My kid wants to be grown up before he really is there

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being yourself, dreams, Jane Butler

I have a piano student who frequently, a few minutes into the lesson, flips to the back pages of the book and pretends to play the much harder music. He flits his hands across the keys hitting random, discordant notes in the hopes of suddenly knowing how to play piano. He’s brand new at this and is still at the early stages of learning to read music. So I feel his frustration at wanting to be there already.

I used to ask my therapist, all the time, “When will I be done? When will I not feel bad anymore, and when will I have all this hard learning stuff behind me?” The answer was always a frustratingly vague ‘eventually’. I ‘eventually’ stopped even asking because no one knows whether you are growing on a particular day or whether you are in a holding pattern. Growing takes a while and it is so sneakily invisible unless you are looking hard.

We recently drove our teenage son back to college for the start of the spring semester. Whew! We survived the winter break. It was six weeks long and boy was it challenging. We had a great family vacation together out of town, but much of the rest of the time our son was exerting his independence and chafing against the idea that he is still a kid still only on the brink of adulthood. Oh how he wants to be there. He’s killing me with his anxiousness.

It’s all the same thing, isn’t it? The very healthy, meritorious desire to grow and be better than we are right now. To make the beautiful music, and not hit the discordant notes, right now. But I know for sure, that if you are not hitting bad notes, not falling down and getting bruised, you are not learning. It happens when we try and it happens when we dream of the better day.

My only caution, to myself more than anyone, is to enjoy today and the hitting of bad notes, as much as what we believe is in store for our future.

Minus the sexy parts, again

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being yourself, boyfriends, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, Jane Butler, joy, listening, mother, relationship, words

I posted this a few years ago but not much has changed in terms of my teenage boy challenging me.

I just started in cataloging all the boys and men I’d ever dated. We were alone in the car with 90 minutes in front of us, just my teenage boy and myself, so I started in. I knew of no other way to impress upon him the concerns I had about his relationship with his current girlfriend. You don’t tell teenagers directly what you want because they in turn, in keeping with their job in life to separate from you after a childhood of deliberate bonding, reject it. So the next best thing is to open myself up and share my personal experiences.

Turns out my litany of boyfriends, and there were not that many really, seemed a little interesting. And I say that not because of anything my son said, instead it was because of what he didn’t say. He didn’t say a word. For over an hour he said nothing as I detailed the reasons why one guy was good and another not, from my perspective as as teen and young adult, back in the day. I explained about the one who dropped cigarette ash on my rug, the one who was a high school dropout but doted on me like I was a queen so I stayed with him for five years, the one who had tons of money and a Porsche but his friends didn’t like him, the one who couldn’t ever find time for me, and those that had only one thing on their minds. I told him the entire experience of meeting his father and how we developed our relationship and why I liked him better than the others even though at first it was not so clear. I told it all minus the sexy parts. And he remained silent. But I could tell he was listening, and he even had a few questions, particularly about his father and me. He said it was cool that Dad really liked me even though I wasn’t that sure at first. He liked that part. The tenacity of his father, in love. Hmmmm.

The point is I needed him to know that staying with a girl for years, because it is easier than breaking up, is not that great an idea, and why. I threw in some examples amidst the smokescreen.

A few months later he broke up with his girlfriend. I was surprised, that is, until he pointed out that it was me who told him to do it.

The first time I heard how babies are made or Ridiculously fun thing to do for my birthday

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being yourself, Jane Butler, parents, relationship, sex, West Chester Story Slam

So for my birthday I granted myself a night out, last night, telling silly stories instead of packing for the family trip today.

Crazy thing listening to yourself. That is, following an intuition to just go do it. I just went out to the West Chester Story Slam last night, signed the releases allowing a YouTube presentation of my story, took the microphone, and went ahead and told it. Don’t get me wrong, I have many stories to tell, but last night’s has been on my mind a while. I’ve told it plenty before, but never for the express purpose of entertaining. So it was a little like being a stand-up comic where you carefully pace and time and reveal your truths and then watch people laugh.

I loved it. And I was even one of the winners!

Now I am automatically entered into the Grand Slam in November where each month’s winners compete for the title of Best Story Teller in Chester County.

So what was my story about? Some say it’s about how sex education differs by generations, but I say it’s about showing respect to your kids even when you must embarrass yourself. It’s about sacrificing for kids because you’re a parent.

Click on the link above to see a video of me telling my story on the story slam website.

Guess what, I was thinking about you

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being yourself, express feelings, inspire, Jane Butler, teacher, writing

Funny thing happened today in English class. My Goth friend, who earlier this week literally needed to be woken up from a sound sleep, suddenly was acting oddly interested. I hadn’t planned on it but I told him I’d been thinking about him outside of class. I’d been talking about him to a friend, I told him, for no reason other than that he is a standout in class for having fallen asleep so often.

Now normally all I’ve ever seen of this guy is the crown of his head, and a glimpse of his pale skin glancing past his long black hair. He’s usually hunched over and usually withdrawn, and usually doesn’t talk,

I guess I felt so encouraged with him looking directly at me, in response to the revelation that I’d been thinking about him out of class, that I just kept going. I told him the whole story of my friend, the person I’d told about my sleeping Goth student. I guess I told them both about each other, actually. And I didn’t hold back. My friend, I told my student, surprised me by telling me about how he too once was an army boot and flak jacket wearing teen who was headed down the wrong path, getting arrested and doing drugs, not that I presumed to know what my Goth friend did outside of class.  But this had in hindsight been a kind of reaction to the long slow painful dismantling of his family over the course of many years. Turns out his dad left the family and his mom was so deeply grief-stricken as to appear mentally ill, and it dragged out for ten years before it felt like it ended.

Checking out, getting into trouble, these were ways to carry on in the face of disaster. My friend said he landed in a foster care situation and then his father did something unusual for fathers who leave their kids, he came back and got his wayward son into boarding school. From there he made it to college and onto a path that was healthier. I told all this to my student in a long exposition I hadn’t planned, and so I laughed at how us adults, this friend of mine and me too, project our experiences and understanding onto others. How he had suggested that maybe my Goth student was like him, reacting to issues at home. I had said, who knows, maybe.

By now my Goth student was quite present with me. I wrapped up my monologue and explained about the power of words and why we bother with the writing assignment before us. About how it’s hard to let kids know the value of learning, and how to communicate through writing, but this assignment is, unfortunately, how we do it. I told him no matter how crappy life is or what you do or do not have, communicating with words can get you all kinds of chances – jobs, college entrance, scholarships, girls, apologies, everything. So let’s humor the system, I proposed, and work on this essay together.

That’s when all of a sudden, he started talking, stringing whole sentences together, and looking right at me.

My published writing!

Tags

Jane Butler, teenagers, writing

When I headed off to college I realized that my parents had left me on the doorstep of adulthood believing everything I did was wrong and useless and stupid. My life as a teenager was highlighted by the presence of several doting boyfriends that helped counteract the unintentionally destructive messages my folks were sending me. Even though the boys were kind of shady at the time they seemed great!

Recently a few stories from my teenage years were published in an anthology called Unclaimed Baggage: Voices of the Main Line.  It is presently available on Amazon.com if you’d like to learn more.

Ignorance is bliss

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being yourself, control, Dante's Inferno, express feelings, fear, goals, high school English class, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, mentors, passion, teacher, trust, words, writing

Today I got an email from my English teacher asking if I could come in next Tuesday to help in the classroom. It’s midterms and the kids requested me be there during the essay portion of their test. What, you say, help out during the test? Yes. This is precisely what the trained educator in the room and I dreamed of, building enough trust with the kids so they might do something like this…seek out help.

My teacher is so clever as to recognize the value in teaching kids how to take a test by having me present. I sit on the sidelines and students step up one at a time in the middle of writing an essay, and as the spirit moves them, kibitz quietly for a moment or two. I don’t have any answers. Honestly, at the AP level I barely know what the literature is that we are talking about. But I do know how to think, and how to organize and how to help guide a logical progression of ideas. And that’s what we talk about. As a matter of fact, the idea that I do not necessarily read the works we are studying, allows an ignorance the teacher can never get back. She’s read it all, and read it all a lot. So, if kids are not clear enough in their writing to inform me, the average individual, of what their point is by way of specific examples that prove a point, they are not communicating effectively. So, in this way, the less I know about Dante’s Inferno, the better.

I do what I can, and apparently my ignorance is quite helpful.

Real interaction with others

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fear, goals, inspire, Michael Welner, play, psychotherapy, security

A very passionate and knowledgeable forensic psychiatrist on television today said we should nurture creativity and constructive activities for children rather than destructive activities. Yeah! Take a look at this video of Michael Welner and see how he calls each of us to be responsible parents who encourage psychologically healthy activities in our children. Although he talks about video games for older kids I know we would be smart to avoid letting electronic games for our littlest children become substitutes for real interaction with others.

One tiny step closer to adulthood

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being yourself, control, growing up, high school English class, inspire, joy, listening, teacher

Every day kids move invisibly a tiny step closer to adulthood. So you never know what you’re going to get. You never know if today is the day they suddenly like spinach after years of saying no to it. You cannot tell by just looking, so it is a little dangerous to think the kid you are talking to today is the same kid you were talking to yesterday. It just might not be.

So at school I have to keep open the possibility that one of my students, instead of flipping her hair and turning on her heel in exit, may instead stop to talk about our work in class together, contributing even more to her own learning. I need to remain ready for that. Teenagers are on the brink of adulthood so some days you get an Elmo tee-shirt wearing kid discussing Faulkner and some days you get a fashionable looking young adult playing classroom pranks.

You just never know. Today could be the day a kid steps a little closer to her future, and if it is, I’d like to be there to cheer her on.

The sweet idea that “Our love for her is not enough”

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cultural differences, exchange student, express feelings, homesick, love, mother, security

I got a tearful phone call from my daughter across the ocean yesterday. She was homesick, as is to be expected, and her hosts graciously handed her their house phone to make the international call to us. I sent the mom a note to thank her and to say we’d just increased our girl’s telephone capabilities so she might connect with us and her brothers more often. I got back the dearest note, a regular mother-to-mother message that showed me that despite our language differences and our cultural differences, she understood our concerns about our daughter. She said, “You can be proud that she is homesick, because it also means that you, as her family, is most important for her, that she loves you that much, that our love for her is not enough and never will be enough! She can be in contact with you as much as she wants!” All this from someone who just met her!

I love the universality of these ideas. And of motherhood in general. We all love our children and want to protect them from pain, but in this case, one of the reasons to have my girl participate in the international exchange program is to help her learn the universality of men, among so many other lessons. And having her mothered by someone else far from home just when she feels this kind of personal pain, I guess, is one way to do it.

One foot, two foot, red foot, blue foot

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being yourself, Dr. Seuss, dreams coming true, express feelings, graduation, inspire, love, mother, play, reading stories, relationship, security, senior week, teacher, trust, words

My teenage graduate ticked us off between the ceremony and the celebration dinner with friends, as is commonly the way with him, such that we failed to find a moment between then and his speedy exit for senior week at the beach, to feel benevolent enough towards him to offer our gifts. Just as an aside, I will say that this kid has as his specialty, conflict. He creates it even when it isn’t naturally present, and even when it is not in any way reasonably likely. He loves confrontation. At least with us. So, the idea that he could squeeze that in just moments after the misty-eyed scene of him walking up in cap and gown to receive the evidence of thirteen years of education, and the trip to a very fun Asian restaurant we rarely visit immediately afterward, is not surprising at all.

Last night, after his unexpectedly early return from senior week (he seemed a little tired) we gave him his presents. One of my favorites which I will confess was mostly for me, was a Dr. Seuss book entitled, “Oh the Places You Will Go”. I haven’t even read it yet, but I have read Dr. Seuss since my grandmother got me a monthly subscription to the classic hard cover books when I was a nine, and which still sit on my bookshelf. Dr. Seuss has been my inspiration for silliness for as long as I can remember. And Dr. Seuss is the one who told me I could draw even when I cannot. No matter how funny a face is drawn, no matter how exaggerated and weird, it is, apparently, legitimate. And Dr. Seuss told me it is perfectly okay to say silly things just because they rhyme or sort of rhyme or kind of are related because we think so. Dr. Seuss has been an especially good friend to me over the years because he has helped me teach all my children these lessons: to laugh and be silly any time of day, to see the absurd obtuseness in everything, that what seems possibly relevant, may very well be, if you put it in some roughly logical context. All of this, a brainstorming kind of feeling I value greatly.

I asked my kiddo if we might sit together and read his new book. But he thought….only maybe…and only later. I think if he wants the car keys again, since I have gotten the green light to do my own driving now, that maybe we need to go down that road of reading stories together just one more time, first.