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Sophia pulled the skin under her eye to apply eyeliner. "Change your clothes first," I said flatly.
Then I summoned my frontal lobe. "If you wear shorts to school in March you will be cold, and if you wear a top like that every boy at school will be looking down your shirt," I said. The voice of reason. She looked at me as if she was going to spit then slammed the bathroom door, just like in a movie.
She came back downstairs in jeans, texting on her cell phone while breaking off small pieces of a Pop Tart. "Who are you texting?" I asked. "Are they eating breakfast too?" I wonder if my daughter was typing out an S.O.S. PLEASE SAVE ME FROM MY MOTHER, in all caps.
Sophia nearly missed the bus. "Where's your sweatshirt?" I said as she raced out the screen door. I hate her going to school angry, hate going to my office wondering what I did wrong. I can lose a morning rethinking what I should have said, wondering if I was too hard on her, too easy. No lecture can help me with this.
She is, after all, the daughter who not long ago drank from a sippy cup in footy pajamas with a princess pattern, left notes for the fairies in the fireplace, and pranced about in pantyhose putting on fashion shows. Even now, there are times when she'll let me brush her long hair, smooth as seal skin. I yelled out the door after her again: "I love you, Peanut," I said, the nickname I've had for her since I saw her take the shape of a peanut on the ultrasound.
That afternoon she came home, tossed her backpack onto the couch, sat on top of it, and started in. "Can I go to the movies tonight?" she asked. Not only did the movie start at 9:00, but it was a school night. I remind myself she can't think logically yet, her impulse is to want to go, so she simply asks me, not thinking it through. "No, you can't," I said. "Cindy and Lindsey are going," Sophia began. Once again, I become a frontal lobe. "If you go to a late movie on a school night, you will be overtired for school in the morning." I get the eye roll. I head out the front door to greet the next school bus.
"But can I go tonight?" she asks. I take a breath. I would have to go back to my notes. Did the frontal lobe control hearing as well?
That night I called my mother. "You were the same way as a teenager," she said, her voice tired, as if she may still be weary from having raised me. "It's going to get worse before it gets better." It's after 10pm when I hang up. Sophia is sitting with her laptop on the living room floor, working on the ancient civilizations project that was assigned six weeks ago but is due tomorrow. She has seven pages of notes, no report. I could lecture her on the necessity of planning ahead, but I don't. I'm too tired to be the voice of reason. Instead I sit down on the floor, next to this little big girl I love, pencil behind her ear, her long hair sailing down her back, and I hug her, each of us a work in progress.
Marcelle Soviero is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Salon.com. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and five children.
Also see: Local resources for teens and parents of teens
How to Parent an Oppositional Child