Yes, it has happened. Despite attachment parenting and homeschooling and raising children in a non-violent home my older son, who is fourteen now, has turned into one of THOSE teenagers. The ones everyone says is normal.
Last night my son was upset to see me so upset and angry when my husband deleted every single digital photo that I have ever taken in my life. The ones documenting our packing and moving and the leaving of the old home and the arrival here and the publicity photos to be used for the rowing team, had all not been backed up yet due to busy-ness and computer challenges since the move. Poof.
So my son felt he should enter the confusion by yelling and declaring that he hates everyone in this family. He wants to quit Boy Scouts and the crew team, and he proclaimed his intention to hole up in his bedroom doing his homeschool studies so he can finish high school, enter college and get out of this house living with "you people" and then continue in his independent life as far away from us as possible. He repeated "I hate you people!" just in case I didn't hear it the first time.
Oh, yes. That was so lovely to hear.
Like I need that type of drama (from a male no less), ever. Like I need that crap when I'm upset that I could have lost all those photos that I treasure so much. When I need to see those sweet faces of my little boys to get me through the rough patches of parenting them as teens and tweens, poof, they are gone.
I chose to not engage my son after that stupid declaration but gave just a couple of sentences about how I felt, then I retreated.
Later the apologies came, many hugs, some very tight.
I didn't get into lectures. I was too worn down (moreso by the photo problem mess which was still unresolved). I stood my ground that anyone who feels an emotion has the right to feel it and to discuss it. A person should never feel that they have to hide emotion. People being angry and sad is normal and it may be uncomfortable for others to see a family member going through it but we must all learn to cope with seeing those we love feel the bad feelings. Thus, I had a right to feel upset at fact that every photo I'd taken in the last ten years was gone in a matter of seconds.
However it is unacceptable to take one's negative feelings and attempt to rid oneself of them by lashing out such as throwing objects, breaking things, hitting or hurting other people or oneself, or verbally abusing other people in order to hurt their feelings. I asked my son if, in my anger about the photos, if I had done any of those things and he said no. I then said that him watching me get upset does not mean he is allowed or should do any of those negative things with the emotion he is feeling.
Parenting a teenager is a thankless job and to be blunt it sucks sometimes. I am trying to do a good job. I feel like I am winging it sometimes as these situations come from left field when I am least expecting it. All I can do is try my best. I'm human and imperfect. I hope what I'm doing is a decent job, I hope it is good enough as it is all I have to offer. Some days I have to dig deep and sometimes I am flying by the seat of my pants. Here's to hoping something I'm doing is right.
P.S. It took more than half a day but using a computer program designed for the task my husband did retrieve all the deleted photos. I am relieved but honestly the reality of the situation doesn't feel real, for some reason my mind is holding onto last night's fear.
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5 comments:
SO sorry about your photo fiasco - that would devastate me, too. As for your son, so much for teen girls being more difficult, huh? :^) We are now entering the pre-teen stuff with our daughters and can see this moodiness sneaking in...but I hope to handle it as you have - balancing the reality that they feel bad with teaching them what is and isn't appropriate. ((hugs))
My heart stopped when I read the "all the photos are deleted" over and over again. Shame on you for PS-ing that he was able to save them instead of opening with that line. Those poor pictures! My poor heart!
I hear you about the emotions thing. The first time I cried in front of my daughter, in pain for having just broken my shoulder, she was besides herself and we had to have "the talk". Good for you for teaching your children that emotions are okay to display (just be careful around teenagers, they have lots of them).
I so admire how you handled this! My kids are still pretty little, but what you said about showing your emotions makes sense for any age. Thank you for this--this really helps me.
(First time commenter, btw. I've been homeschooling for five years, just now seeking out helpful blogs...)
LOL Filelalaine.
When I wrote the blog post the photos had not yet been saved.
I added the PS later (after the initial publication) as I thought some may be left wondering.
I'll leave it at the PS so readers can feel what it was like to be in my shoes.
Actually yesterday I discovered some files are not "reading", I looked at 6 month's worth of 2011 photos and about 5% are missing, error messages where the image should be. I am going to try another software to look at them with, maybe that will help.
I forgot to mention that I lost quite a bit of early photos of my daughter Emily when my computer crashed a few years ago, hence my intimate knowledge of your pain. Since then, I do this on a manic-almost-daily-basis: BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP.
I have two external hard drives, one of which is a small little gadget, very inexpensive, that I labeled PHOTO ALBUM for photos and videos (don't ask me about my manic-labeling tendencies, I will not stop). I too love trips down memory lane when Emily still fit in my lap.
Hope you recover the remaining :)
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