That boy shoulda been a Laaaaaayer!

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ONE OF B's favorite sayings is that there are only two things he can't stand:  a liar, and a thief.  And in actuality, you can boil that down to one, since a liar is really just a thief of trust.

The girl, who recently turned 18, after several years of heartache and hassle, has finally turned the corner and begun to blossom.  She is currently enjoying the fruits of some hard earned trust, having had to prove herself over the course of the last two years.  She has been permitted to make most of her own decisions recently, within the parameters of the house rules, of course.  So far, so good.  This trust comes with a price:  we expect her to tell us where and when she will be in and out of the house, and stick to her word. 

This has been a big step for the girl.  She has not always been honest with me, particularly when she knows I'm not going to approve of what she wants to do.  I think since B's been here she's made lots of progress.  I will say with fair certainty that, while I know that she does not tell me *everything* about her world, she tells me most of the things that matter.  I know, for instance, that she smokes.  I know she sees a boy off and on that I don't like.  I know that she's sexually active here and there.  I know these things because she comes to me and we talk about them.  I trusted her enough for her to tell me when she thought she needed to get on birth control, and she trusted me enough to say so.  Between us, we've been able to make sure that, while I don't think she should be out having sex, she's protected enough not to get caught with unintentional consequences.  She understands why we need to keep the lines of communication open and honest, and we agree to disagree on some things.

This hasn't come about overnight.

The boy just turned 16, and we are beginning to have labor pains.  Now that they're older, I see that the real pains come not when they're born, or during that 'terrible two' period, but here, as they stand on the line between childhood and adulthood.  Nowhere else has it been this difficult to be a parent.  At this age, they do not accept things blindly, nor do they suffer a fool.  It's very easy to put a foot wrong and be in the swamp before you know it.  The plus side is that as they grow older, I see a maturing in their thought process; the development of an ability to see things from multiple sides, rather than blindly in black and white.  The boy is almost there, but not quite.

To his credit, he's been dormant for fifteen years.  He's the kid who you never heard a peep out of, who lived in his sister's longer and brighter shadow.  Docile and mild mannered, he was the 'easy one'.  He is now a six foot monster with facial hair and a voice built for movie trailers.  He's still the same goodhearted kid, but now he wants all the priveleges of adulthood, all at once.  Some he's ready for, some will take a while.

We thought he was making some progress at about the same rate as his sister, but this past weekend he shot himself in the foot.  Friday night two of his friends showed up at nine o'clock at night, wanting him to go over to their house for a little while and play video games and hang out.  Since it's a kid we know, we said he could. 

B looked at me a little curiously after they left.  It was strange, them coming so late.  We puttered around the house for another hour, winding down before bed.  The whole thing tickled at the back of my mind.  Before we went to bed, I texted the boy to see what was going on and what time he'd be home.  No answer.  Hmmmmm....   I texted him again.   No answer.   Finally I picked up the phone and called.  He answered it nearly on the first ring.  "OhhiMomhowsitgoingwhatareyoudoingareyouhavingfun?"  Hmmmm squared.  This is not like my kid.  His usual communication on the phone is limited to "Yeah". 

"When are you coming home?  We are going to bed soon."

"I wanttostayat Friendshouse. We're playing games and having fun."

"You're still at Friend's house, and you're staying there for the night?"

"Yeah."

"Okay..." 

"I love you Mom.  You guys just enjoy the peace and quiet with us gone."  Effusive.

"..............................................I love you too, honey.  I'll see you in the morning."  

Hmmmmmm CUBED. 

"He's staying at Friend's house tonight."  I told B.  He just looked at me.  "My momdar is going off all over the place."  I confessed.  "He's not staying at Friend's house.  He's at least not telling me SOMETHING.  I just hope he doesn't get in any trouble."

"What are you going to do?" B asked.

"I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and see what happens."  I said.  "He's got to learn to start making some of his own choices sometime.  Give him some rope and we'll see what he does with it."

Flash forward to Saturday.  B went to his class, I went to mine.  My group ran really long and the boy came home shortly afterward.  But - lo and behold - he did not come home with Friend.  He came home with his girlfriend.  Hmmmm....  And 2 + 2 equals what again?

We didn't say much that weekend.  But it came up several times over the course of the week.  B and I sat down and had a long talk about freedoms and trust, etc.  We felt like we'd been hoodwinked by both kids over the course of the week; the boy on this incident and the girl on a smaller one.  

I knew we needed to sit down as parents and hash out how we were going to handle it between us, and I'd been dreading it.  The potential for conflict made me sick to my stomach, and as we talked, my hands shook.  I confessed that I struggled with it all the time - the desire to avoid conflict and the temptation to let the kids get away with things I knew they shouldn't just to keep from having to confront them.  I hope by the end of the evening he understood what I meant.  For B, the conflict and craziness lasted twenty years, but he can remember a time when things weren't like that.  For me, it's been all my life.  It's harder to get past that automatic avoidance response.  So all this time I've been enabling the lies the kids tell, and now it's time to pay the piper.

The only way around it was to unite as a parental front.  And lo and behold - who should come home in the middle of the discussion but the girl.  We sat her down and hashed some of it out with her, and came out of it satisfied that we were all on the same page.  The boy was gone, so we didn't get to do it with him.

But last night, he asked to go again (since we had some no-school days at the end of this week).  AHA.

To make a long story short, I seized the day and sat him down to chat with him.  B was in the other room, able to hear and make comment, but not up front and imposing.  We actually got pretty far with the boy.  Yep, he lied.  He confessed that he'd gone to spend the night at his girlfriend's house.  And he confessed that he had been smoking off and on (which, I found out, B already knew).  I still don't feel like I handled it very well.  I wasn't very imposing, and I felt weak and waffly.  But I did get some surprising truths out of the boy, and a promise to always be truthful, even if he knew I wouldn't like it.  Whether we get that always is doubtful, but I hope between us we are building a place where it's safe to tell hard truths, knowing that even though you might not be approved of, you are still loved.  And that there are parameters that are flexible, and those that are hard and fast, and that's just the way life is. 

After an hour of hard talking, I came away from it with one knowledge.  He is still a little boy who needs his parents' approval, despite how 'mature' he thinks he is or how big he's gotten.  He knows right from wrong, and is going to have to learn about making choices and the consequences.  And that there is a large part of him that is really stressed about keeping secrets.  He likes things on the table where we can see them and dissect them.  In that he is his mother's son. 

Nothing is too big to handle but the lie.