Arthur: An Update | Whine n Wisdom

We’re well into the second month of living with a teenager. There is no manual for aunts and nephews co-habitating. Believe me, I've looked. I have a new found appreciation for parents and the progeny wrangling that goes on just to get them out of freakin’ BED.

Let’s take the other day for instance; it’s a Monday and he’s got a day off. The day before was spent lolling in his room, alternatively sleeping, surfing, surfing, a little nap, skyping, some more surfing, a brief crescendo of me yelling up the stairs, followed by an afternoon zizz before being dragged out to watch neighbors play music on their porches. It was pretty much 24-hours of being horizontal. Now it’s after 9 on a Monday morning and the body position is still horizontal. What to do, what to do? I’m in a quandary. Again. Quandary is my state of mind.

No surprises but this surrogate motherhood gig is like laying down train tracks with the train barreling out of the station at warp speed. Maybe I let him sleep? It’s good for the mind isn’t it, a little rest? Does cereal cover all the food groups if you’re eating it 24/7? What’s with the furtive trips to Walgreens for Dr Pepper? Should I take all his devices but how will he communicate with his friends, his family? Do I want to be the favorite aunt or a class A bitch? (The last question is redundant. That particularly train has definitively left the station). Should I monitor homework? Should I do his homework? What’s he doing in his room with the door closed? Why is there two bags of cold fries in the trash? Can I smell marijuana smoke on his clothes?

Call me delusional but the fantasy was the role of a camp counsellor. I was looking for that hero worship. Back at Chakola, the kids wanted to impress us, they hovered about our nonchalant selves mimicking our habit of saying ‘motherfucker’ in every other sentence, they wanted in on our smirking asides and quick jaunts to the cool room for furtive puffs on joint and a swallow of Jameson’s. Quelle horreur but I’m not getting that vibe from Arthur. Instead I’m the shouty aunt, shouting about the sleeping, shouting about wearing a bike helmet, shouting about showing initiative, shouting about hiking up a honking great mountain even if it does give him altitude sickness and he drops dead. God. I’m tired of me. I can only imagine how Arthur feels.

And what’s with the floor-drobe? I haven’t seen the carpet for clothes since he moved in. The other day, in lieu of the shouting, I piled the lot—from filthy underwear to the tissues he uses to stem his nosebleeds—onto his bed. Where it lay for the best part of the day. Arthur would look quizzically at it and then head downstairs to slump theatrically on the sofa while I practiced Lamaze breathing in other parts of the house. The reserves of patience one must muster must take years off parents’ life spans. (But did you like the alliteration?)

As for school, of course he loves it out there at New Vista. The classes he takes are ceramics, a community adventure program and humanities. I’m not kidding. Does that say Stephen Hawking to you? Didn't think so. And next semester he’ll swap out the adventure program for ultimate frisbee.

Ronald regards me squint-eyed when I go on a rant about it. His reasoning is he’s here for 4 months. Let the kid enjoy himself before he’s flung back into reality in Sydney. Mostly I'm down with this but I have a streak of the Dutch Calvinist in me that wants to see hard work, effort, honest-to-god sweat and tears but it’s not only that; effort is what gets people places and it makes me nervous when I don’t witness it in my nearest and dearest. Then again, I have my own adolescence to look back on and know damn well it wasn’t given over to hard graft. Why should I expect it in Arthur?

One thing I have been quite militant about is having meals together a tavola. Call it my mother’s influence but suddenly, after months of slouching on the couch with dinner on my lap, I’ve reverted to type and it’s meal times sitting across from one another, sometimes with candles burning and almost always with me coaxing Arthur to at least try some of my cooking and for the love of god will you get your elbows off the table! Shouting aunt: it’s this year’s meme.

I will end on a shopping note: in the spirit of any self-respecting teenage boy, Arthur is militantly disinterested in anything to do with clothing but I’ve cracked the code. Thank you REI, Suzanne’s bank account and lastly but most importantly, Arthur’s realization that board shorts and a hoodie ain’t gonna cut it in temperatures that hover around freezing. The era of the down jacket and sturdy walking boots is upon us, along with a new-found interest in looking decent in active wear.

And the floor-drobe? No worries on that front. The down hoodie and GoreTex jacket have yet to see padded hangers. I’m stepping over them as I type.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.