News flash: No matter how "perfect" you think you may be, no matter what your morals are, NOTHING can prepare you for being the parent of a teenager. NOTHING. Just when you think you've done everything right and that your child will NEVER be one of those nightmare teens that go to rehab, steal, lie or any of those things that "other" people go through, you actually enter the teen years.
Jake is now 17 years old. The loveliness of teen-hood has so far brought a "too serious" relationship with a girl whose parents tried to convert my Catholic son to a religion that I didn't want him to have any part of, this in turn, caused the "break-up" where my son bawled his eyes out for days on end and actually had him sleeping with me one night. We've been through losing school elections and many other disappointments that make a mom cry WITH their kid. We've been through those horrid middle school years where the kids are so incredibly cruel that YOUR kid falls into a depression.
The 1st of a few poor decisions....
As a result of the cruelty, Jake ended up relentlessly working out. When he finally started seeing the results of his hard work in the gym, he took it a step further and hooked up with some juicehead that provided him with steroids. That poor decision led to roid rages, ball shrinkage and disgusting breakouts of sores all over his face. I'm not an ignorant mom. I took him for bloodwork and found out that the hormones he was taking gave him the cholesterol of a 55 year old man that had a heart attack, and kidney and liver problems, all at the ripe old age of 16. Thankfully he's young and his doctor was confident that if he stopped the shit his body would return to normal. Kidney failure was enough to scare the shit out of him, so he stopped taking the pills. I'm happy to say that was 6 months ago and his body did bounce back like his doctor said it would. I would never blame anyone else for Jake's poor decision, but this was all a result of being the funny, chubby kid growing up. Growing up is hard to do, especially when I'M your mom.
Junior Year
So my son, who is an average student, and hates all things reading and english, decided junior year would be a great time to take Advanced History, Shakespearean Lit AND Physics. Come on, someone who hates reading and english has no business in anything Shakespeare related, someone who passed Chemistry by the skin of their teeth has no business taking Physics, and someone who hates writing has no business taking AP History. But of course Jake knows EVERYTHING.
Where am I going with this? Well Jake decided Football, weightlifting and his social calendar were far more important than studying. While he is heavily involved with many other things at school (peer leadership type things), academics fell by the wayside. While I am VERY involved in anything having to do with my kids' education, I kind of feel like by the time you're a junior you know what's expected of you. I'm not going to scream at you everyday to do your homework, study for your test, etc. Jake has always skated by for the simple fact that he has the gift of BS. He's always had a fantastic sense of humor and from the ripe old age of 3, had incredible conversational skills with adults.
People LOVE him. I KNOW why they love him. I also know how he managed to get passed in his tougher classes in high school. But now is the time to buckle down and get yourself prepared for college. Now is NOT the time to pass based solely on your awesome personality. So I pissed Jake off and sent his physics teacher this email:
Hi Mr. Craig,
I'm sure by now you've realized Jake is a great kid, but there has not been an improvement in his grade since our conference. Is this a lack of him doing the work, a lack of studying or a lack of understanding? Is he able to keep up in class? Where do we go from here? Do I just let him fail? Please advise what to do. I'm so done with the nagging. Thanks.
Carrie Krupa
and here is his response :
Ms. Krupa, You are absolutely right when you say Jake is a great kid. I serve as an advisor to Blue and Grey Night and we advisors are ecstatic to have him as a captain. As for Physics, I've been thinking a lot about Jacob. His grade is a result of a combination of all of the things you've mentioned. He has been lazy about handing in lab reports. It happeded last marking period and it had happened again this past quarter until the other day. Labs count for 25% of his grade, so by not handing them in he immediately begins at a 75%. If he is unsure how to approach the labs, he should meet with me and I can help him. However, when he is in class he is attentive and works hard. He doesn't always grasp concepts in class, but he certainly demonstrates more understanding in class than he does on formal assessments. Jake can make a better effort to seek extra help. I have seen in two times at most outside of class since the school year began. (He stayed yesterday to take his midterm.) He has made plans to meet me after school, but then something typically comes up. So while I truly believe he has the best intentions, he needs to follow through. He should be retaking assessments that he doesn't pass. I have a policy that enables students to retake assessments after demonstrating that they've learned the material. He needs to take advantage of this. So when I say I've been thinking about Jake a lot, I specifically think about his grades for this quarter and last. His grade of 50% is not indicative of how much Physics material that he knows. More so, the 15 point difference between his grade and passing is a barometer of his inability to complete and hand in a lab. In my professional opinion, I'm not to grade Jake on his ability to meet a deadline or hand something in. I am to grade him on his knowledge of Physics. It's for that reason that I've spoken with my supervisor and I propose the following. Jake will meet with me until he completes his lab from quarter 1. At that point, he should have enough points to at least pass that quarter. We have a plan to get him to pass this quarter as well. That plan also involves a lab write up. In this instance, he needs to revise as per our discussion yesterday after his midterm. I've sent him a copy of his lab with my comments in red. (I've attached to this email as well.) Thank you for being proactive in Jake's education. Based on our last meeting, I know that you do not want to see him given anything without merit; please understand that Jake is not getting a free pass here. He still has substantial work to do in order to fully demonstrate an acceptable level of knowledge in Physics. Do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Like I said, Jake is just incredibly lucky that he is who he is, however, this drives me CRAZY.
The Scariest Road in NJ
So Jake got his drivers license in October. I wasn't a complete mess over it because he had driven with me many times while he had his permit. He demonstrated some pretty responsible driving skills, so once October came I was NOT the hot mess I thought I'd be. With your drivers license (and no car because you spent all your money on steroids), you end up borrowing your moms car. Not sure about other states, but in NJ we have a GDL license for the 1st year. Until you're 18 you can't drive past 11pm and you cannot have more than 1 passenger in the car at any given time.
Jake was on probation with borrowing my car because his grades weren't great and his priorities were disturbing. At this point almost all of his friends have their own cars. So it was, on the night of the Nor'easter, just before NYE that Jake decided he wasn't going to ask to borrow the car.
Alan had fallen asleep on the couch and woke up around midnight. When he stood up to close the living room curtains he noticed my car was missing from the driveway. That was when he came in the bedroom and woke me up. "Carr, did you tell Jake he could take the car? It's past 11." I jump out of bed and look out the front window in disbelief. That effer stole my car! What was so ironic about it was that 2 of his friends cars were sitting in my driveway (one a Lexus and one an SUV mind you), but my 2003 Toyota Corolla with the missing hubcap was gone.
I immediately text him: You have 15 minutes to get my car home or I'm reporting it stolen.
His response: Ma, I can't be home in 15 minutes. I'm in Newark.
Now it's 12:45 in the morning, 25 mph winds and it's sleeting/snowing. My 17 yr old who just got his license in OCTOBER, is in Newark after 11 pm with TWO other people in my STOLEN car. In a complete state of disbelief and that mom-pit in my stomach, I text him back. (I was afraid if I called him I would literally reach through the phone and strangle him.)
Me: NEWARK???!!!! Why the HELL are you in Newark at 1:00 in the morning during a Nor'easter with MY car?! GET YOUR ASS HOME NOW, I WILL BE WAITING UP!
Well hours passed, I called, sent text after text and never got a response. I know you're probably thinking I should've reported my car stolen, but when YOU are the one in that position it just doesn't seem like the right thing to do. I didn't want him to lose his license, I just wanted to stab his eyeballs out with scissors so he could never drive again without having to ask me to help him put in his eyeballs. Anyway, I ended up falling asleep around 4:00 and he still wasn't home.
As it turns out, he and his friends were reading on Weird NJ that there was a REALLY scary road, Clinton Road in Passaic County to be exact, but you had to go there in the middle of the night for anything to happen. Little did Jake know there wasn't anything that was going to happen on that road that would be worse than what happened when he got home.
I come to find out the next morning that instead of turning around and coming home as he passed Newark and got my text, the dumbass kept going because he knew he was already screwed. My blood is boiling just re-living this whole story as I type it.
That morning at around 8 am I went downstairs into his hoarder-inspired bedroom, flipped the light switch on REALLY hard (you know what I mean) and started screaming every single curse word I could think of. I told him to pack a bag because he was getting the hell out of my house and my face. I didn't care if he went to his dad's house, my moms, wherever...he was just getting the hell OUT of my face.
With around 2 hours of sleep he comes into the kitchen with a bag packed and a cocky attitude...cocky attitude?! WTF! Who was this boy and what did he do with my son? Where was my normally guilt-ridden Jacob? No joke 1st words out of his mouth were "I don't know how long you think I'm staying at Nan's house, but I was invited to 4 NYE parties. And Alan, what were you doing looking out the window at midnight anyway?! I don't get it, I'm safe, the car's safe. What's the problem?" I immediately started bawling because I couldn't believe that my usually level-headed kid truly had NO remorse for what he did. I think that was the worst part of that whole thing.
Me: "WHY would you take MY car when Mike and Sam both had THEIR cars here?! It would be one thing to sneak out, but it's another to STEAL MY CAR!"
Jake: "Ma, you're car is the best on gas." No joke, that was his justification and he was DEAD serious. I drank alot of wine for the next 3 days. Jake spent NYE sitting with his grandmother in Spotswood and I had time to prepare the punishment. As it turns out, there really was no punishment good enough to fit that crime. I was at a loss. Really.
LYING TO ME IS NEVER A GOOD THING
The last little thing I'd like to share just happened 3 days ago. We had quite a lull in the past month and Jake seemed to be getting somewhat of a brain back in his head. The boy will NEVER learn not to mess with me. He will never learn!
He came home from his dads house on Sunday and asked if he could take the car to the gym. "No Jake, until you get your grades up you won't be using the car for gym purposes." A huge fit ensued and he went stomping off cursing at me under his breath and me screaming "What did you just say!"
So he comes home from school on Monday and proceeds to ask if he can use my car. NOW he's interviewing for a program in school called LIFE...apparently you interview now so when you're a senior you can be a peer advisor on sexual health...because he's got soooo much experience in that department. Anyway, it's a peer leadership thing, and it's a positive thing, so I agreed to let him use the car for this interview.
He ran to the laundry and started ironing khakis and a dress shirt, so I knew it was a legit thing. Me: "If the interview is from 6 to 9 why do you have to leave now? It's only 4:50." Jake: "Oh, I have to go to this kid Dom's house to have an unofficial meeting for that captain job I got."
So I watch him pack his khakis and dress shirt into his GYM bag. Can you say dumbass? I watch him pull away in the slushy mess that was taking place outside. I went into the kitchen and wrote a note in BOLD BLACK SHARPIE...."Seriously? Will you EVER learn???!!!!" My plan was to drive to the gym, find my car in the parking lot, and leave the note right on the steering wheel for when he came out.
Sure enough I pull into Retro Gym parking lot and there was my car with my trunk WIDE OPEN and my baby stroller getting sleeted on. It would seem that because Jake was so limited on pumping-up time, he forgot to close the trunk when he grabbed his gym bag. That was the LEAST of his problems. As I put the note on the dash I realized a note just wasn't enough to say "you're busted."
I parked Alan's car in a handicap spot and the front door of the gym. Dressed in my pilled up black North Face fleece and bleach stained black stretch pants I stomped into Retro and stopped at the front desk. There were 2 20 somethings behind the counter, a guy and a girl. Here's how that goes...
Me: Hi. Can I just run in the gym and find my son? He has lied to me for the LAST time. He was told specifically to NOT come here until he was doing better in school. My car is in your parking lot. I'm thinking maybe I'll go find him and just start working out right next to him and really scare the shit out of him.
The guy: what's your sons name?
Me: Jacob Brezniak. But don't bother looking up his member # because he's not an "official" member. He pays $5.00 EVERY SINGLE DAY to come here as a non-member.
The guy to the girl: OMG, she must be "Coin Boy's" mom.
The guy to me: If it's you're son I'm thinking of he comes in EVERY DAY with baggies full of nickels and pennies. But today he had 5 singles so that really threw me.
Me: Yes, Coin Boy would be son. Could you go see where he is in the gym, and without telling him I'm here, come back and tell me where to go?
The guy: No problem, this is gonna be epic! HAHAHAHA.
By now there are members piling up in the lobby who have heard my story and were supporting my plight to humiliate my lying son. Everyone was on the edge of their seats. No joke, I had an audience.
The guy comes back and tells me that Jake is in the mens room changing into dress clothes (like I said, his interview was legit, Dom's house? No.) Now I'm steaming and my plan to go work out next to him has been foiled.
The guy: well I told him to stop and see me at the front desk before he left.
Me: Do you guys have a boss here tonight? Would it be okay if I was behind the front desk when he stops?
The girl: SURE! Come on back.
I see Jake coming out of the mens room and my heart starts racing. Not only do I have an audience, but I am PISSED! He stops at the desk, but it didn't immediately register with him that it was me standing in front of him. But when it DID register...!!!! LMAO. Jake immediately turned white as a ghost and probably went to his interview with shit in his khakis.
Me: Hey Coin Boy. Let me walk you out to the car....I wish someone would've videoed it. Really, it was that GOOD.
I am the perfect mom
Yeah right. There's no such thing. When your kids are little you always think you're doing the right thing. You stress over binkys and bottles and potty training. You cry when they have to get their shots at the doctor. You think making them say please and thank you is going to make them awesome teenagers. Guess what? I NEVER had to even tell Jake to say please and thank you. He's one of the most polite, well spoken, loyal people I know. He has my nutty sense of humor and can be a real joy when he's not being a real pain in my ass. He's got a pretty awesome, college bound group of friends who do their share of partying, but at the end of the day are really good kids. No matter how much right you do, all that matters when raising a teenager is that you have a BIG bottle of wine in the fridge at all times. I <3 my kids through the good and the bad. That's all you CAN do.