13 Is the New 18 by Beth J. Harpaz

Author:Beth J. Harpaz [Harpaz, Beth J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-45210-8
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2009-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

ometimes it seems like a cruel trick that I ended up with two sons, since I knew so little about the ways of boys when I became a mother. Not only did I spend my teenage years at an all- girl school, but I also grew up with a sister and no brothers. I practically didn't have a conversation with a boy my age until I went to college.

And yet somehow I am now a Lone Woman in a Land of Men, the only member of my household who won't walk around wearing nothing but underwear and who goes ballistic if the toilet seat is left up.

I am also the only one in my house who has no interest in watching, playing, or following sports in any way, shape, or form. And that's another one of those things from my childhood that has changed with the times— thank goodness. Like a lot of girls I knew growing up, I pretty much never caught or threw a ball, or watched an organized ball game, until my own kids started playing sports. I'm still mystified by the definition of a double play, and inevitably I am chatting with another mom or reading the paper when a Really Important Thing Happens in the game.

Which always leads Elon to come running over to loudly cross-examine me.

“Did you see what your son just did?” he'll demand after Sport— who is a very good athlete— has done something amazing. “Did you? You weren't paying attention, were you? Your son scored the winning goal”—or shot, or hit, or run, or pitch, or whatever they call it in whatever sport was being played— “and, as usual, you missed it.”

I'm so pathetic, most of the time I can't even tell which team is winning, or whether our score is being tallied under “Home” or “Guest.” I'll try to fake it, try to sound halfway intelligent and attentive by saying things at halftime or between innings like “So, how are we doing? Are we still— I mean, is the score, uh, still, you know, two to … uh, what is it now? I think I might have missed that last play when I had a sneezing fit. You know, I think I must be allergic to something out here in the field!”

Inevitably, my ploy only makes me sound more idiotic than ever. The score is never two to anything; it is always some improbable set of numbers that I couldn't begin to guess at, like fifteen to nothing, or tied six- six for the past forty- five minutes.

But it wasn't just sports where my knowledge of boys was deficient. So ignorant was I in the ways of boys that I naively thought, when Taz was little, that all gender differences were culturally imposed rather than inborn. I even got him a doll when he was about three, thinking, idealistically, that probably boys would love to play with dolls if only they had the chance. I showed him how to cuddle the dolly hold it, rock it, and pretend to feed it.

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