My Thirteen and His Age Thirteen

During the first week of school last week my middle son's eighth grade Language Arts teacher asked her students to interview a parent about his or her own memories from age 13.  He had some specific questions such as --

·         What was your favorite TV show?

·         What musical artists did you like?

·         What TV or movie star did you have a crush on?

·         What was your favorite candy bar?

·         What did you want to do as an adult?

·         What do you remember about your childhood home?

On that last question before waiting for an answer he interjected that he knew that one would be  hard to answer because he “ knew I moved frequently and had many different homes”.  For example, I’ve told the boys how I went into 7^th grade it was my seventh school.

When he asked me these questions, right away my answers were short, and with a frustrated tone such as “How should I remember that?”  or “I have no memory of that” and with the easy going good humor that he has, he’d answer, “I know, what does she expect these parents to be as young as just 25 years old or something”.  (Hmmm, anyway).  So I lightened up and told him what I remembered

Picturing where we lived that year I remembered Happy Days on TV, my first album that age was Elton John, I thought Leif Garrett was cute, I bought that square candy bar called Chunky, I wanted to be a writer, and I had my own room when I was little with a pretty red and pink floral bedspread.

Later that night the memories became more fluid and what I didn’t tell him is that when I was 13 I once saw my stepfather have a slugfest fight with my 15 year old brother while my mother stood there and watched and didn’t do anything and I heard screams and realized they were mine.

When I was 13 I started my period and apparently one day unbeknownst to me a tiny smear got on an armchair and my stepfather went into a rage with the seat cushion two inches from my face.  He had issues.

In my 8th grade year we lived in a tiny apartment yet I went to a private school with kids who lived in mansions (not all but those in my carpool certainly did) and a girl in our carpool actually had a butler drive us to school in a limo.  And made fun of my family. (fortunately I found great friends and we're friends today since age 13, especially one).

I was caught in two worlds between that world and the kids on my block.  Not knowing who to be I pretended I was newly arrived from France and spoke with an accent and tried to search for the correct English word when we spoke (I kept this up for a couple months then came clean and they still liked me—it was boys—obviously I was desperate for attention).  But I was me at school.

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The other night Hubs and I sat in our son’s language arts class as part of curriculum night and on the walls were poems the students wrote after interviewing a parent.  My middle son had put together the memories I shared into a poem called “Where I’m From”.

It was so hard not to cry while reading it.

Back at home I told him I loved his poem and that he did a great job.  I asked if he had a copy but he didn’t as the teacher likes them to write in class only.  I asked if he would eventually bring the printed poem home.  He said, “Are you going to blog about it?”

My kids don’t know exactly where I’m from but, but I think they get me.  Even though some of the memories aren’t the best, where I’m from makes me who I am and I'm proud of who my kids are.  And so glad not to be thirteen!