Important but Not Central

With Philip, a whole bunch of things are happening at once. In addition to his junior year of high school being filled with all sorts of important near-year-end tests and assignments, he needs to think about his lacrosse team, Prom, his driving test, the SATs, visiting colleges and completing the volunteer hours he will need to officially log with the school in order to graduate.

While Philip has his day-to-day activities reasonably well organized, the aspects of life that come with less regularity are proving difficult. The fact is, I am the same way. I file for extensions on my income taxes and let my work expense reports go until the last possible day. And while I am committed to making three blog posts per month, they tend to get packed in at the end of each month.

I would like to say it is a developmental thing but I would only be partially correct. The other half of the story is that the older one gets, the more responsibilities he or she must shoulder. I have had decades of adulthood to get accustomed to multiple responsibilities. Philip is not quite an adult yet—at least when one doesn’t pay attention to his height.

As a parent I do not want to add to Philip’s stress but I don’t want to see him crash or miss out on life. With his driver’s test I have patiently taken him down to take his test multiple times, even though I know he has done only a token amount of studying. At the end he quietly informs me he did not pass. I can tell he is eager to drive and frustrated that he didn’t pass. He knows he should have studied more. He does not need me berating him for failing the driver’s test again.

But how does one choose between the responsibilities to let him carry all on his own and which to push the way I might have when he was five years younger? It is not an easy question to answer. And his mother and I do not always agree. On the flip side, we are both committed to bearing with him when the weight of what he knows is important crashes in on him. We’ve had decades to learn how to deal with adult-level stress. Philip is just at the beginning.

For the most part, I think Amelia and I have been rather well balanced. But in one area I have intentionally chosen to get off balance. That is Prom. Why Prom? It happens twice in life: The Junior Prom and the Senior Prom. Juniors celebrate the end of being underclassmen. Seniors celebrate the end of high school. People dress up, pair up and take pictures that will be memories forever. As an adult my Proms are particularly fond memories. But Philip was comfortable skipping Prom until I told him it was one of the few last things I would ask of him before he went to college.

Prom is coming up in mid-May but I let him know my expectations before the end of March. As I kept reminding him in early April, he retorted that he had plenty of time to get a date and make his arrangements. Once Philip came to terms with the fact that I was serious and time was running out. It was endearing to watch him contemplate just who to ask. There were a number of girls who had boyfriends and another group of girls who were asked around the time I had hoped Philip would take action. But true to form, Philip made his decision at what he deemed to be the last possible day. He was then surprised to learn how difficult it was to find the girl he wanted to ask when neither he nor she was rushing off to class or another activity. The cute stuffed animal, intended as a Prom gift for her is getting a little squished in his backpack. We hurried to rent a tuxedo this past weekend and have hoped she has found herself a dress but not a date.

On Monday, Philip sought her out at lunch, only to be pulled into a mandatory meeting with his Honors program before he could speak to her. At the end of school, he had to head off to his most recent drivers’ test which he then failed. It all looks like the kind of comedy Shakespeare would compose as a made-for-television teen drama if the playwright were alive today. And that gives me that extra confidence I need to know it will all work out in the end. But ask me how I feel after we get his SAT results.