Whipsaw

My sixteen year old spent his unexpected snow day in the backyard building an igloo.  Sometimes I’m not quite sure if he is a boy or a man. Still reeling in the wake of Sunday evening’s heated exchange that exposes an opinion I not only do not share, but can’t contemplate for even a second, I find that while I’m no less disturbed by this revelation, I move more quickly than ever from taking the blame for his skewed perspective, no longer wondering where I’ve gone wrong in raising him, but asking myself how to find peace amid our divide. It is a testament to the sagacity seeping into my middle-aged soul that I no longer waste time looking for the root of his misguided mindset or rehearse the next round of the debate, in hopes of scrounging  from under some unturned stone the winning words that will leave him relinquishing  his ridiculous retorts to those I’ve already spoken. He is the manager described by Padmasaree Warrior, CTO at Cisco Systems, in her recent Wisdom 2.0 speech.  Having lost the argument in the leadership meeting, he nods his head in apparent consent, only to direct his team to continue on his chosen path as soon as he walks out the door.

What I can never put to rest is the question of whether this passive-aggressive behavior persists because I am not exercising enough authority or because my authority is waning, his actions truly beyond my control.  It’s also why peace always feels just out of reach.  I say that I want this open relationship with my teenagers, yet when faced with their truths I sometimes wish they would just keep it all to themselves.  The books we read on this topic, like “Broken Open:  How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow”, tell us that it is like this by design, a necessary and rote rite of initiation into adulthood.  The conflict escalates so that we’re good and ready to pack their bags for them, the high school diploma coming not a moment too soon.

I want them to have their own opinions, complete with the fire in the belly needed to defend them, but I worry that the very independent spirits I’ve fostered are too divergent to find a place in our mainstream society.  I can’t tell sometimes whether the audacity and conviction in their voices is everlasting or a passing fad with an ephemeral intensity that only feels like forever.

Whenever some part of life starts to spin out of control I inevitably look to myself for the solution.  There’s just got to be another angle I haven’t looked at, or one more thing I could do differently to right the ship or deliver a positive outcome, right?  But maybe this ceaseless feeling of unrest is a signal that it’s not up to me. 

A new assignment at work has me in a state of suspension.  The direction I’ve been given makes no sense to me.  I want desperately to make a move, but I have no idea what move to make, no idea how I could possibly affect this situation, and so I make no move at all.  And I begin to wonder, is this what it feels like when the move belongs to someone else? 

Before I toss out the approach Warrior uses to rein in her stubborn, wayward charge as not applicable to a teenage boy, I might want to ask myself why it isn’t.  She uses reason and respectfully requests compliance, an agreement to disagree, but an unmistakable understanding that her direction will be heeded.  Maybe my charges don’t fall in line immediately with this approach, but maybe it’s not supposed to be immediate.  Maybe we are truly caught in this space between retribution and reason. After all, he’s still building igloos.