The perils of junior high

2 Responses

1. Barrie Summy Says:
   January 19th, 2008 at 5:04 am

   By make lame jokes in front of my friends.

   Good luck with your complexion!

2. Kris Says:
   January 23rd, 2008 at 11:43 am

   Almost anything parents do when one is a teenager can be construed as humiliating.

   One specific I recall was our inability to understand what the other meant. One time my father said, “You don’t even know how to use a washcloth.” What he meant was, “Take a bath, for cryin’ out loud!” What I thought was, “Don’t blame me if I don’t know how—you never taught me washcloth techniques!”

   I often had responses in my head that I could not say, either because a child was not supposed to speak to adults that way, or because I had the thoughts but not the words, or because it would just perpetuate the speaking-at-odds situation, so what was the point?

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