Family Views – December 2014/January 2015

We sat in a sea of fragmented red, green and gold wrapping paper. My husband and I were content with our coffee as we watched our children explore all the little gifts they missed as they tore through their stockings. After the adrenaline rush of the gift giving and receiving wore off, we began the clean-up. I then started preparing the Christmas roast beast, my husband attempted to put together a Lego version of the Millennium Falcon with our six-year-old and our thirteen-year-old slipped away into his room to download music with his new iTunes card. Christmas music filled the house and there was a happy, satisfied and blessed feeling that filled the air…or so I thought.

I took one of the beaters filled with sweet cream cheese frosting into my older son’s room and found him on his bed listening to new tunes on his head phones. I thought the site of the frosting would illicit an excited, welcome reaction, but instead he passed on it. Something was seriously wrong! I shrugged my shoulders, sat on the edge of his bed and proceeded to devour it myself. When I finished, I asked him if he got the music he wanted and if he was pleased with his Christmas gifts. He shrugged and scrunched his face in true adolescent form.

I admit, I took his response a little thick. With an annoyed, defensive tone I asked, “You got the things you asked for, didn’t you?” My son is fairly sensitive and very perceptive. He quickly identified my body language and question as possibly the beginning of a Count Your Blessings and Don’t Be a Tool lecture, so he pulled the headphones off and sat up straight and tried to explain himself. In summary, he said he was very happy with his gifts, they were exactly what he hopped for, but for some reason he felt really down and disappointed. Why? He couldn’t explain.

I shut the conversation down with a Count Your Blessings, You Sound Like a Tool Lecture and returned to my cooking. But my heart was heavy. My kid just said he felt disappointed on Christmas Day and I felt like it was somehow my fault. My brain searched for reasons why he felt this way and raced with ideas of how to make it better. As I blended the mashed potatoes, my own experience with a disappointing Christmas so many years ago hit me.

I’d received the expensive coat I’d begged for, a stocking full of perfume samples, along with a gift card to the department store so I could pick out the scent of my choice and a new cassette from my favorite boy band. I got what I hoped and asked for, but something was missing. I felt unreasonably sad and disappointed with my gifts, but I had no understanding of why; until now, twenty-seven later.

For me, every Christmas list prior had contained Barbie Dolls or Barbie accessories. That year, there were no Barbie toys on my list or under the tree for me. Through the steam of the simmering dinner I realized what I felt that year was sadness about moving away from my childhood. And right now, my son was not being an ungrateful tool, he was grieving the end of his own childhood. Suddenly, I felt like the tool!

Parents, the point to the piece this month is about giving the gift of understanding to your teenagers. Don’t automatically think their actions, or lack thereof, are selfish or ungrateful; instead, help them find deeper meaning in their emotions and teach them to seek understanding by setting an example of it.

Also, if you get a Christmas list that looks like this: Cologne/perfume, clothes, music or a request for cash, get ready for adolescence!