Inside The Box

“You don’t understand!”

This must be, what? The two-thousandth time my teenage daughter has leveled this accusation at me? But who’s counting?

Her level of self-absorption is staggering, though I suppose it's nothing more than typical of girls her age. Her inability to grasp that some modern teenage experiences are near universal and that sometimes I really do understand is normal as well. I accept this normalcy, but it doesn’t make these well-worn arguments any less frustrating for the parental side of the equation. I wonder if this is how my own mother felt when I was the teenager some twenty-plus years ago?

“Yes,” I reply with a weary sigh, “I do understand. Sometimes when I say ‘no’ to a thing, it isn’t because I don’t remember what being a teenager is like. It’s because I do remember.”

I should have known this answer would not only be unsatisfying, but that it would trigger another tirade. Times have changed! Teenagers in the eighties (said with an inflection implying that “the eighties” is roughly equivalent to “the Middle Ages”) didn’t face the same issues that twenty-first century teenagers do! I don’t know her! I don’t know what it’s like! Just leave her alone!

I answer pleasantly enough, but firmly: “Disrespect isn’t going to change my mind. Take it somewhere else if you’re not going to talk calmly.”

My attitude is guaranteed to send her further into fury. And indeed, she is furious. Furious that she can’t get her way, and furious that I won’t engage in an argument. She flounces out of the kitchen and stomps up to her room, muttering under her breath words I don’t care to repeat. I consider letting her know that I can hear the obscenities and their attendant insult, but promptly discard the idea. Her obvious purpose in speaking that way within earshot is to rile me up and draw me into a confrontation, so I’ll deflate that balloon by not reacting. I have to empower myself as parent by whatever means possible, after all.

I find myself wondering if there's any way I can convince her that I occasionally know what I'm talking about. She won’t listen when I talk about my experiences. She refuses to entertain the idea that my teenage self underwent the same growing pains and anxiety that she suffers. After all, she’ll lash out with a stab, I had perfect parents. I had an idyllic upbringing. I never had the kind of social troubles she has. Mmmhmmm, I’ll tell her. And if that’s so, I belong in a museum – a display of the only perfect child raised by the only perfect parents in existence.

Well, no. Sarcasm never gets me anywhere with her, so I suppose I wouldn’t say that after all. I’d only get defensive, and then round two would begin. No, simply telling her about some of our common experiences won’t convince her. It would all be so much lip service to her, calculated words designed to get her to shut up.

I feel sad that I can’t seem to connect with her on a plane of common ground. I’m haunted by it, in fact, because I see the pain where she tries to hide it, and my hand hits an invisible wall when I reach out. I’m not looking for parental conquest. I just want a way to show her I’ve lived some of what she lives too.

I hear the music booming from behind her closed door, and I smile a little sadly. She’s replaying songs of wretched love and broken hearts. How well do I know that feeling. I can even guess that she’s probably sitting cross-legged on her bed, propped up by pillows, scribbling angsty poetry into a well-worn spiral notebook.

As that image comes to mind, so also does an idea that might work. I cover the stairway two steps at a time and slip into my bedroom, closing the door behind me. From the closet I withdraw a heavy cardboard box sealed with fraying duct tape. It is the vessel for the memoir of my life. The dated notation on the outside of the box indicates I sealed it up for a move several years ago and haven’t opened it since. I wonder why I didn’t think of this sooner.

Opening the box unearths a wealth of information, much of it detailing the inner workings of my then-teenaged mind. I pull out several hardbound volumes of my teenage journals, rich in the handwritten details of the life I lived then. If I let her read these, will that help her see me as not just her mother but as a whole person who lived a very real life before she was born? Will she see that my attempted words of comfort are more than just words? I can hope so. I select the volumes that represent the year I was her age and hesitate only a minute before knocking on her door.

She looks sullen when she opens the door. “What do you want?”

I hand her the books. “Read these.”

Shoving the books back at me, she says, “I don’t want to read that.”

I’m trying not to be hurt. Really. Her rejection of the books feels very much like a rejection of me, and I have to remind myself that it’s not personal. I had, however, counted on her being nosy enough to be interested. I think we both have unpleasantries to atone for here, and I had hoped the journals could serve as a peace offering.

I don’t say this to her.

Instead I say, “Please. Read one, at least. I’m really just a human too.” I put the books on the floor outside her door and head back downstairs without looking back.

Some time later, returning upstairs with a basket of laundry, I see that the books are no longer sitting on the floor.

When she emerges from her room still later, she has a smile for me. I know she won’t say that she was wrong, and I know that she won’t discuss what she has read. But I can see the understanding in her eyes, and I hope that she now can see the understanding in mine.

Thinking about the cardboard container in my bedroom still stuffed with journals, notebooks and day planners, it occurs to me that to bridge this gap, all I had to do was think inside the box - an old box on a high closet shelf.