Let me preface this column by stating clearly and for the record: I love my teenage stepson. We’ve been sharing space beneath the same roof since shortly after his first birthday, and I feel the same way about him that I did about my two older, biological children—I can’t wait for him to grow up and move away to college, trade school or prison.When James was younger, we spent a lot of time together; fishing, hiking, doing yard work. The activity didn’t matter; if I was doing it, James wanted to do it with me. It was great.
Then he—like my older son, Jordan, before him—turned 14 or so. Suddenly, doing things with the “old man” was no longer a “good time,” but instead, “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Also, his intellect grew immensely about this same time. Almost overnight, James went from knowing only a few things about life to knowing everything. I would say this impressive increase in wisdom was unprecedented, but it wasn’t. Every teenager experiences this phenomenon. For my own part, I was a flippin’ genius from age 14 to 25, after which I grew stupider by the minute until devolving finally into the mental midget whose column you’re reading now.
What I’m saying is; James is pretty much a typical, 17-year-old boy. This is why I’m anxious to get him out of the house.
Also, once he’s gone, I will, for the first time in my life, have my own bathroom. But that’s really a peripheral issue.
My belief is that God (or Darwin—fight it out among yourselves, I’m not interested in the debate) created the teen years as a way of making “empty nest syndrome” a little easier to handle. When my kids were young, I couldn’t imagine life without them. They were my reason for being, period.
By the time they were well into their teens, I could not only imagine life without them, I frequently fantasized about it. I fantasized about a peaceful, quiet house; a house whose walls didn’t rattle with the thump of 15-inch, 900-watt subwoofers pumping out 2 Pac and Public Enemy at levels guaranteed to sterilize frogs at 200 yards. I dreamt of the day The Lovely Mrs. Taylor and I could have a conversation over dinner that didn’t include graphic descriptions of the “gross thing” that happened the previous afternoon in the school cafeteria.
Then, one by one, the older kids grew up and moved out, leaving me two-thirds of the way to that blessed goal, that Xanadu. Only James remained.
But he’s only 17, with his senior year still ahead of him. After that, who knows? He may hang around another year. Or two. Three? It could happen.
He’s a good kid, and as teenagers go, he’s … tolerable. (That’s meant as a compliment, by the way.) But he’s still a teenager. And I want my own bathroom.
That’s why I’m a little nervous about the piece of junk mail I received the other day; an offer from an insurance company to take out a life insurance policy on my teenage stepson. The premiums are cheap, there’s no physical exam involved.
The mailing didn’t mention whether the policy pays out if the aforementioned teen’s demise is of a “suspicious” nature, but I’m guessing it does. Why else would they mail the thing to the kid’s stepfather instead of his biological mother, who is constrained by her sex and natural instincts to love and nurture him no matter how annoying he gets?
Don’t think unkindly of me; I won’t take out the policy. Or the kid. But, if he’s still living here two years from now, I intend to leave the insurance company’s offer lying around where James can see it.
He’s a smart kid. He’ll get the message.
More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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