Mother of the Year

I just had a nasty little fight with my teenaged daughter. It was pretty ugly, ugly enough for my other daughter to ask us to stop. Now we are on different floors in the house. If I had an outbuilding to go to, or a job, or some errands, any excuse to leave the house, I would. But it’s cold and raining, much like the feeling I have in my heart, and I have nowhere to go and dinner to make. So I am staying here, seething.

The fight started as many do, over nothing. My younger daughter has a sore throat and didn’t want to go for dance class, opting instead to stay home and rest. My teenager likes it when we leave the house for dance class, as she gets to be alone for a few hours in the house, doing god knows what. Normally after school when we are all home, she hibernates in her bedroom with the iPad, emerging only for more snacks or the eventual call to join us for dinner. It’s not like she would even know we were here.

But no, she had to cop attitude about us being at home during her precious alone time.  She complained about us not leaving. She rudely demanded the upstairs bonus room in which to pretend we didn’t exist, and followed her demand with a couple of eat-shit glares and some heavy sighing. So I got pissed at her.  

The more appropriate response would have been to ignore the glares and the sighs, which is what I would normally do. After all, she is a teenager, and they are prone to eye rolling and sighing and selfish demands. Today, however, I just got irritated. Her sister didn’t feel well, and as usual, all the teen could think about was herself. I also couldn’t get past the alone time thing. I haven’t had alone time in fourteen years. Fuck her alone time.

I should have been the adult. I should have either let it go or made a mature comment about being understanding and sharing and accommodating other’s needs, but instead, I played it like a bratty adolescent, which I figured would be a language she could understand.  I met her on her level, and it wasn’t pretty.

I started by staying in the car long enough to give her a head start upstairs so I could just avoid her altogether. She knew what I was doing, however, and she waited in the kitchen for me to enter so we could continue what began in the car.

I set my things on the counter and watched as she made herself a cup of hot cocoa with four giant marshmallows. This is a child who demands a healthy smoothie for breakfast and a low carb lunch every day because she wants to continue to fit into her skinny jeans rather than maybe exercising or something. While she snuck a chocolate and peppermint cookie out of the pantry, I commented that I was through buying special foods for her if she insisted on eating crap every afternoon. I know, real mature. I was fully aware I wasn’t fighting fairly, but I didn’t care. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

She whipped out the ultimate comeback: yes ma’am. She only ma’am’s me when she is angry because she knows it drives me nuts. I cleaned up the mess she made making her cocoa and called her a princess, adding she treated me like a servant who had to clean up after Her Majesty. She said if I didn’t act like a servant, she wouldn’t treat me like one. So I told her she wasn’t just being a spoiled little princess, she was acting like a bitch. She scowled at me with eye daggers.

She countered with my need to act like an adult, that I was a grown woman and she was just a fourteen year old child, that it was offensive that I would call her an expletive. I told her I was offended by how she treated the rest of us. Also, that if there was another word for how she was acting that was more accurate than bitch, I would have used it.

After exchanging more eat shit glares, she ate the last apple muffin, getting crumbs all over the floor before storming off for the upper floor.

Now she is indeed holed up in her room, her electric keyboard on the highest volume as she angrily bangs out Lana Del Ray songs and Ben Folds Five’s “Brick,” because she knows how much I hate both. It works since her bedroom is right above my office. My other daughter is dutifully working on a homework assignment that isn’t due for another month, scared to talk to either one of us.

I would not describe this as a shining moment in parenting.

I normally do the right thing when it comes to my girls, especially compared to what I endured as a child, including my teenage years. I didn’t call her a bitch. I told her she was acting like one. It doesn’t matter, though, because in her mind I did, and that is how she will remember this argument for the next twenty or more years. It isn’t so much a defining moment as it is a scarring one, and I am the one doing the scarring. Not good. No gold star for today.

The easiest way to fix this is to go upstairs and apologize. Of course, I am not ready to do that yet. Instead, I will continue to stew in my own passive aggressive angry juices, justified in blowing up at her because I do it so rarely, because she kind of deserved it, both the words and a little reminder that I am human too and want to be treated with respect. Except that if I act like a baby, do I deserve it?

Yep, today I suck at parent. I better go say I’m sorry, and while I’m at it, maybe drop a dollar or two in the therapy jar. It’s like a swear jar, only for the no doubt countless hours of counseling that she will require as an adult to undo the trauma I caused her during her formative years. I sure wish my mother had a therapy jar for me. Maybe I wouldn’t need one today for my own kids.

Did I just blame my mother? I believe so. I knew somehow this was all her fault.