Winter break from public school descended onto Hermes one week before Christmas. Philip and Chloe have been enjoying two whole weeks plus one additional Friday off. For Philip, it has not just been about vacationing from school work. He has also been vacationing from all the teen drama he has been experiencing at Hermes High School.
And the drama was certainly high leading up to the winter break. For Philip, the drama mostly came from Erica, the extremely popular girl. She had begun behaving differently toward him. He was catching more looks. Chloe and I even witnessed some of those looks. On Wednesday, eight days before winter break, I picked up Chloe when her school let out and then headed over to Hermes High School to pick up Philip. With Philip in the front seat and Chloe in the back seat, we were inching our way out of the Hermes High School parking lot behind a long caravan of parents and teen drivers when Philip leaned toward me and said, “That’s her.”
“What do you mean ‘her’,” I asked.
“That’s ‘her’ right in front of us,” Philip answered. At first all I saw was a guy driving a truck in front of us. But then I could see movement in the passenger seat. A girl was slouching down as if hiding from us. And then she turned around, raised her head and took a quick look at us before dropping down quickly like a puppet in a child’s television show—exit stage down. This repeated several times and started to become comical. Philip waved and then she ducked. The next time both Philip and I waved before she retreated below the head rest. Chloe started giggling. And it was hard not to be cracking a smile. It was like Erica was playing a game of Peek-a-Boo with Philip. The driver (perhaps her older brother) turned to the right and spoke to her and then turned all the way to the left to look back at us. Her face appeared again between the two seats and then quickly retreated. At the end of the driveway we were both signaling to turn right. I decided to give Erica some relief by allowing an oncoming car to take a left turn to put an extra car between us and the truck.
The following day, Erica approached Philip’s table of guys toward the end of their lunch break. “Hey. Did you hear that Daniel broke up with Layla?” she asked the group, while standing closer to Philip than anyone else.
“No. That’s really sad though,” Philip answered.
Unexpectedly, one of Philip’s friends piped up, “Hey Erica. I’ve got a question for you. Are you friends with Philip?”
There was a long awkward silence before Erica answered slowly and cautiously, “… eeehhh … yyyeeeaaahhh …” And Philip quickly said yes in agreement to ease the tension.
“That makes sense,” the guy recovered. “You’re both friends with like everybody.” After that, Erica made a quick exit. But it was this final act of flirtation that catalyzed Philip’s resolve to ask out Erica.
But it may also have been what catalyzed Erica to either lose interest in Philip or at least become more cautious with him. During the time that was left of school before the winter break, Philip either couldn’t find Erica or couldn’t get her to slow down long enough for him to get to his asking-out words. Finally, on the following Wednesday, Philip learned that Erica had agreed to go to the winter formal on an as-friends basis with another guy. With that revelation, Philip decided to wait until after the winter formal to resume his pursuit of Erica.
That Friday morning, the first day of winter break, Philip slept until noon. He spent most of the afternoon in his pajamas. When I asked if he had any plans to get together with his friends, he said he wanted to just rest for a few days. And the pattern continued. His video game playing temporarily returned to eighth grade levels. Christmas Eve arrived and when Amelia asked Philip if he wanted a shower before we went out as a family, he informed us he had not showered in a week.
I must confess I am a small bit concerned by how recluse Philip has been for almost two weeks. Other than errands and family outings, Philip has stayed at home during the entire winter break. Most days, he does not even change out of his pajamas. No friends have visited or received a visit from Philip. He may have chatted with a few via instant messaging. But there have been no phone calls. He doesn’t seem depressed. He laughs and seems to be genuinely enjoying his time with the family. Still … this isn’t how Philip usually acts.
Tonight, New Years Eve, we are going to a dance sponsored by the same group that sponsored the dances Philip enjoyed while he was attending Oak Hills Charter School. There will be plenty of pretty girls, but none from Hermes High School. My hope is Philip will ease back into his usual outgoing self while still enjoying what remains of his break from the drama of Hermes High School, especially the games of Peek-a-Boo.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
From Sanctuary to Memorial
Amelia and I have two kids. But we have a four bedroom house. The fourth bedroom was set aside long ago as the play room. The left side of the room was set aside for Philip and the right side of the room was set aside for Chloe. But the play room is starting to change.
Chloe’s side of the room has been the site of heavy girl playing. In the corner is a large basket full of girls’ dress-up clothes. They include ballerina and princess outfits. But none of them fit any more and she hasn’t replaced them. Last weekend she gave away the smaller half of her dress-up clothes to a three-year-old girl who visited the house. Instead, Chloe now collects flower girl dresses that she hangs in her closet. There is one which was her own, but she outgrew that. From her allowance money, she purchased the same dress in a larger size for fifteen dollars from the oldest flower girl at the same wedding. She has picked up other flower girl dresses at garage sales.
The most unchanged feature of the playroom is Chloe’s fashion dolls. They fall into two categories. There are the statuesque head-and shoulders on platforms that let Chloe and her friends endlessly comb hair and apply makeup. And there are the tiny flexible dolls that can change in and out of clothes quickly to be placed in fold-out houses, fold-out RVs or pool party scenes. Inevitably these dolls all end up naked and strewn across the carpet until chore time, when Chloe tosses most of them into the naked doll pale.
Philip’s side of the play room was devoted solely to building toys. Today, all his simple building toys have long since been donated to one charity or another. There are still several plastic tubs of not fully separated and organized building themes. And lastly there are his most complex building toys which he finally mastered some time around age eleven. They cover the complete surface of a three foot high cabinet. It is a battle scene between two fantasy world armies. Each army rallies from their own fortress built about a scale twenty yards from the other. It is as if the feud between Fred and Barney slowly evolved and escalated over generations from the stone age to medieval times, complete with Dino’s descendants now mutated into Dragons. Over time, dust has coalesced with girl hair to add wasteland tumbleweeds to the scene.
Philip hasn’t touched his tween fantasy battle scene or done any play building in perhaps two years, except to fix what inevitably gets knocked over from time to time by Chloe and her friends. About once every six months we ask him if he is ready to take it down and donate his building toys. But he still says no. The left side of the playroom remains a memorial to Philip’s childhood.
Philip has changed so rapidly in just a few months. During the party he hosted in August—the one during which he met Layla—he enjoyed no shortage of Guitar Hero rounds with his friends. But during the party he hosted just two months later in October—one where Erica showed up—he stayed in the back yard listening to an eclectic mix of hip-hop and alternative while talking and drinking soda. A few feet away other peers were playing Guitar Hero inside. They seemed to be the ones too frightened to talk to Erica and the other girls.
Philip now showers every day, wears deodorant, spends more than one minute combing his hair, has multiple sources of income and needs to start shaving. The time he spends on his laptop that was once devoted to a fantasy game is now replaced with browsing Facebook and YouTube. Only occasionally does he play any kind of video game—all of which are mindless shooting and fighting. And even that is getting less and less frequent. When Philip and I go for evening walks, he no longer wants to talk about his ideas for fantasy novels. Instead he wants to dissect and analyze the latest words and actions of Erica or some other girl. But with Christmas just ahead, we asked him about the building toys on the left side of the fourth bedroom. He didn’t hesitate with his answer. He still wanted to keep them as they were. “I like to come in here and look at them from time to time,” he said. And so, for at least another six months, the left side of the fourth bedroom will remain a memorial to a time in Philip’s life that is still cherished: His childhood.
Chloe’s side of the room has been the site of heavy girl playing. In the corner is a large basket full of girls’ dress-up clothes. They include ballerina and princess outfits. But none of them fit any more and she hasn’t replaced them. Last weekend she gave away the smaller half of her dress-up clothes to a three-year-old girl who visited the house. Instead, Chloe now collects flower girl dresses that she hangs in her closet. There is one which was her own, but she outgrew that. From her allowance money, she purchased the same dress in a larger size for fifteen dollars from the oldest flower girl at the same wedding. She has picked up other flower girl dresses at garage sales.
The most unchanged feature of the playroom is Chloe’s fashion dolls. They fall into two categories. There are the statuesque head-and shoulders on platforms that let Chloe and her friends endlessly comb hair and apply makeup. And there are the tiny flexible dolls that can change in and out of clothes quickly to be placed in fold-out houses, fold-out RVs or pool party scenes. Inevitably these dolls all end up naked and strewn across the carpet until chore time, when Chloe tosses most of them into the naked doll pale.
Philip’s side of the play room was devoted solely to building toys. Today, all his simple building toys have long since been donated to one charity or another. There are still several plastic tubs of not fully separated and organized building themes. And lastly there are his most complex building toys which he finally mastered some time around age eleven. They cover the complete surface of a three foot high cabinet. It is a battle scene between two fantasy world armies. Each army rallies from their own fortress built about a scale twenty yards from the other. It is as if the feud between Fred and Barney slowly evolved and escalated over generations from the stone age to medieval times, complete with Dino’s descendants now mutated into Dragons. Over time, dust has coalesced with girl hair to add wasteland tumbleweeds to the scene.
Philip hasn’t touched his tween fantasy battle scene or done any play building in perhaps two years, except to fix what inevitably gets knocked over from time to time by Chloe and her friends. About once every six months we ask him if he is ready to take it down and donate his building toys. But he still says no. The left side of the playroom remains a memorial to Philip’s childhood.
Philip has changed so rapidly in just a few months. During the party he hosted in August—the one during which he met Layla—he enjoyed no shortage of Guitar Hero rounds with his friends. But during the party he hosted just two months later in October—one where Erica showed up—he stayed in the back yard listening to an eclectic mix of hip-hop and alternative while talking and drinking soda. A few feet away other peers were playing Guitar Hero inside. They seemed to be the ones too frightened to talk to Erica and the other girls.
Philip now showers every day, wears deodorant, spends more than one minute combing his hair, has multiple sources of income and needs to start shaving. The time he spends on his laptop that was once devoted to a fantasy game is now replaced with browsing Facebook and YouTube. Only occasionally does he play any kind of video game—all of which are mindless shooting and fighting. And even that is getting less and less frequent. When Philip and I go for evening walks, he no longer wants to talk about his ideas for fantasy novels. Instead he wants to dissect and analyze the latest words and actions of Erica or some other girl. But with Christmas just ahead, we asked him about the building toys on the left side of the fourth bedroom. He didn’t hesitate with his answer. He still wanted to keep them as they were. “I like to come in here and look at them from time to time,” he said. And so, for at least another six months, the left side of the fourth bedroom will remain a memorial to a time in Philip’s life that is still cherished: His childhood.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Shallow Reality
Even before she broke things off with the football player, the awkward game of courtship between Erica and Philip had begun. But their developing mutual interest functions in the complex early adolescent social structure and gossip pit of Hermes High School.
Without question, ninth-grader Erica holds the unchallenged position as the leading “trophy” girlfriend at Hermes High School. She seems to have a love-hate relationship with this position. On the one hand, she certainly prefers the position over its polar opposite. Nearly every guy whose interest in girls has awakened is either exclusively interested in Erica or at least has her on his short list. Philip’s interest, for example, is exclusive. Erica is invited to all the parties and she can secure just about any favor she wants. On the other hand, she has learned she needs to be very careful to not give a guy the wrong signal. Additionally, she finds she can easily intimidate her guy-peers. And worst of all, she is nearly always hounded by at least someone. For Erica, having a trustworthy, well-matched, long-term boyfriend would not only be pleasant in-and-of itself, but it would substantially eliminate the downsides of her popularity among boys while only mildly reducing the upsides. Additionally, it could only improve her popularity among the girls which is already off the charts.
Among the ninth-grade boys at Hermes High School only perhaps ten to fifteen percent of them are even looked upon as “boyfriend material.” And these few face fierce competition for the attention of their ninth grade gal-peers from sophomores, juniors and sometimes even seniors. The status of “boyfriend material” is admittedly rather shallow. It has almost nothing to do with compatibility, emotional maturity, long term prospects, empathy, or relationship skills. Instead it mainly has to do with superficial attributes such as good looks, physical maturity, bravado and mystique. (To be fair, as a whole the guys at Hermes High School judge their gal-peers by equally frivolous standards.) Each of the guys classified as “boyfriend material” sports his own unique mix of attractive qualities. For some it is a well matched set of height, developed muscles, chiseled features, athletic prowess and confident bravado. For others it is a cute face, an engaging personality, social confidence and a creative sense of humor.
While there is no clear leading man the way there is a clear leading lady, Philip seems to have found himself in the upper-end of the “boyfriend material” lineup with a strong mix of those overrated attractive qualities. Philip is above average in height and athletic prowess. His abdomen carves into a six-pack when he flexes, but it is doubtful any girl has ever noticed it emerge from beneath his loose-fitting T-shirts. The rest of his muscles are toned but definitely not bulked. He carries absolutely no extra body fat which gives his face (like Erica’s) a uniquely mature but youthful look. His portrait is a smooth cross between the hard features of actor Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen in the Twilight series) and the soft features of pop star Justin Bieber. At the beginning of the school year, Philip’s hair was a rock-star-length mop that he hardly washed, hardly combed but somehow normally still looked very good. The day after he danced with Erica, Philip changed his ways and began showering daily before school. He got his hair cut to a preppy length in early October, but has since grown it out to a length he combs back and allows to feather to near perfection.
But probably the greatest contributor to Philip’s high “boyfriend material” status is his mystique. Having spent seventh and eighth grade at Oak Hills Charter School rather than Hermes Middle School, Philip arrived at Hermes High School without the standard embarrassing history from the previous two years. At the same time, Philip had managed to keep up his relationship with his closest friends. The result was nearly all of the “new kid” advantages and almost none of the “new kid” disadvantages. On top of that his temperament is highly unflappable. He rarely feels compelled to speak, and when he does speak, his words are normally concise. He augments his mystique by wearing sunglasses often. And in the morning, he arrives at school with a cup of coffee, drinking it with the comfort and confidence most girls only see in adult men like their fathers.
Sometime in November, Erica started treating Philip differently. Her normally effective “hard to get” tactic must have looked to her like it was having the opposite of the intended effect. Philip’s unflappable exterior proved resilient as Erica’s mixed signals failed to evoke any crazy behavior or desperate actions. So lately, Erica has flirted more openly and directly than Philip has ever seen her do. In short, it appears that Philip has won the game of “hard to get” against the reigning champion. But to Erica’s credit, her new tactic—if that has indeed been her intension—has worked, because Philip is now resolved to ask out Erica as soon as he gets the chance.
Having a shallow exterior does not mean there is no depth beneath. Erica’s charisma and ability to be a close friend to so many girls all emerge from a still unknown but very real depth. Likewise, Philip’s unflappable exterior that is a large driver of his mystique emerges from an emotional maturity that is probably unrivaled among his guy-peers. As a parent, I am preparing for the very real possibility that Philip and Erica will not only start a relationship, but that their relationship will last a long time. I expect the biggest challenge to a successful long term relationship between Philip and Erica won’t come from within either of them, but rather from the difficult external pressures they will face together in the complex early adolescent social structure and gossip pit of Hermes High School.
Without question, ninth-grader Erica holds the unchallenged position as the leading “trophy” girlfriend at Hermes High School. She seems to have a love-hate relationship with this position. On the one hand, she certainly prefers the position over its polar opposite. Nearly every guy whose interest in girls has awakened is either exclusively interested in Erica or at least has her on his short list. Philip’s interest, for example, is exclusive. Erica is invited to all the parties and she can secure just about any favor she wants. On the other hand, she has learned she needs to be very careful to not give a guy the wrong signal. Additionally, she finds she can easily intimidate her guy-peers. And worst of all, she is nearly always hounded by at least someone. For Erica, having a trustworthy, well-matched, long-term boyfriend would not only be pleasant in-and-of itself, but it would substantially eliminate the downsides of her popularity among boys while only mildly reducing the upsides. Additionally, it could only improve her popularity among the girls which is already off the charts.
Among the ninth-grade boys at Hermes High School only perhaps ten to fifteen percent of them are even looked upon as “boyfriend material.” And these few face fierce competition for the attention of their ninth grade gal-peers from sophomores, juniors and sometimes even seniors. The status of “boyfriend material” is admittedly rather shallow. It has almost nothing to do with compatibility, emotional maturity, long term prospects, empathy, or relationship skills. Instead it mainly has to do with superficial attributes such as good looks, physical maturity, bravado and mystique. (To be fair, as a whole the guys at Hermes High School judge their gal-peers by equally frivolous standards.) Each of the guys classified as “boyfriend material” sports his own unique mix of attractive qualities. For some it is a well matched set of height, developed muscles, chiseled features, athletic prowess and confident bravado. For others it is a cute face, an engaging personality, social confidence and a creative sense of humor.
While there is no clear leading man the way there is a clear leading lady, Philip seems to have found himself in the upper-end of the “boyfriend material” lineup with a strong mix of those overrated attractive qualities. Philip is above average in height and athletic prowess. His abdomen carves into a six-pack when he flexes, but it is doubtful any girl has ever noticed it emerge from beneath his loose-fitting T-shirts. The rest of his muscles are toned but definitely not bulked. He carries absolutely no extra body fat which gives his face (like Erica’s) a uniquely mature but youthful look. His portrait is a smooth cross between the hard features of actor Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen in the Twilight series) and the soft features of pop star Justin Bieber. At the beginning of the school year, Philip’s hair was a rock-star-length mop that he hardly washed, hardly combed but somehow normally still looked very good. The day after he danced with Erica, Philip changed his ways and began showering daily before school. He got his hair cut to a preppy length in early October, but has since grown it out to a length he combs back and allows to feather to near perfection.
But probably the greatest contributor to Philip’s high “boyfriend material” status is his mystique. Having spent seventh and eighth grade at Oak Hills Charter School rather than Hermes Middle School, Philip arrived at Hermes High School without the standard embarrassing history from the previous two years. At the same time, Philip had managed to keep up his relationship with his closest friends. The result was nearly all of the “new kid” advantages and almost none of the “new kid” disadvantages. On top of that his temperament is highly unflappable. He rarely feels compelled to speak, and when he does speak, his words are normally concise. He augments his mystique by wearing sunglasses often. And in the morning, he arrives at school with a cup of coffee, drinking it with the comfort and confidence most girls only see in adult men like their fathers.
Sometime in November, Erica started treating Philip differently. Her normally effective “hard to get” tactic must have looked to her like it was having the opposite of the intended effect. Philip’s unflappable exterior proved resilient as Erica’s mixed signals failed to evoke any crazy behavior or desperate actions. So lately, Erica has flirted more openly and directly than Philip has ever seen her do. In short, it appears that Philip has won the game of “hard to get” against the reigning champion. But to Erica’s credit, her new tactic—if that has indeed been her intension—has worked, because Philip is now resolved to ask out Erica as soon as he gets the chance.
Having a shallow exterior does not mean there is no depth beneath. Erica’s charisma and ability to be a close friend to so many girls all emerge from a still unknown but very real depth. Likewise, Philip’s unflappable exterior that is a large driver of his mystique emerges from an emotional maturity that is probably unrivaled among his guy-peers. As a parent, I am preparing for the very real possibility that Philip and Erica will not only start a relationship, but that their relationship will last a long time. I expect the biggest challenge to a successful long term relationship between Philip and Erica won’t come from within either of them, but rather from the difficult external pressures they will face together in the complex early adolescent social structure and gossip pit of Hermes High School.
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