I was a teenage mom. By which I do not mean that I was a teenager who got pregnant. No, instead I suddenly became a mom to a teenager: A Sudden Mother. I had agreed to host a foreign exchange student. The only thing that remained was I had to ask my husband. Oops.
He was in Chicago on business when I called him. "Honey," I frantically blurted into the phone, "Can we have one, can we get an exchange student?" There was silence on the other end of the phone. He had grown up with exchange students, and we had discussed it in the abstract. "When would this happen?" He asked. "In three hours" I replied. The company had called me for a reference for my friends who were hosting, and they still had students left. We would be doing them a huge favor since some families had backed out at the last minute. It all happened so fast.
"Wait," my friend said when I told her. "Like they actually gave you a kid? You have him now?"
It did seem ludicrous. My husband and I have no children, and as busy young professionals we did not seem well suited to becoming parents overnight. We were to drive him to and from school, feed him three meals a day, and keep him alive. We didn't even eat three meals a day I reflected when I thought about what we had signed on to. My coworker wondered out loud that this seemed like a good deal. Would I feed her breakfast, too?
That night I was so busy frantically cleaning out our guest room that I didn't have time to go to the store. He arrived to an empty fridge, and we swung by the grocery store and In-N-Out burgers on the way home. I had him pose by the sign and told him about how Americans from out of state come to try their burgers, but really the visit was most meaningful as a signpost around which my life was organized: most nights I did not cook, and my husband and I used our dining table for storage. The flashing sign signified the itinerant and rushed nature of my weeknights. I had just left graduate school for a real job, which in and of itself was a transition, and now I was suddenly responsible for someone else.
The first few days of hosting were an adjustment. I had to wake up an hour earlier to get him to school on time. I found that in making him breakfast, I ate too. Still, the first week was rocky juggling work committments and trying to keep him fed and on time. When I asked what he found most surprising about America, he answered "How frequently you eat out." I felt like a spoiled ridiculous brat and resolved to cook more. The second week I hit my stride: he didn't like to eat until 9:30pm which was closer to when my husband and I got around to dinner anyway, so some of the pressure of rushing home to make food was relieved. I packed lunches at night: one for him, one for me, and one for my husband. I enjoyed my extra time in the morning since once I had rushed to drop him off I had 45 lesiurely minutes to grab coffee or go for a walk before I had to be at work.
Still, having to rush home from work, meal plan, and go to the store and get up so early only to do it again grew tiresome. I had childcare issues some nights in figuring out how he was going to get home when I had to work late. I was psyched when we left for a pre arranged vacation and he went to stay with another family for a few days.
Toward the end of the trip he drove me nuts. I called my mother and vented about how all he did was sit in his room on the Internet, that his teenage boy friends smelled, and he was late when I went to pick him up at the mall. My parents laughed and reminded me what a brat I was at 16. I attended a friend's baby shower and while everyone oogled the tiny clothes I got to play the jaded parent and give knowing nods as the other mothers dispensed advice, and warn her that eventually her little angel would be a tween.
Finally, at the end of the three and a half weeks I got to do what every frustrated parent secretly fantasizes about and get rid of him: we sent him off on a one way flight back to Russia. He was going back to his own parents, who would be get to wake him up in the morning, and rush him out of the house, and be ignored by him as he obsessively used his phone.
I don't really miss him. Instead, I marvel at how free I feel, how much less harried my life is, and wonder what to do with all my time. I sleep in late and still make it to work on time. I go out for a beer with my coworker. I may even have a chance to call my friend and check in on her and her new baby. I'll nod knowingly as she complains about the lack of sleep, the stress of feedings. And I'll hang up and feel relieved that the hard part is over since my kid is actually someone else's kid, grown and off in the world.
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