Teeny In-Betweeny

[altarflame]

These days, I’m often “friendly” with teenagers that I can’t actually be “friends” with.

A group of Ananda’s friends – all 14-18 years old – realized with a lot of laughter that I’m closer to Miguel’s age – 17 – than I am to his mom’s. Cybele is 48. So at 30, I’m 13 years older than Miguel, and 18 years younger than Cybele. The parents have since started calling me “The In Betweeny” because they can come to me to explain what a meme is or what in the world “emo” means.

I’m fine with all that, but it’s weeeeird when I’m standing there with two boys (both of whom I have to look up at) discussing things like the Dark Tower books, which we’ve all read, and wondering if it’s ok to really talk about parts of them like, uh, the sex scenes or the subtexts or what have you. They’ve read them, they’re bringing them up, but. No. Talk amongst yourselves, and I’ll be over there. Wondering whether or not I need to tone down the cleavage.

When Miguel and Izzy were at my house over the summer, it was like, “Oh…wait” because being 17 and 14, and at eye level with different heights, it’s just a new thing to hear them talking about my belly cast or noticing my erotica bookshelf that has a model of an IUD on it (as a sort of joke, really, there’s an alligator on the Florida shelf…). My kids just don’t “see” these things. I mean I showed them the IUD model when I got mine, but, I think you know what I mean.

Mia is 16 and brilliant and overly mature, and lives a totally uncensored life. We’ve debated feminism and Twilight and compared issues her little brother has, to Isaac’s issues. We talk about her PCOS and weight gain issues. And then I SEE HER AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE (she’s in dual enrollment) – we just bump into each other in the halls on our way to our classes, and that’s when I don’t really feel awkward…just kind of lonely. Because I can totally imagine running with a friendship with Mia! But…that’s not really appropriate on all kinds of levels. The first time I saw her at school, I was talking marriage troubles on the phone with my sister, you know? I smile and wave as I walk by and can see the disappointment that she wants to hang out or something.

Even driving Izzy to and from her house when she was babysitting over the summer – she was telling me all these stories about New Orleans pre and post Katrina, and Izzy cusses, she is hilarious, she has always been comfortable around kids and adults and she’s from a really unique family of starving artists and has a ton of life experience. She had a lot of opinions on everything that came on my Pandora station, like falling in love with Lana Del Rey of all things.

Annie’s CLOSE/main friends, don’t really talk to me beyond, “Hi” or “Would you like to buy some wrapping paper to support my tae kwon do school?” Which is probably good as I’m sure that’s how she wants it. It’s the older group of siblings and such that she loves, but are mostly around by association who have FOUND MY TUMBLR and keep BRINGING IT UP AT PATH MEETINGS.

I was like, guys. GUYS. You are killing me! And then grumbled to myself that it isn’t my fault their parents give them free unrestricted access to TUMBLR! They have their own accounts! I’m the least of that site, let me tell you!

They're so nosy! Wanting to know what I'm reading when it's Disco Bloodbath and wanting to know what my book is about. I swear!

Grant and Miguel (and Drew, and Tyler, and…) are on Reddit, and share a lot of musical taste and it’s all music none of their parents can even consider to BE “music.” I wonder whether or not I should inform the very conservative, over protective mom that the “Harry Potter fanfiction” her daughter is so into IS NOT CHILDREN’S STORIES O_O Because her daughter is already deep into it for over a year, and the mom just has no idea.

*I* was a kid/teen reading pretty intense adult books, listening to a lot of pretty intense music, understanding the adult world and honestly not relating to other kids very much at all until high school. There were several teachers and relatives-by-marriage I tempted into totally bizarre full-on confidante friendships with, and I REALLY ENJOYED THOSE RELATIONSHIPS A LOT.


The only time this is really a struggle, for me, and I have to take a step back…is with Robby. He wants me to be a friend. He’s family. I know firsthand that he’s had a crazy dysfunctional rollercoaster ride from day 1 – this is no sheltered homeschooled kid at a meetup, this is a guy who’s mom and sister have been in and out of jail and mental hospitals his whole life, whose Dad popped out of the woodwork ONCE following his supposed suicide attempt, who dropped out of high school a year ago, who uses drugs and drinks and has already been getting it on for years. He’s got tattoos and piercings! He’s SMART and sweet and kind of manipulative, and in love with an 18 year old guy and has moved across the state with him and when we talk, he wants to go, “No, really, how are YOU?” and “You’re really pretty, you should wear _____” and “let me tell you this CRAZY STORY OMG you’re not gonna believe it!”

I try to keep it to his life and handing over baked goods. I think part of what he likes about me, honestly, is some kind of wholesome image of a devoted mother…he lived with us at Grant Sr’s during my most “pregnant, cloth diapering, banquets for every dinner, daily tea time” period of life. So that’s what I give him, along with music swaps (Robby is how I found Mt Eden dubstep last year, and I’m where he got Regina Spektor).

But will there come a point when he is old enough that we have an honest two-way friendship? Should there? And if so, is that when he’s 20 or 25 or somewhere beyond? I mean I think he just needs me to be his aunt. But I also think there will come a point where it starts to seem like rejection, to him. I guess?


It’s like a new, added dimension to the faintly lonely way I’ve always felt around the moms (many of whom are significantly older than Cybele). On the one hand I feel like Nancy is one of my absolute best friends, and she’s 68! But that was a totally different circumstance. I don’t always know how to sit down at a table of ladies in blouses talking about lesson plans and delve deeper to find out who people “really are.”

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'd say be a mature friend and censor to a degree until they hit twenty one... that way you're fairly clear of the creeper zone. Keep the policy of "my kids friends are their friends" because kids need to have a space of their own. As far as Robby, I'd say, don't censor as much, given what he's experienced, but use your position as a respected elder to advise him about thinking things through and getting some goals going... the truth is, sometimes when we actually speak to them as their seniors they themselves start seeking out peers and relating to us as aunts and teachers rather than "buds".

[ecosopher.livejournal.com]

So tired, but just wanted to say, I've felt a kind of similar thing sometimes when I've taught some really awesome kids, and that I would really love to have a friendship/hang out with them, and that if we were the same age, we would totally be friends. But you know. I'm their teacher. So... not appropriate AT ALL. And really, for me, also kind of against the law.

[(Anonymous)]

I was raised in a remote area by my very 'hippy' parents(and homeschooled because there were no other people living anywhere near), and as a result always related much better with adults, even when I was a preteen. I had a very close friendship with a woman(a family friend who I babysat for)when I was 15-19, and she was in her late 20s-early 30s. We had hours-long, sometimes tearful, conversations on every subject, including her abusive(now ex) husband. I consider her to be a really important(and positive) influence in my life, and I'm continually grateful to her for being so open and not shutting me out just because of my age. As far as I can see, it depends on the teen, but I don't find it inappropriate at all. And I kind of think it should be(and was, at other points in history)a regular occurrence. I learned a lot from her. And now, as a mother, I would see nothing wrong with that kind of friendship happening for my kids.

[opheliareborn.livejournal.com]

About Robbie, I think a closer friendship would be appropriate. In my family, once you ht about 16/17, you just end up in the adult group. My youngest first cousin is 15 years older than I am, so it was a bit of a strange change to be seen as a peer, but it was nice.