strike me as large. I see big-footed lion cubs playfully jostling for position. I don’t see insolent swaggers. I see tentative man-kids trying to find an appropriate gait for their new, bigger selves. When I notice these boys unable to meet an adult’s gaze, I don’t see guilt; I see self-confidence yet to be discovered – and I see fear. These teenage boys, Charlie included, innately know that grown-ups expect the worst from them. They are fighting prejudice while trying to discover their potentials, an almost impossible task for even the strongest of individuals.

In the fast-food restaurant, I asked to speak to the manager. I explained to him how Charlie and I had received completely different responses to the exact same request. The man apologized and offered some coupons for a free meal, but I told him to keep them. What I wanted, what I insisted upon, was that he educate his staff to treat all customers with politeness and service no matter their ages or genders.

Without planning, but out of necessity I have started a movement called: MOP– mothers-on-patrol. While he is squirming in his metamorphosis, I strive to protect Charlie from the dirty looks and wrongful assumptions of others. Our boys need their moms to advocate for them. They just don’t want to be in the vicinity when we do it. Too embarrassing!

Membership to MOP is free. Payment is a lopsided grin from a teenage mutant normal kid.

"Connected Parenting advises us not just how to parent, but—far more important—who to be as parents. The therapeutic methods suggested by Jennifer Kolari are based not on simple-minded behavioural solutions, but on building warm, nurturing relationships with our children, with insight and compassion not only for their little flaws, but also for our own larger ones."
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