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The Nice Thing to Do

I think of many things to blog about during the course of a week, but of course there are days when I just do not have the time so they don?t get written. And by the time I do get the time, the mood has passed, or it?s old news (to me) or whatever. But here?s an incident that happened last week that?s still on my mind.

Derwood has a new friend and has been going to this friend?s house almost daily after school. Several times he has called to ask if he could stay to supper. He leaves messages on the home answering machine while I am still in my office so that I have to call him back. He never thinks to call me on my office line and almost ALWAYS forgets to leave a phone number where I can reach him. ?*69 costs 95 cents. I should take it out of his allowance.

So anyway I call him back. He answers the phone, like this: ?YEAH.? I say it?s OK to stay to supper, if it was OK with the friend?s mom. The next night he asks again, and I say no because I had planned a special meal, and on the third night when he calls no one answers the phone when I call back. I leave a message, and he calls back right away. I asked him if it was REALLY OK with the mom, or was she being railroaded into it? Or was she even there at all? ?Um, no, but she was.? ?Is she coming back at dinnertime?? ?Uh huh.?

Now when I was a kid, eating over at a friend?s was kind of a big deal, as was sleeping over. (I don?t entirely get 16 year old boys having sleepovers either, but that?s not what we?re talking about right now.) These were events that had to be planned in advance. Now kids seem to do it spur of the moment. I?m not quite that flexible with my meal plans, and I usually don?t cook enough food to stretch to another person. We hardly ever invite kids to eat over at our house, and when we do I think it?s a bit more formal to invite them specially. I guess I?m just kind of old fashioned, being, at 50, a lot somewhat older than most mothers of teenagers.

Anyway, last week he brought the friend home after school instead of going to his house. At one point the friend asked if he could use our phone to call his mother and when he came back up I heard him say something to Derwood that his mother?s gone out. So as dinnertime approaches I?m faced with a dilemma: I have to do the ?nice? thing and invite him to supper. The meal I?m planning is bacon and eggs, which is pretty expandable. So, I ask him if he?d like to stay to supper, and when he needs to be home. ?Oh, anytime, like 10 o?clock?, he replies. Huh? ?My mom?s gone tube-sliding and she won?t be back until later.? ??Do you need to call anyone and let them know?? I ask. ?No, it?s OK, no one?s home anyway.?

I relate this to Redman when he gets home, and like me, he thinks this is all pretty weird. We?re both thinking, how old is his mom - like, 19? (Mathematically and biologically impossible, I know.) How irresponsible is this? Anyway, we have our supper, the boy is reasonable polite, but nobody thanks me for feeding him. Oh well, that would be just? too much to expect.

On another evening Redman broaches the subject with Derwood about his friend. ?Is his mother often out in the evening?? The answer is affirmative ??but they leave the house open for him because his key doesn?t work.? ?So he?s on his own at dinnertime?? I ask. ?His mom leaves out sub stuff for him?. We both express our dismay that a parent would often leave a 14 year old home alone to fend for himself at mealtime, but perhaps this is perfectly normal nowadays. There, I?ve just irretrievably labelled myself as hopelessly old fashioned: I used the term ?nowadays.?

So here?s the 64 thousand dollar question: ?So when you eat over at his place, is his mother even there?? ??Um, sometimes.?

Is it just us, or is there something sort of wrong with this picture?

Filed under Parenting, Jan 31, 2006
 

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