Have you ever woken up from a sleep so incredibly full of terrible dreams and restless tossing that you think, “Well, that was fucking pointless.”
It was the night before my daughter’s 12th birthday, and I was participating in my usual routine of staring at my ceiling while reviewing the mental lists of everything I needed to do to make her day spectacular.
We had already agreed to let her skip school on her special day because Sophie doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention. And if there’s one day you are forced to be the center of attention at public school, it’s your birthday.
The plan was this: After breakfast and presents, we’d take her to Canadian Tire to get fitted for her new ice skates. Then to the bookstore to procure the anime series she’s been talking about nonstop for the past three weeks.
Please don’t ask me what the name of the series is; my old mom-brain can’t retain this information.
And finally, we’d go to the mall where she could blow a little of her birthday money on whatever it is that 12-year-old’s blow their money on.
The rest of the day would be spent eating sushi, decorating the house for Christmas and not, under any circumstances singing our girl “Happy Birthday” because, for some reason unbeknownst to me, she can’t stand that sort of thing.
Everything was going fine until we stepped foot into that goddamn mall. That’s when I transformed from a regular 30-something lady who was innocently allowing her child to skip school into a raging, ranting Mom-machine, unable to understand the reasoning of this consumer-based society we live in.
The store Sophie bee-lined to was a hip one. I don’t think my daughter or any of the pierced, pink-haired, bondage-clad patrons within it would have described it as “hip,” but it’s the best adjective my brain can come up with right now.
My gawd, some of the people browsing this place — wearing fishnet stockings accompanied by red satin corsets and covered in long trench coats — I wasn’t aware there was a midnight showing of RHPS going on today!
But no, it became clear that this was their regular attire. Man alive, am I getting old. I guess using the term “man alive” proves my point entirely.
Jamie, not knowing what to do in such a store, hung back by the door; I assumed to make a quick getaway if any of these hipster teens decided to start an impromptu spoken word performance.
Sophie found exactly four things she loved.
To me, they seemed like trinkets, which would draw a pre-teen’s eye.
- A sloth figurine attached to a cheap necklace chain.
- A pride flag to hang in her room
- Collar pins in the shape of tiny ghosts because apparently collar pins are a thing these days among the youngins.
- A pack of stickers to decorate her new Chromebook with.
I wasn’t paying attention as the cashier rang up the items. I was, as is most often the case, thinking about lunch. More specifically, how excited I was to soon be shoving a delicious poutine down my gullet.
Then the cashier said, “Okay, that will be 140 dollars.”
“Um, what now?”
Look, I’m one of the biggest advocates when it comes to being kind to customer service people, but I was thrown off by the price. I looked over at Sophie, who was carefully counting the birthday money she had received from her grandparents.
She did not seem fazed.
“I’m sorry, did you ring that in properly? How can this be 140 bucks?” I said, placing my hand over Sophie’s to stop her from passing the money to the cashier.
“It’s right,” the 16-year-old at the till said while smirking at my outrage.
I turned to Sophie, “Soph, are you sure you want to spend over half of your birthday money on four little items?”
“Oh my god, Mom, please stoooop.” My daughter was not sharing in my indignation.
As I watched my sweet kid hand over a good chunk of her money for these four stupid-as-all-shit trinkets, I realized this was my turning point. This was the moment I no longer understood my children. We had inexplicably merged from having popcorn fights and fantastic dance parties in the living room to standing alone in a hipster’s clothing store, wanting to puke because I have no clue how to exist in a teenager’s world.
I tried not to let it ruin the day. I wanted Sophie to have a fun birthday, but the idea kept wriggling in and out of my brain.
What did this mean?
Was her nonchalance with money a sign that she needs better money management skills?
Have I not raised her properly, and will she be bankrupt by the time she’s 20 years old?
This is the plight of the worried, angry mother. Once the idea has wriggled its way into our brain, shit, man, is it ever difficult to shake.
But because it was her birthday, I swallowed my angst and put on a happy face. This too is a mother’s specialty. We mask our sadness, fear, and bad feelings, for the sake of our children.
We are master maskers.
There I was, eating red velvet cake and singing Happy Birthday to my girl under my breath. And although I was very quiet, she still heard me and rolled her eyes in my direction.
“I love you more than you’ll ever know, Sophie,” I said to her later that evening as she went to bed. Again, she rolled her eyes but hugged me back and told me she loved me too. She thanked me for the wonderful day and told me everything was perfect.
She was wearing the ghost collar pins.
The next day I made a bank appointment, and we shoved the remainder of her money into a savings account. Then the bank lady and I talked to her about the importance of money management.
That, too, is the thing about motherhood, we can only play along for so long, then it’s time to get down to business and raise this next generation with the bravery of a $60 sloth figurine on a cheap chain necklace.
. . .
Lindsay Rae Brown sometimes writes about being a mom. Not often, because my children are at that distinct age that if I even mention them in my stories I must okay it with them and that can get tiresome.
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This post was previously published on Get Inside.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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