Philip has grown at least four inches in a very short period of time. He’s started shaving. And the muscles in his arms are rapidly catching up to his six-pack abdomen. Earlier in the year, Philip looked decidedly grunge with jeans, sneakers, sunglasses, a t-shirt and an unzipped hooded, zip-up sweatshirt falling off one or both of his shoulders. But what was decidedly grunge in September was looking boyish by January and beginning to even look effeminate by late February. At least that was the way I was seeing Philip’s standard attire appear as the body underneath went through such a rapid change in such a short period of time. The jeans, sneakers and even the sunglasses were fine. It was how he was layering his upper body that no longer looked right to me.
But Philip is no longer the child whose parents can dress him as they choose. A father or a mother can only influence such choices at this point. Control over my son’s attire would be absurd. I know it. And Philip knows it. Philip likes his growing independence as he should. And Philip, like most teenagers, is willing to defend his growing independence. In fact, those parents who insist on controlling such trivial aspects of a young adolescent’s life meet stern resistance and sometimes even rebellion. It is the stage in life in which carving out one’s independence is essential to emotional health and personal development. But I was still convinced Philip’s attire was looking more effeminate as the body beneath shed the last of what resembled a middle-school boy. And maybe he was at least wondering if I wasn’t the only person who was rapidly losing admiration for his attire of choice.
I knew I couldn’t make Philip change. But I did succeed in getting him to explore. And as long as I did not require him to change and as long as I gave him a broad range of options, he was willing to entertain my idea of updating his wardrobe. I showed him images online during the week and then took him to the mall on Saturday. The first store we visited was his first choice as opposed to my first choice. But I was just fine with that. The store catered to a variety of youthful grunge-like styles. At first, we simply needed to find his size which turned out to be medium. He brought one style of shirt to the dressing room in medium and small sizes. Once he had decided upon medium, I brought him one shirt after another to try on. All were button-up. He put them on over his dark t-shirt the same way he had put the hooded sweatshirt over his t-shirts. But somehow this looked better. The button-up shirts did not effeminately slide off his shoulder and they hugged his torso more evenly.
Philip rejected most shirts quickly. About half of them he did not even want to try on. But that was consistent with my unwillingness to propose perhaps half the styles in the store. The colors just did not look right, at least on Philip. Eventually Philip settled on a plain white button up and two with reddish cross patterns. After that success at his first choice store, I took Philip to a more upscale store that offered similar styles to the shirts he selected. He tried on about six more shirts at that store and picked two for purchase. One had a grey and black cross pattern. The other was mostly white with an elegant dark blue cross pattern. This last shirt proved his favorite. He picked out one more with a reddish-brown cross pattern, but its price tag was more than the other two shirts combined, so he got his father’s one veto of the day. While waiting to pay, Philip tried out the store’s colognes and particularly liked one of them. We added a bottle of the cologne to our purchases and nearly called it a day.
The last stop was at the health store. There we bought a protein drink to help him build muscle mass. And that was the end of our makeover shopping trip. I would call it a partial success. Philip is drinking his protein drink each day after lacrosse practice. He put on four sprays of the cologne for the final dance of the school year at Hermes High School. He wears the shirt with the dark blue cross pattern two days per week, one of the reddish cross patterns one day a week and the least effeminate of his hooded zip-up sweatshirts the other two days. I’m reasonably satisfied with the improvement. We’ll see how long it takes for him to wear the plain white or the grey and black shirt to school, if ever. And if he doesn’t, how different is Philip from his father, anyway?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Slam Dancing With the Teen Reaper
For high school guys, especially the larger and more physically-oriented ones, high contact sports have huge appeal. They wear helmets and body armor. And they look forward not merely to out-scoring their rivals, but also to delivering some pain and humiliation in the process. Likewise, they are willing to risk some pain and humiliation in the process. The most manly-sounding exploits bragged about during morning and lunch breaks at Hermes High School happen in the high contact sports.
The most followed high-contact sport in high school is Football which is played during the Fall Season. In the Spring Season, the high-contact sport is Lacrosse. All but two of the Lacrosse players at Hermes High School are also Football players. Philip is one of those two exceptions. For a freshman guy, Philip is far above average in height at 5’8” but below average in weight at only 130 pounds. Philip knows Football would not work for him. But Lacrosse leverages his speed, wind and agility. And it doesn’t hurt that Philip has been playing Lacrosse since the fifth grade. Despite his above average height, Philip is one of the shortest players on the Hermes High School Lacrosse team. And he is certainly the lightest player by at least fifteen pounds.
Despite his size, Philip has quickly earned the respect and admiration of his teammates. During scrimmage time at one of early practices, Philip delivered more than one perfect assist to Bruce, the team’s star player and Erica’s ex-boyfriend. After scoring a second perfect goal from an assist by Philip, Bruce nick-named Philip The Boss and the name has stuck.
The game against Cabrillo High School was the first official Friday “under the lights” game of the season. We did not know any of the Cabrillo players or their names, but by the end of the game we knew who Jacques (Cabrillo’s #20) was. Early in the third quarter Philip had the ball at the Cabrillo goalie’s two o’clock about fifteen yards away. Two opposing players were headed in Philip’s direction. The first was Jacques who was coming to check him on the right. In a split second decision, Philip decided to take the check from Jacques rather than dodge it. He planted his left foot and leaned to the right. Their bodies slammed. Jacques helmet was low as they collided. The check was harder than Philip had expected and his left ankle seemed to absorb the energy in a way that strained some of the tissue. Philip then took on the cross-check of another opponent before passing the ball to a teammate who was uncovered due to the double-team on Philip. But then the referee blew his whistle hard to stop the action.
Jacques had fallen to the ground after checking Philip and was laying there not moving. As things went quiet, it sounded to Philip like Jacques was struggling to breathe. The referee ordered all players to take a knee and Jacques coach walked onto the field. Philip was kneeling closest to Jacques. From the bleachers I could hear the Hermes players saying “Philip” over and over in their conversation and I realized the Cabrillo player had gone down after colliding with Philip. At that moment I did not know if the rival player was paralyzed, dying or merely had the wind knocked out of him. But as Jacques continued to lie there not moving I began to fear the worst. Were we witnessing this year’s high school sports tragedy? Would my son have the paralysis or even death of another player weighing on his conscience for the rest of his life? Even if there had been not a foul that was a lot for me to carry, let alone a fifteen-year-old boy.
But soon the words reaching me sounded hopeful. People were saying Jacques was having a seizure, and that Jacques had to take medicine to manage his epilepsy. Nonetheless, an ambulance arrived and Jacques was carried off the field on a stretcher. The referees canceled the rest of the Junior Varsity game out of respect for Jacques and to ensure the Varsity game could be played and end at an appropriate time. Philip was visibly shaken by the experience and his left ankle was sore from Jacques’ extra-hard check, so I took him home. We qualified Jacques’ full name so we could call the local hospital and find out if Jacques was recovering well or not.
We were all fortunate that evening. Jacques was released from the hospital three hours later and went home. But it was a sobering reminder that high contact sports must be played with skill and with caution.
The most followed high-contact sport in high school is Football which is played during the Fall Season. In the Spring Season, the high-contact sport is Lacrosse. All but two of the Lacrosse players at Hermes High School are also Football players. Philip is one of those two exceptions. For a freshman guy, Philip is far above average in height at 5’8” but below average in weight at only 130 pounds. Philip knows Football would not work for him. But Lacrosse leverages his speed, wind and agility. And it doesn’t hurt that Philip has been playing Lacrosse since the fifth grade. Despite his above average height, Philip is one of the shortest players on the Hermes High School Lacrosse team. And he is certainly the lightest player by at least fifteen pounds.
Despite his size, Philip has quickly earned the respect and admiration of his teammates. During scrimmage time at one of early practices, Philip delivered more than one perfect assist to Bruce, the team’s star player and Erica’s ex-boyfriend. After scoring a second perfect goal from an assist by Philip, Bruce nick-named Philip The Boss and the name has stuck.
The game against Cabrillo High School was the first official Friday “under the lights” game of the season. We did not know any of the Cabrillo players or their names, but by the end of the game we knew who Jacques (Cabrillo’s #20) was. Early in the third quarter Philip had the ball at the Cabrillo goalie’s two o’clock about fifteen yards away. Two opposing players were headed in Philip’s direction. The first was Jacques who was coming to check him on the right. In a split second decision, Philip decided to take the check from Jacques rather than dodge it. He planted his left foot and leaned to the right. Their bodies slammed. Jacques helmet was low as they collided. The check was harder than Philip had expected and his left ankle seemed to absorb the energy in a way that strained some of the tissue. Philip then took on the cross-check of another opponent before passing the ball to a teammate who was uncovered due to the double-team on Philip. But then the referee blew his whistle hard to stop the action.
Jacques had fallen to the ground after checking Philip and was laying there not moving. As things went quiet, it sounded to Philip like Jacques was struggling to breathe. The referee ordered all players to take a knee and Jacques coach walked onto the field. Philip was kneeling closest to Jacques. From the bleachers I could hear the Hermes players saying “Philip” over and over in their conversation and I realized the Cabrillo player had gone down after colliding with Philip. At that moment I did not know if the rival player was paralyzed, dying or merely had the wind knocked out of him. But as Jacques continued to lie there not moving I began to fear the worst. Were we witnessing this year’s high school sports tragedy? Would my son have the paralysis or even death of another player weighing on his conscience for the rest of his life? Even if there had been not a foul that was a lot for me to carry, let alone a fifteen-year-old boy.
But soon the words reaching me sounded hopeful. People were saying Jacques was having a seizure, and that Jacques had to take medicine to manage his epilepsy. Nonetheless, an ambulance arrived and Jacques was carried off the field on a stretcher. The referees canceled the rest of the Junior Varsity game out of respect for Jacques and to ensure the Varsity game could be played and end at an appropriate time. Philip was visibly shaken by the experience and his left ankle was sore from Jacques’ extra-hard check, so I took him home. We qualified Jacques’ full name so we could call the local hospital and find out if Jacques was recovering well or not.
We were all fortunate that evening. Jacques was released from the hospital three hours later and went home. But it was a sobering reminder that high contact sports must be played with skill and with caution.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The Popular Girl, the Nice Girl and Other High School Archetypes
This is an oversimplification, of course. But plenty of truth can be found in oversimplifications. Vienna, the rather nice girl, is surrounded by friends. Erica, the extremely popular girl, is surrounded by worshippers. Philip has a name for the guys who worship but do not date Erica. He calls them her guy-bitches. In contrast, he calls the guys who are friends but not boyfriends with other girls like Vienna metro-friends.
To be clear, the average guy at Hermes High School—in fact the average freshman guy at Hermes High School—is neither a guy-bitch, nor a metro-friend. Most guys merely fall into or not far from one of the traditional categories of scholar, jock, nerd, delinquent, or loser that have existed at least since I was in high school, though under varying names. Philip is a scholar (that is, having the good qualities of both the jocks and the nerds) and I am trying with only limited success to introduce Philip to the idea of also being a metro-friend. Among the freshmen at Hermes High School, only a small handful of guys succeed at being metro-friends.
The guy-bitches deserve a closer look. For some, it is merely the hopeless ambition to win Erica’s love. Self-deception plays a role in these cases. For others, it is an acceptance of the fact that Erica’s love—though still desirable—is beyond one’s reach, so the next best thing is to be in Erica’s entourage, especially since Erica is also surrounded by a bunch of girls who also worship her with an enthusiasm that rivals that of the guy-bitches. And then there are the chief-guy-bitches. The chief-guy-bitches are a handful of jocks—each of whom is popular in his own right—who nonetheless chooses to play into Erica’s guy-bitch game in support of high school’s popularity hierarchy. The chief-guy-bitches also enjoy the benefit of not being fully under Erica’s control. One of the chief-guy-bitches is Walter, who Philip privately refers to as The Chump. Walter defied Erica by calling her parents when Erica got herself drunk at a Halloween party. More recently, Walter waved Erica over to join a group of freshmen celebrating Philip’s athletic prowess in the previous day’s lacrosse game even though he knew Erica was not speaking to Philip.
Not all girls have metro-friends, but Vienna is certainly one of them. Vienna brought her best friend Kayla and two metro-friends Rob and Noah along with her to Philip’s party in late February. It was what saved Philip’s party from being a complete disaster. In early March, Kayla and Noah announced to the world via their Facebook “relationship status” that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. One has to respect Noah for spending a long time getting to know Kayla and genuinely befriending her ahead of asking her out. Most freshmen at Hermes High School rush into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships that end up lasting only ten days.
With all the time she spends hanging out and chatting it up with Noah and her metro-friends, one would think Vienna would have no trouble talking to Philip. But this has not been the case. Since his party, Philip has been making a sincere effort to get to know Vienna better, but he has been disappointed by how little she communicates.
“Do you ask her open-ended questions?” I asked Philip when he told me his attempts to engage Vienna in conversation kept falling flat.
“Of course I ask her open-ended questions, dad!”
“Alright. Maybe she is having trouble talking to you because she is shy or nervous.”
“It doesn’t matter, dad! She could be non-communicative because she is shy, nervous, lost interest in me, or was never interested in me in the first place. No matter what the reason, there is no way I can have an actual relationship with her if we cannot actually talk!”
Philip’s astute observation impressed me. And he succeeded in his goal to get me to stop asking him about Vienna. Still, as a parent I like Vienna a whole lot more than I like Erica. Both Erica and Vienna are fourteen-year-old girls who are still growing up. Each is a tangled and imbalanced mixture of maturity and immaturity, wisdom and foolishness, bravery and insecurity. Each wants to be admired by guys, especially the more mature-looking jocks and scholars. And each finds the prospect of a real relationship with a guy both desirable and terrifying.
It is unclear whether either Erica or Vienna is truly ready for a real relationship with a guy. I also wonder whether Philip is truly ready for a real relationship with a girl. But I do think there is a core difference in attitude between Erica and Vienna. Erica wants to get. And Vienna wants to share. And while that core difference in attitude holds, I hope Philip will never fall for Erica or someone like her again. But girls like Vienna deserve a genuine shot at the dear scholar who is my son Philip.
To be clear, the average guy at Hermes High School—in fact the average freshman guy at Hermes High School—is neither a guy-bitch, nor a metro-friend. Most guys merely fall into or not far from one of the traditional categories of scholar, jock, nerd, delinquent, or loser that have existed at least since I was in high school, though under varying names. Philip is a scholar (that is, having the good qualities of both the jocks and the nerds) and I am trying with only limited success to introduce Philip to the idea of also being a metro-friend. Among the freshmen at Hermes High School, only a small handful of guys succeed at being metro-friends.
The guy-bitches deserve a closer look. For some, it is merely the hopeless ambition to win Erica’s love. Self-deception plays a role in these cases. For others, it is an acceptance of the fact that Erica’s love—though still desirable—is beyond one’s reach, so the next best thing is to be in Erica’s entourage, especially since Erica is also surrounded by a bunch of girls who also worship her with an enthusiasm that rivals that of the guy-bitches. And then there are the chief-guy-bitches. The chief-guy-bitches are a handful of jocks—each of whom is popular in his own right—who nonetheless chooses to play into Erica’s guy-bitch game in support of high school’s popularity hierarchy. The chief-guy-bitches also enjoy the benefit of not being fully under Erica’s control. One of the chief-guy-bitches is Walter, who Philip privately refers to as The Chump. Walter defied Erica by calling her parents when Erica got herself drunk at a Halloween party. More recently, Walter waved Erica over to join a group of freshmen celebrating Philip’s athletic prowess in the previous day’s lacrosse game even though he knew Erica was not speaking to Philip.
Not all girls have metro-friends, but Vienna is certainly one of them. Vienna brought her best friend Kayla and two metro-friends Rob and Noah along with her to Philip’s party in late February. It was what saved Philip’s party from being a complete disaster. In early March, Kayla and Noah announced to the world via their Facebook “relationship status” that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. One has to respect Noah for spending a long time getting to know Kayla and genuinely befriending her ahead of asking her out. Most freshmen at Hermes High School rush into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships that end up lasting only ten days.
With all the time she spends hanging out and chatting it up with Noah and her metro-friends, one would think Vienna would have no trouble talking to Philip. But this has not been the case. Since his party, Philip has been making a sincere effort to get to know Vienna better, but he has been disappointed by how little she communicates.
“Do you ask her open-ended questions?” I asked Philip when he told me his attempts to engage Vienna in conversation kept falling flat.
“Of course I ask her open-ended questions, dad!”
“Alright. Maybe she is having trouble talking to you because she is shy or nervous.”
“It doesn’t matter, dad! She could be non-communicative because she is shy, nervous, lost interest in me, or was never interested in me in the first place. No matter what the reason, there is no way I can have an actual relationship with her if we cannot actually talk!”
Philip’s astute observation impressed me. And he succeeded in his goal to get me to stop asking him about Vienna. Still, as a parent I like Vienna a whole lot more than I like Erica. Both Erica and Vienna are fourteen-year-old girls who are still growing up. Each is a tangled and imbalanced mixture of maturity and immaturity, wisdom and foolishness, bravery and insecurity. Each wants to be admired by guys, especially the more mature-looking jocks and scholars. And each finds the prospect of a real relationship with a guy both desirable and terrifying.
It is unclear whether either Erica or Vienna is truly ready for a real relationship with a guy. I also wonder whether Philip is truly ready for a real relationship with a girl. But I do think there is a core difference in attitude between Erica and Vienna. Erica wants to get. And Vienna wants to share. And while that core difference in attitude holds, I hope Philip will never fall for Erica or someone like her again. But girls like Vienna deserve a genuine shot at the dear scholar who is my son Philip.
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