Think of it as Cultivating Talent Not Ineffectual Parenting

My husband took our 9-year old clothes shopping. It seems Vincent cannot sit in his size 10 jeans anymore without the top snap popping open. I would have thought the time to shop for the next size up would have been weeks ago, when overnight all his jeans turned into capris. Judging by their purchases, it seems my husband is no better at shopping with Vincent than I am. Had I known they were going to combine their trip to the flying field with clothes shopping, I would have prepped my husband. “Now repeat after me,” I’d tell him, “Say ‘no, put it back’ in an I-mean-business voice.”

You have to keep an eye on Vincent. You can’t let him freely roam the teenager section, but good luck with that. He will try on pimp hats and sparkly button-down shirts with graffiti that require cufflinks. He’s always going for “a look”. You can’t find him for a few minutes and he pops out from behind a rack of clothing with an ensemble that makes you forget he’s yours and he’s only nine.

Once he nails the look, complete with mannerisms, accent and vernacular, he disempowers us as parents. We no longer have  final say in what makes it to the register and what gets put back on the nearest rack. We are crippled. He starts acting out the character and who are we to say “no”, or “not this time”, or “let’s stick to the things we need”. We obviously have a character actor here. We can’t squash. We must cultivate. That’s what makes parenting so difficult. How do you discern? Am I creating a monster or the next Sean Penn?

We shopped from a summer camp supplies list last summer and deviated from the list…just a little. We were looking for closed-toe sandals and sunscreen. He found  plaid sneakers and a cab driver hat with “obey propaganda” printed on the top. I thought, “Well, it sort of has a visor to block the sun,” and let him put it in the cart. He was so smitten with the treadless plaid sneakers I didn’t put up a fuss. Useful, right? No. He looked so adorable. I couldn’t say no. But when he got to camp and it rained he wiped out and skinned his knee. He wore his sneakers with treads and arch supports the rest of the week.

He wears the plaid sneakers to school every day. They are starting to fray. He refuses to wear his good sneakers that cost four times as much, lace, and have arch supports. I’m counting on winter to get him out of the plaid sneakers. Last winter, he wore army-green camouflage snow boots, from the first day snowflakes floated down from the sky, to Easter, when he was done being a WWII soldier, defending France because they were too lame to defend themselves. Somebody’s got to do it. Vincent took it upon himself, not only to protect the French during the winter months but to learn the language. He knows a few words. He bulleted them in a PowerPoint presentation he made just for the heck of it, entitled “France: I Haz Backup”.

Yesterday, he came home with a “house coat” that makes him look like Hugh Hefner. He wears it with sweats, no shirt underneath, and my soft, fuzzy slippers that he has taken over. He walked into my bedroom in his new get-up and said, “I’m a very wealthy Englishman who smokes a pipe and wears rounded glasses. I prefer to sit in a tall chair in my study, with a wall of books behind me, a fire crackling in the fireplace, and Beethoven playing in the background.” He walks about the house arrogantly. It’s going on two days now with him walking around with his nose up in the air, calling me “Mother” instead of Mom.

I predict he is going to be Hugh Hefner with an English accent through to Easter. Bunny season. Great! We need to nip that before it takes a distasteful turn, and get him signed up for theatre.

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