As the mother of a tweenage girl, I'm always making comparisons. How is she like me at that age? How is she not? Is she making the same mistakes I did or coming up with mistakes of her own?
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Like an Old Pair of Jeans
As the mother of a tweenage girl, I'm always making comparisons. How is she like me at that age? How is she not? Is she making the same mistakes I did or coming up with mistakes of her own?
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
A Spirited Love Affair
Some people spend their entire life looking for their true love. My daughter found it when she was four. That was the year all the girls in Miss Amy's preschool class discovered Spirit, an animated feature from DreamWorks.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Not the Target Audience
When I’m not blogging or writing movie reviews (or doing laundry or helping with homework), I run a boutique ad agency. In fact, I’ve been a copywriter and creative director for just over half my life (since September of 1984 — you can do the math). Consequently, I’m acutely aware of marketing strategy, how brands combine emotion with promotion to get us to desire and buy their products.
So, when there’s something I just don’t get (like the Twilight books or Crocs or Ke$ha), I remind myself that, “I’m not the target audience.”
One recent trip to the mall with my daughter required several repetitions of that mantra. “I’m not the target audience. I’m not the target audience.”
Like Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children, let’s start at the very beginning.
We tend to park along the side of the mall, not in the large but always crowded lot near the food court, but toward the back near an exterior entrance to a home furnishings store called Restoration Hardware. There are benefits to this. I always find a space. I never lose my car. I like walking through aisles of overstuffed sectional sofas and imagining how they could possibly fit into my early 19th century colonial. And, once we’re in the mall, we are only a half-dressed hop, skip and jump away from … Abercrombie.
For my tween daughter, Abercrombie is the mall’s Mecca, a holy city of to-die-for casual clothing, allegedly meant for young adults but irresistible to younger teenage-wannabes. The shop is dimly lit with floor-to-ceiling peek-a-boo shutters that create a sense of mystery, if not downright danger, as you try to hurry by on your way to Macy’s. Too late! You are seduced by Abercrombie’s siren song.
Walk in and you’re met with stunning black and white photos of superhumanly gorgeous boys and girls, all of whom look like they’ve just rolled out of bed and need a cigarette. Your pulse begins to pound like the music that’s playing several decibels too loud. The place has its own distinct odor, their signature perfume, which permeates the store, the clothes, and your car the whole way home.
We are here for jeans. Not just jeans, but “super skinny destroyed jeans.” Apparently, there is real value associated with all the extra adjectives. Plain old jeans would only cost me $68. It’s $20 extra for the super and the skinny and the destroyed. I suggest that we get the regular jeans and destroy them ourselves. It could be fun, like one of those afternoons we used to spend together painting hideous ceramics at Plaster Fun Time. My daughter smiles sweetly and brings the super skinny destroyed jeans to the register. A preternaturally pretty young man flashes his pearly whites, sweeps his blond Beiberesque bangs away from his forehead, and swipes my American Express.
We escape from Abercrombie relatively unscathed — just the jeans, not a single graphic tee or hoodie. My daughter is elated. I’m a bit bewildered, but … “I am not the target audience.”
Next, we track down the store Pink, a colorful, brightly lit shop of cotton undies, sleepwear and Betty Boop-inspired lingerie. It’s the retail equivalent of Victoria’s Secret’s flirty little sister. My daughter needs a strapless bra to wear under a sundress for an upcoming bat mitzvah. Styles change, but there are some things you can rely on. Whether you’re 13 or 48, you buy a strapless bra because you have to — not because it’s comfortable.
As we’re waiting on line to pay for the uncomfortable strapless bra, I see a display of blue sleepshirts that say “PINK” on the front of them. Another display has green hoodies that say “PINK” on the back of them. A final display offers a rainbow of bikini underpants in yellow, red, orange, purple, all of which say “PINK” across their butts. I don’t get it. Then again … “I’m not the target audience.”
Our final stop is Forever 21 (or the store that I think of as “More Ho, Less Dough”). Really, if your tween daughter is playing a prostitute in the junior high play, you can find her some pretty convincing costumes here for a lot less than I just paid for destroyed denim. My daughter needs a little jacket to wear over her sundress in the temple ($9.99 on the sale rack), a pair of flats to dance in ($15 near the register), and a gift card, which will make the bat mitzvah girl very happy and her mother … well … less so. Like me, she is “not the target audience.”
A final stop at Starbucks (one vente decaf non-fat caramel macchiato, one frappucino), and we are all set. I may not be the target audience for Abercrombie, Pink or Forever 21, but I can consume overpriced concept coffee drinks with the best of them. I am, after all, “the target audience.”
Trip to the mall: $256. An afternoon with my daughter without any arguments: priceless.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth
When you were once a drama major (and are currently at a loss for words), you can always count on the Bard.
As far as I know, William Shakespeare wasn’t actively parenting a tween when he wrote his magnificent sonnets. His poor son, Hamnet, died of the Bubonic plague at age eleven. And, although his daughters Susanna and Judith reached adulthood (presumably angsting through their tween and teen years on the way there), we can only assume that Shakespeare avoided most of the … well, drama. The playwright lived and worked in London while the girls were raised by their mother Anne in Stratford.
Yet, I can’t help but relate — as the mother of a tween — to these famous lines from Sonnet 116:
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken …
My daughter is much altered from that sweet and tiny baby I brought home from the Salem Hospital “Birthplace” more than thirteen years ago. She doesn’t sleep as much. She doesn’t cry as much. She has a much larger vocabulary and significantly more hair.
I have alteration found. But, my love has not altered.
“You’re still my baby,” I tease her. But, when I look at her, I don’t see a baby. I see a brave young woman who still enjoys being silly, even as she negotiates this oh-so-serious thing called adulthood. I admire her determination when she’s trying to prove herself at a new school. I envy her courage when she competes in a cross-country riding event. I take pride in the kindness and generosity she shows her friends, and even shows her mother once-in-a-while.
Of course, there are many other times when she’s my own “dark lady.” Mysterious, moody, utterly impossible to get through to. She can be a veritable “tempest” ripping through our house, pulling us along in the wake of her stormy passion. I am often (too often) shaken. Despite my best intentions, despite more than 10 years of yoga classes, I lose my cool. My voice rises to match hers. And guess what? I’m bigger, I’m older, and I can be louder.
But after all the histrionics, when the smoke has cleared, my love has not altered.
Perhaps this is why my daughter rolls her eyes so much these days. What could be more ridiculous than someone who positively dotes on you no matter how poorly you treat them?
Oh doormat, thy name is mother!
I studied an awful lot of Shakespeare in my day and I could go on and on. But, right now I have to go do battle with my daughter over why her iTunes are too loud, why her room is too messy, and why a bowl of unbaked cookie dough is not an acceptable homework snack.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Public — and Private — Displays of Affection
"You kiss me too much."
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
New Math
My daughter has always been good at math. Her third grade teacher told me that no one in the class had their math facts down like she did. She used to race through those "Mad Minutes" at lightning speed. 60 multiplication problems in 60 seconds — zero errors.
Mathematically speaking, those were the good ol' days. Middle school math? Well ... not so much.
I'd like to think that it's nice to be needed. Here's a little sample of mother-daughter bonding over algebra ...
ME: So, what are we trying to figure out here?
HER: I don’t know. I hate algebra!
ME: Well, didn’t Mr. A go over this in class?
HER: I don’t know. I hate algebra!!!
ME: Well, are there any sample problems in the textbook?
HER: I don’t know. I HATE ALGEBRA!!!!!
You get the general idea. We finally figured it out (two grilled cheese sandwiches and caffein-free Diet Cokes later — yes, I know I'm a terrible mother). So, she was all set.
But, here's what I wonder about. If my tween daughter dislikes math so much — claims, in fact, that she's "not good" at it — how can she do such complex equations in her head?
ME: Put your phone away.
HER: OK
HER: (v.o. These thoughts are in her head - she's way too smart to say them out loud.) Okay, if Mom says "Put the phone away," I have almost 45 seconds before she says "I mean put the phone away now." In 45 seconds, I can text 3 BFFs — 4 if I don't use vowels, and I never use vowels. I can increase my score on Tap Tap Revenge by at least 10% reaching an all-time high score of more than 20,000. I can order 2 new Ke$ha songs on iTunes and still have $12 left on my birthday iTunes gift card.
ME: I mean put the phone away now.
HER: (v.o. in her head) What? Are you deaf?
ME: What? Are you deaf?
Oh, and in case you didn't notice, my daughter isn't just a mathematician. She's a clairvoyant too.
Monday, March 21, 2011
In the beginning ...
When I learned I was expecting, I imagined myself in a flowing Liberty of London print dress sitting in a bucolic field of wild flowers with a tapestry journal in one hand and an antique fountain pen in the other. With classical music in the background, I planned to immortalize every precious moment of pregnancy and motherhood.
As my daughter grew from infant to baby, toddler and little girl, we would have elaborate tea parties, go to the ballet together, play with paper dolls, read children's classics like Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Wizard of Oz, Little Women, Jane Eyre.
And throughout, I would chronicle her idyllic childhood for posterity.
For one reason or another (or more likely, for hundreds of different and disconnected reasons), I didn't keep that journal. And, it's too bad. Because I've learned so much along the way. My daughter is an excellent teacher.
Lately, I've learned just how many syllables are in the word "Mom." Here's a hint: the answer isn't one. Or two. Or even three.
I've learned what it must be like to gingerly walk across a minefield — that's pretty much how I feel every time I venture into her room.
I've learned what brands are cool (Hollister, Abercrombie, Hard Tail), what brands are not (Justice for Girls, Gap, Old Navy). I've learned how to make my daughter happy (unlimited time on her iPhone) and how to torture her (kiss or hug her "good-bye" when I drop her off at school).
Most recently, I've learned about unrequited love. That you can love someone with all your heart and soul whether they want you to or not.
Thirteen years after my daughter's birth (a mere 14 hours of knee-buckling labor, thank you very much), I finally find that I have time to write again. And what I find I want to write is less about so-called precious moments (art directed by someone from Victoria magazine) and more about the ups and downs, and sheer bewilderment that comes with loving a daughter who is no longer a child but not yet a woman.
Loving the alien.