parents only kinda sort understand

I mentioned a few posts ago how I'd been following this kid Mikey on his blog, agayhockeykidslife. Turns out he's, like, super popular and his shit has blown up into a full website.

Anywho, bravo to him for that, but he had this post the other day talking about his relationship with his father. Closeted gay context removed, Mikey is a 17 year-old guy who plays varsity hockey for his high school team but can't seem to win the respect of his father no matter what he does or how well he plays (which, it should be noted, is seemingly quite well). His younger brother, Jake, however, is consistently lauded by his father, who makes special effort to go to Jake's hockey games but rarely makes an appearance or even acknowledges Mikey's efforts. From what Mikey has said about their relationship, it seems as though his dad holds a degree of deep-seeded resentment towards Mikey for having chosen hockey over baseball -- a sport he equally excelled at -- because Mikey's dad had a promising future as a baseballer in his younger years.

What I find so intriguing about this is is how undeniably cliche it is. And I certainly don't mean that in any sort of dismissive way (honestly, Mikey, I don't). I liken to how I found out in college that people I met actually went to high schools where the head cheerleader was blond and dated the quarterback and made fun of the band kids and all that shit. Like, Mean Girls actually existed. Because in my high school that just wasn't the case. Of course there were social groups that were segregated, but it wasn't based on any notions of superiority or archetypal caste systems. I didn't regularly hang out with someone in band because, hey, I wasn't in band. But if they showed up at parties or sat with us one or two days at lunch, that was fine. By conventional definition I was a "popular kid," but I was also deeply engrossed in the drama department. And I had friends who's high school experiences were just as juxtaposed.

I digress. Back to my point, which I realize may come across as obviously rooted in inexperience because, "Hey, Seth, you didn't grow up with a dad in the house," so I'll concede the good point. Still, I'm now ruminating on parent/child relationships as they develop in tandem with the development of the child. We all get that our parents, for better or sometimes worse, live vicariously through their children. And why shouldn't they? We are invariably reflections of our parents, of their ability to raise us, to influence us, to make sure that we experience everything we need to experience in order to be ready for the world. That's a lot of pressure. Put yourself in the position with your own child and tell me you wouldn't sit there and think "Damn I hope this kid does amazing things." Where it gets sticky is when a parent tries to force their kid to be someone they're not, or, as in Mikey's case, something they the parents were never able to be. All they and we (because, yes, we are that old now) can do is make sure the experiences are available to them, and then do our best and hope they don't make the wrong decisions. **Though select cases apply: I still say that my mother should have forced me to play piano when I was a youngin' despite my protest, because I deeply regret that I don't play an instrument, specifically that one.

So back to Mikey and his dad. I sympathize with the kid because he's affected by the situation, and why wouldn't he be? He can't, by any means, gain acceptance by the one person in his life who should be there to support him no matter what. Beyond cliche, it's also just so foreign to me. Now, I'm not saying I grew up in a household without pressure to do well. My mom, who is the most influential and amazing person in my life, was very much on me about keeping my grades up and doing well in, well, whatever I was doing. But, she never rejected me because I didn't do something I didn't want to do. So when I refused to take piano for whatever juvenilely conceived reason, she said "Okay." If I can find any semblance of what Mikey is going through, if anything, it's my mom's persistence is asking me when I'm complaining about my job or New York or boys or whatever to just say "why don't you just go?" And by that, she means go off and travel and see the world and sort of say "fuck it" for a while and relive a life she did when she was my age. I'd be lying if I don't think about it at least once every day...

So, all in all, I guess I'm lucky. Still though, Mikey's situation is sort of the beginnings of a pivotal and sometimes heartbreaking point in adolescence. I think one of the most confusing processes any kid can go through is the deconstruction or implosion of the fallacy of their parents. That is to say, our parents are imperfect human beings just like everyone else. Remember being, like, five and thinking that your parents really did know everything? They really were the smartest people in the entire world? Unable to make any mistakes. Immune to jealousy, resentment, insecurity? But then that day comes when it just hits you like a bag of sand that, shit, my parents are sometimes just as fucked up as I am, only they've had a longer period of time to learn how to manage being fucked up. And, as budding adults, we have to take that into account when dealing with them. So, in a case like Mikey's, while it may seem like absolute bullshit that his dad treats him the way he does, Mikey has to sort of acknowledge an insurmountable immaturity in his father. Mikey then becomes the bigger man, which feels inherently and uncomfortably backwards because the entire dynamic of parent/child changes in that moment. It's a loss of innocence and an apprehensive gain in responsibility. I remember a friend of mine once told me about the day she, only 17 at the time, realized she was smarter than her mother. And I thought...that kind of sucks. Personally, while I argue enough with my mom about, er, enough, she'll always know more than me. And I like it that way. Everyone needs a sage in their life. But, I know when she's wrong and I'm not afraid to butt heads and tell her so. I'll leave it at that, though. Any and all Seth-and-his-mom ruminations will better be left for my memoirs.


That was a hell of a ramble, but my fingers were itching to write, and that's what blogs are for, right?

Seth