Family
I Wanted to Set My Young Teen Free. It Was Harder Than I Thought.
The biggest problem? Certain other adults.
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Something happened the year my son turned 12. He knows it too. He told me as much after hanging out with a friend one winter afternoon. They’d left the basketball court to climb a favorite play structure and had just gotten comfortable up top, chatting, when a woman with a small child ordered them down. The playground was for younger kids, she said, not them. And just like that, what she said became true.
My son turned 12 a little over a year ago, and just as he became eager to experience the world on his own, that world began to regard him differently. It’s something that happens to lots of kids as they barrel toward puberty. They may become too big or too loud to ignore; or they move or talk or laugh too erratically; or they’ve simply started traveling in pairs and packs instead of alongside a lone, harried grown-up. The places they frequented just one season ago—their safe spaces, their special outdoor nooks—may no longer absorb them. To spend time independently in the offline world, they must find new places where they are wanted, or at least tolerated. That can be a tall order in cities like ours, where free spaces for teens are rare. For parents, it makes letting your kid roam outside feel precarious, an act of closing your eyes and releasing them into a world that is not designed for them and is sometimes quite frightened of them.
The first time I got a whiff this was happening was after the Brooklyn Cyclones game my son attended annually with friends. During the seventh inning stretch, my son and another boy lined up for hot dogs and Cokes when a woman flashed them a “nasty” glance before cutting the line in front of them—as if they didn’t exist, he later told me, as if they were more nothing than nothing.
The boys felt the need to do something to right the injustice. But what? They were still reeling when, hot dogs and sodas in hand, they learned the concessions stand only accepted credit cards, while they only had cash. The man behind the counter glanced around to make sure no one was watching. He leaned forward. “Just take it,” he said gently, shooing them away.
When my son told me this, he was gliding on a scooter, circling the partial wall separating our kitchen and living room as he struggled out loud to process this strange new world where, in the space of minutes, one adult inexplicably snubbed him and another gave him free food. “He could’ve gotten fired for that!” he marveled. “Why’d he do that for us?”
“You’re starting to look like teenagers,” I said.