If
there's one thing I've learned from my kids, it's that just about the
time I work myself into a comfortable parenting groove, where I feel
like I know what to expect and what to do about it, things change.
I've
learned to adapt, over and over, but that doesn't stop me from being
somewhat bemused each time a new set of changes comes along, as I am
now. This time, it's a big one. My daughter is thirteen. And she
wants me to talk to her.
To
understand why this is a big deal, I need to lay out some background.
My daughter is not a talker. In fact, there was a time when I would
have said my daughter had an aversion to words. For years I spoke in
sound bites and practiced a whole lot of non-verbal communication
skills to accommodate her because even “aversion to words”
doesn't really convey the way things were. She could talk and read
and write. She had a decent vocabulary for her age at any given age.
But spoken words were not her friends and she didn't want too many of
them in the air around her. So I adapted and learned to live and
communicate with the kid who didn't like words. Now and then I'd be
around other kids and it was a little startling – they talked a
lot! But it wasn't a big deal.
My
kid with the aversion to words wanting to sit on the couch and
chit-chat? That's a big deal!
It's
been interesting, to say the least. At first, I was flummoxed. And
even now – as I write, this has been going on for a few months –
I still kind of flounder, trying to figure out what I'm supposed to
say when she gets in a conversational mood. She's not a great
conversationalist, yet, so she's pretty dependent on me to keep
things going. Fortunately, I've been keeping up with some of her
interests so we can chat about books and comics we've both read,
characters we like, creatures we like to read about and write about,
that sort of thing.
I
tell her about things I'm looking up on the internet and she comes
and looks over my shoulder. This is the most “classical
unschooling” sort of thing we do – looking things up together on
the internet. Today, I was looking up the phrase “in flagrante
delicto” which appeared in a graphic novel we're both reading. I
had always thought it meant “buck nekkid” but it wasn't used that
way in context – I explained this to Mo, and she giggled, both at
“buck nekkid” and the way I was candidly admitting my own
ignorance. She loves that – she's pretty sure I'm not the brightest
bulb in the box and likes evidence to support her theory.
One
of the things I'm learning in this new phase of our unschooling life
is that Mo likes it when I get a little salty in my language. The
girl who didn't approve of verbal interaction has gotten whatever sex
ed she's had so far from books I've strewn (hopefully) and random
sites on the internet (cringe) so I think she's glad we can finally
exchange words on the subjects of bodies and sex and sexuality. I
know I'm glad! I had expected a much more...um, educational kind of
sex ed to happen around here. Guess that was something I needed to
deschool – and Mo has been happy to help me out in that regard. So
I've been working on not censoring my words and thoughts too much.
I'm cussing more and outright saying things that I'd previously kept
censored. One of the comics we're both reading right now is SAGA, and
another is Rat Queens, both decidedly “adult content”. And from
time to time we talk about that – not “how did you feel about
that scene?” sorts of quizzy stuff, but real girl talk.
She especially likes it when I get silly, so I've been reaching deep into my goofy side and having fun with that. Here are a couple of examples:
She especially likes it when I get silly, so I've been reaching deep into my goofy side and having fun with that. Here are a couple of examples:
We have
a stuffed flamingo. His name is Casey:
Me:
“Casey's been sitting in the window all day watching the
hummingbirds. He says he met a bunch down when we were down in
Florida... but I think he's lying about doing vodka shots with them.
I'm pretty sure hummingbirds don't drink vodka.”
Mo
(playing along): “what do they drink?”
Me:
“Rum, for the most part. I'm skeptical because he says they were
drinking in the cabana – I don't think that word means what he
thinks it means.”
Mo:
what does it mean?
Me: you
know, I'm not entirely sure, but I know it's not a bar
We
proceed to google images of cabanas.
The
moon:
Me:
“There's half a moon in the sky... I don't know what happened to
the other half. I think it fell off. I'll get the umbrella in case of
giant raining chunks of moon.”
Mo
(giggling): “It's okay, I'm pretty sure it will all burn up in the
atmosphere.”
This
is little stuff, right? Basic, simple stuff... except that it's
totally not at all. It's new and strange and wonderful around here.
There are still plenty of long, slow silences and awkward bits, but
our friendship is growing and changing and getting... wordier. I
hadn't expected that. It's a good thing.