When I was 15, I was really obnoxiously 15. My mom and I were living in Australia – a scenario she was pleased with and I was not. Although I dearly loved my mom (in a 15 yr old way which looks nothing even remotely like love), I very much wished to return to the States to live with my father. I asked. I begged. I intentionally got awful grades for the first time in my life.

Still, my mother knew that if I’d just stay and give it a real chance, I’d be fine. And even today, I know she was right about that. But I didn’t care. I remember thinking (and I’m not sure if I said it to her or if I just thought it), “Let me go back and live with Daddy, or else I will do whatever it takes to change your mind and then you will let me go.”

And that’s what I did.

I behaved badly. Intentionally. In order to thoroughly freak out my mother and shamelessly manipulate her into deporting me, I recklessly befriended* a 38yr old Aussie and gave him our phone number and hoped that he would call. Not because I was interested in him. I was extremely interested in his ability to call our house with his 38 yr old very deep, accented voice and scare my mother to pieces.

I’m not proud of this. In hindsight, the selfishness required to manipulate both this guy and my mother – and put myself at some serious, unknown and unacknowledged risk – is horrifying to me.

He did call. A couple of times, and I made sure I was not the one to pick up the phone. And although I genuinely did not want to see him again, I probably carried on as if he were the love of my life and the only thing that could keep me away from him… would be… hmm… a one way ticket back to Texas….  yeah, that… that might do it.

I was gone within two weeks, one way ticket in hand.

(nooo, never talked to him again. I could have, but I wasn’t ever interested in the first place.)

My mother is seriously smart and probably was onto my scheme way before she ever let on. But if she held her ground and didn’t let me go… what would I do next?  All these years later, I don’t  want to give that much thought.

My dad should have been very afraid of what he was getting into when I walked off the plane in Dallas. And, honestly, he probably was. But we made it through my high school years uneventfully.  Although I didn’t yet have any faith in God, I DID have a perfectionist, self loathing and highly legalistic moral streak that couldn’t quite forgive what I’d done. It helped me get through high school. In a “low self esteem, unforgiving, don’t screw up ever again, and you deserve to be miserable for what you’ve done” sort of way,  it totally helped.

And now. Here we are. My own 16yr old daughter will go to great lengths to avoid living with me. Although the problem here is her refusal to accept me – not simply a geographic preference.  Still, there have been moments where I’ve wanted to say, “tough! you’re going to live here anyway! give it a chance and you’ll be fine! ”

And then I remember how very much more timid (and stable) I was at that age – and how easily I’d gotten to the ‘let me go or I will make you change your mind’ place. And how I’d been so stupid and followed through as only a teen girl with limited foresight –  and no self preservation skills – will.

That makes me want to not push her – I don’t want to nudge her into a corner where she’ll feel forced to do something stupid or reckless. Like I did. And I wonder if already I have.

Maybe I have backed her into a corner where she has felt her only way out was to do something drastic to get her point across. Not that her actions are my fault. They’re not. And my past stupidity is mine alone. But it would probably be wise to approach the female teen daughter type with extreme caution, as they are unpredictable. I wonder if, as a mom,  I’ve too often forgotten that.

It’s Father’s Day, and all day I’ve thought about this. About how parenting is so very hard. Parenting ME was hard, and believe it or not after reading this – I was a pretty good kid. Thanks Mom. Thanks Daddy.  Y’all did a very good job, and your love and support of me now that I’m a mom means the world to me.

Also, not once have either of you said, “remember when you were that age…? do you remember what you PUT US THROUGH?” Thanks for that, too.

*nothing illegal, but still ridiculously inappropriate, unbecoming, and unacceptable