Stormy Season

If I could just get one single concept through the skulls of teenagers, specifically the ones that are currently residing under my roof, it is this: There Is More To Learn.

One of my kids is currently going through some troubles at school, in which she believes she is not doing well because A) The teacher is not doing a good job at explaining things and so everyone in the class is failing, B) it’s so boring and when am I ever going to need to know this stuff later, and C) I’m no good at it.

Thus, with great drama, the wall is thrown up along with the hands in utter resignation, and she issues forth the cry: “I Give Up.”

Now, the fact that she doesn’t get enough sleep couldn’t be the problem.

And certainly her study habits (and by “study habits” I mean her practice of plopping her carcass on the couch after school and remaining there until it’s time to head off to bed) are not at issue.

Nor could it have anything to do with the fact that her diet is horrible.

This particular child has chosen to be a vegetarian. And by that, I mean someone who doesn’t eat anything that might provide nutritive value of any sort, be it animal, vegetable or mineral.

She will eat Cheetos happily, though. And ice cream. And popcorn.

Her daily intake can be summed up in a few sentences. Breakfast consists of air and a declaration that she is late for school. Lunch is a mystery; she doesn’t pack one, and she apparently doesn’t buy anything at school either. I suspect she eats her homework pages, because we occasionally get reports that she hasn’t turned in an assignment. Dinner is whatever the meatless part of the evening’s meal turns out to be, assuming it is something that is A) covered in cheese or B) from a bag with Oroville Redenbacher’s picture on it.

If we dare to point out that she needs to eat protein and perhaps some actual vegetables, she will haughtily report that her diet is fine, and that she knows how to take care of herself.

We could try to explain that her diet has a direct correlation with her ability to perform at school, to sleep well and to think clearly, but we would be shot down before we could finish a sentence. She knows better, you see, because she is a teenager.

And in a sense, I can understand this way of thinking. A teenager is someone who has had enough years and enough growth to see that she isn’t a child any longer and she has passed beyond the childish way of thinking. She has passed beyond childish sorts of ideals and childish sorts of wants. Her universe has expanded greatly, and she has expanded right along with it. She is able to get by in the big world as far as it has presented itself to her. She no longer crawls or toddles, but is walking and running. In her mind, she has reached full steam in all aspects of her existence. What more growth could there be?

I remember very clearly in my life a point where it dawned on me that I did not, in fact, know everything. I realized then that there was a lot that I did not know, and a lot more to learn. It was then I truly started learning.

I wasn’t a teenager any more by that time, though, but was entering my thirties.

So I don’t expect a lot out of my teenagers in this regard. Telling a teenager anything is like spreading seeds on the sidewalk.

But I’m a parent, and thus I persist with the seed spreading, in hopes that eventually one gets through the concrete and reaches the good soil underneath.