Dealing with Fifteen

My 15-year-old son, Ryan, had a major melt down when we got home tonight. In the car he has a very bad habit of listening to his MP3 player on decibel ten so that we can all hear it even over our conversation. I asked him to turn it down but he didn't, he answered me back as usual. I asked again and then I put my hand out to confiscate the instrument of his deafness. This inspired another flurry of smart mouthing and challenging and; 'Do you think you can take it from me?' My reply; "I paid for it hand it over." To my surprise he did, the whole time telling me how it wasn't loud.

Meanwhile my ten year old, George, and I had been having a conversation about the stars and telescopes and planetariums. Ryan took this opportunity to say he had to have the MP3 player turned up to drown out George's stupid questions and our stupid answers. The little guy said something, for the life of me I didn't catch what it was, but Ryan yelled at him to shut up and 'swear to God...' I cut him off. This is unacceptable. "When we get home go to bed." You can just imagine what this started; 'You can't make me, go ahead and try, you think you can tell me what to do but your wrong...'

We pulled in I told him to brush his teeth and whatever else he had to do so he could get in bed and George could shower. He stormed around his room and discovered his lizard cage was malodorous so he looked in and found the lizard dead. This is his opportunity to play the baby. He never needs us for anything, he knows it all, he knows more than any of us and he can take care of himself and his environment. Yeah, right. He was afraid of the lizard when it was alive and never touched it and now that it was dead he was totally disgusted and certainly wasn't going to touch it. So I get, 'Mom how do I do this? What should I do? How am I going to get him out? I'm just going to put the tank outside the front door. Why can't I?'

Okay now I am losing it. It's something he doesn't want to do so he makes off he doesn't know how or there is some extenuating circumstance that doesn't allow him to do it on his own. Tonight after taking the tank I bought for him only a month ago out to the deck he complained that I wedged the log in the tank and he had no way to get it out because it didn't fit in the first place. Yes I do appreciate how simply asinine this statement is since the log was 2/3 as tall as the tank and only 3" diameter in a 12" x 12" tank and again it was IN the tank. But this is Ryan. He suited up, gloves and towels and rags and paper bags and then stood in front of the hall closet as if some miracle where about to burst forth from the back of the shelf and absolve him of having to actually put his hand in the tank to remove not only the log but the animal as well. I could feel the ire rising in my chest. I told him to move along and get in bed after properly disposing of the poor creature. He stormed out telling me he was done, he was all done, he was going to get out of here in the morning forever. After 2 minutes outside he realized he wasn't going to get out without touching something so he came in and said, 'Can't you just give me 30 seconds to help me with this?'

"No! You're a smart boy figure it out. I'm not falling for your baby act."

He ran back into his room and said he was done, again. 'Tomorrow I'm getting down the phone book and calling DCYF and I'm getting out of here once and for all. I can't do this. I can't live here.'

"Go ahead." That meant he would have to get on a chair move some things, open a cabinet, look up a phone number in that huge book…already too many steps for him.

Now George is up and white as a sheet and he can't stand it when we fight and can we just stop. Ryan yelled shut up again. George looked like he was going to pass out but went to bed. I know the vomit comet is on the way; it's inevitable because I can't let Ryan get away with it and I can't control the verbal exchange that is welling up. I give it five minutes and they are both in bed. I go out on the deck remove the log and drop the dead gecko on the table. It took less than 30 seconds. Now I am fuming. If I were a cartoon there would have been steam coming out of my ears. It's too bad I don't have a valve that allows me to do that and let all the aggravation out. George may still have a full stomach.

I opened Ryan's bedroom door and told him to get up and get out on the deck where he was to pick up the lizard and take it down to the trashcan. His reply from the fetal position under the bedclothes: 'I told you I was done.'

WRONG!!!!! "I'm not asking you to do it. I'm telling you to do it and do it NOW! I don't care about you but I do care about the lizard and you are going to go out there and do the respectful, responsible thing and take care of him. NOW!"

George gets up and tosses everything in him into the toilet.

Ryan keeps yelling at him the whole time and mumbling about how he is getting out and I blew it and who did I think I was telling him what to do…

They are both in bed and sleeping. Where is my husband in all of this? His tolerance for these outbursts has been worn thin over the last three years. He left the room rather than respond in a way that would only stoke the fires. It's better when only one of us is the actual heavy and the other is just a support girder. Unfortunately I'm the heavy and he's the girder 99% of the time. Oh well the power of the Portagee.

Can you just imagine the conversation with DCYF? 'See I can't live here anymore. My mother doesn't let me listen to my MP3 player as loud as I want and I have to empty my dead lizard out of his cage on my own without any of help from her and then I had to walk it all the way to the end of the driveway and it was dark and I'm only 15. And doesn't the world revolve around me? Isn't it your job to get me some parents who are better than the ones I already have? I want some that have more money and a bigger house and a cooler car and will let me have anything I want anytime I want and I don't want to have to pay or work for anything and I want to be able to flunk school without any repercussions. It wouldn't hurt for me to be the only child and for my bedroom to be black with a red rally stripe around it. I'll need a TV, DVD player, four more electric guitars because the two I have aren't nearly good enough, and a new desk for my computer because I'm bringing it with me and I don't have enough room for all of my gaming stuff on the desk I have here. Isn't that a constitutional right? Don't they have to give me a big enough desk to accommodate all of my joysticks and steering wheels and headphones? I think it might be part of the bill of rights. Right after the one that says lunch money is free money provided for me every day by my parents whether I use it to buy lunch or just pocket it for future use.'

Boy they'll take him out of here so fast and put him in one of those perfect foster homes after they hear all that. I just don't know how we will be able to stop them from taking him away from this abject humility and utter poverty we inflict on him in this emotionless prison cell we like to call home.