god, i need sleep

Child

When I accused Child of giving me bronchitis, he speculated this might be a hitherto unknown yet strangely compelling superpower. I told him that the reason we don't have cats is because I didn't want it proven he was a future serial killer. He seemed surprised I used the word 'future'. The really sad part, that's not even the incipient fever type of conversation.

I have picked up a bad habit due to the internet and Child; he gets in the mood to ask me questions (like, unanswerable ones: "Are there any female Reavers? How does that work if they rape and eat everyone?" What the fuck, Child? Don't make me think about that.) in endless barrages of 'why'. This was fine before he was literate and the existence of wikipedia, but now it's just to annoy me. My most recent go-to answer is "Because they hate you", which by the way, doesn't actually work except in changing the nature of the questions, at least as it relates to Firefly as Child observed, "Joss Whedon kind of his entire audience" which I cannot say isn't true, so that went well.

Child's bff and my sister's first ex-husband's son is over for a few days before he goes back home, which is always kind of disastrously adorable, as they're both teenagers and yet have been friends since the age of four, so regression is both inevitable and hysterical. Step-Nephew is also at the hilarious age of discovering girls and the shocked realization after years of comfortable acquaintance that my youngest sister, me, and his father's female friends are, y'know, girls. Child has been fucking ruthless about noticing really verbally whenever possible despite retaliation during X-Box tournaments. This doesn't end well for Child. He really doesn't seem to care.



Things that are true; it's really disconcerting to see how much he's like me, habits and personality and thoughts and dreams and quirks, settling and connecting in the vastness of him that's so fundamentally different. To say I know my own strengths and weaknesses is laughable, humanity isn't that objective and I'm even less so, but I can speculate and looking at him, the surprise is how he wears them so differently. There's something in him that isn't in anyone I've ever met but I see a little in my middle sister; the lack of caring what other people think of them. In her, she might genuinely not care, but she is aware of other people's judgment even if it's immaterial to her; with Child, if there's any awareness of it when directed at him, he vaguely judges them for the audacity of doing so.

I'm grateful that he got that from her, because God knows, I don't have it at all; it's always a deliberate act to not care, and it's so very hard, and I fail at it more often than not. If it survives adolescence--and from what I can tell, this is a fundamental part of his personality, enough so that in the absence of something traumatically life-changing, it's going to stick--I wonder how that will work out for him long term.

I don't necessarily believe the power of social pressure can make you a good person, but it sure as hell does help depending on the company you keep: on one hand, I don't have to worry about bad peers influencing him to rob banks so much as if he suddenly decides to fall in with peers of bank robbers, naturally it's because he already wanted to rob a bank and needed help; on the other, have I instilled in him the fundamental values that will preclude robbing banks as a lifestyle choice, which probably, but only by implication that stealing is bad in general and maybe I should have like, been more specific.

On the subject of similarities of personality or possibly a very interesting argument on the power of nurture:

It kind of hit me--in a really uncomfortable way--that he rarely goes to other people's houses for anything, even birthday parties or for the afternoon. In my defense, I didn't notice because I grew up in a rural area and so I didn't very often either as a kid, and also, I was a very introverted kid with very, very few friends. Or so I spent many years assuming.

Child leans introverted but not as much as I was, and also, we're in an urban area. That's two reasons this should not be reoccurring. I worried maybe he just didn't have many friends, but his text log on his phone and his email and his chat are a hive of activity, most of them from school, a few from X-box gaming, and when I go to PTA meetings (rarely) or school meetings where there are other parents with their kids, he's co-oped by roving bands of kids almost as soon as the car door is opened, so--odd. I can't even say Step-Nephew is an anomaly, because Step-Nephew when he's staying with his dad always comes over to stay with us for a few days at a time; it's habit. Child goes over to stay with them while he's here as well. But I can count on one hand the number of times Child's wanted to go to a friend's house or have them over, and the number of invitations I know of is on an order of magnitude greater.

I have no idea how to broach this subject even a little, because seeing it in him made me realize that I did the same thing, but growing up in a rural setting and being happy to go to conventions and on trips kind of blinded me to it, because as a kid, when I went to spend the night with someone, it could be a fifteen mile trip so I had to know them really, really well and they had to be a really, really good friend for my parents to agree and for me to want to. I had an effective limit of two nights before I desperately wanted to be home, with the exception of my cousins that I'd known from birth, whose home I'd visited pretty much from birth, and always stayed over with--from habit. Like Step-Nephew's presence here, come to think.

And having people over to my home was actually really similar; my cousins, always, it wasn't even something I thought about, but other than the big birthday sleepovers age seven to around twelve, there were five people in fourteen years that I invited over or went to stay with, all best friends, none overlapping each other (I treated best friend like a combination of marriage and Highlander; there could be only one, and until moving across the state/out of the state do us part, with the exception of one acrimonious breakup; except for the moving part, this is still painfully true).

Thinking about this (I mean, why not, I have fucking bronchitis again, and introspection is what happens when you run out of Teen Wolf and Supernatural fanfic to read), through the view of Child's actually terrifyingly large breadth of school friendships and lack of frequent home visiting, I'm wondering if I was wrong about being vaguely antisocial or just some form of shy and just deeply weird about people in my living space or being in theirs. I love conventions and trips and hanging out with people when hotels are involved just fine; Child does in fact meet or go with friends skating or who knows, maybe he's robbing banks with them.

Well, not robbing banks, obviously, at least not as a lifestyle choice. I'm not actually all that worried about him taking up a criminal lifestyle, but that's more grounded in the fact he'd be so bad at it. Love him I do, respect him I do, and he has many talents, but stealth is not a word in his vocabulary. And honestly, I just don't see him having enough patience to stand stoically waiting for the money to be bagged with nothing to do but look threatening, though I have to admit, his phone has some pretty good games to while away the fraught minutes, so that might be less of a problem that one might hope. Though I would give a lot to see Child's idea of looking threatening when at last glance, he's still refusing to go near the rabbits due to an unfortunate incident with his finger, a mound of hay, and their tiny yet strong teeth.



Ouch

I am less amused than anything at picking up bronchitis up now. I haven't actually been feverish as it's been just a really goddamn irritating cough and surprisingly mild congestion, which is actually fairly typical at work right now with everyone. It's much, much worse when I want to do stupid things like sleep, but seems to go away completely when I have to work or talk to people, which is the most inconvenient illness in history. I honestly don't see the goddamn point of being just ill enough to not sleep well and have a sore throat but can still test a program and have to carry on conversations. It's just stupid.

Comments

[out_there]

I'm wondering if I was wrong about being vaguely antisocial or just some form of shy and just deeply weird about people in my living space or being in theirs.

Hmmmm. Interesting. I really couldn't say because, well, I can count on one hand the number of friends who's places I've been inside, and more often I'll meet them in the city for food/whatever. And, well, three closest fannish-in-real-life friends haven't been to my current house (I've been here since December) and didn't come to my last place (I was there two years). I think they only visited the place before that once.

I put it down to living an hour out of the city, in what is technically a separate town, but it's only talking about it that I realise that maybe other people with close friendships might have people over their threshold more than once in a four year period.

But it's my home. It's *mine* and separate and a safe haven from the world, and it's nice having it apart from everything else.

So, there may be strange attitudes but it's no stranger than a lot of fandom, I suspect.

[princessofgeeks]

Thanks for the pondering about the Child. My boys must be about the same age as yours; not driving yet, I gather?

I think that their phones and computers and Xbox Live activities really do connect them in a way I never was connected, because it didn't exist! When I was a kid we had a city neighborhood with single family homes where you could run around and play with a variety of neighbor kids.

We today live in a more rural area, so in the summer my boys don't see many kids face to face, but they are in touch with a lot of peers over the phone and texting and online. And I now know from fandom that that totally counts.

I have one introvert and one extrovert, and the introvert is so happy to stay home. He turns down invitations, actually. My extrovert needs a permanent t shirt that says, "Where's the party?" It's hard to keep up with him even now! :)

And oh yeah to all you said about seeing your own character traits in them. Totally. It's kind of eerie, actually.

[green_grrl]

(I love your Child posts!)

It seems to me that if Child wanted to go over to other people's houses or have friends over, he would. He's not exactly shy about doing/getting what he wants, and with his popularity at school events and over social media he's not lacking the opportunity. I figure he's somewhere on the introvert spectrum, probably slightly more extroverted than I am. I'm happy to socialize and be excited/friendly/fun with people during the day, but after I get home I'm done with being around people for a while. Phone/email/text is okay because I can engage or ignore depending upon how interactive I feel, and they're somewhat at a remove. When you're physically in someone else's space or have someone in your space, it's harder to get to your cave when you're DONE with people.

[dine]

I'm wondering if I was wrong about being vaguely antisocial or just some form of shy and just deeply weird about people in my living space or being in theirs.

this grabbed my attention - growing up, we rarely had friends over to visit/play/spend the night. kids would play in our yard, but were rarely inside the house - I think due to a combination of my dad's working rotating shifts so he was often sleeping during the day, his being physically large and not terribly friendly, thus frightening lots of the kids, and my mom's houseproud attitude combined with an inability to stay on top of housework, so she didn't want people to see it.

because I grew up unaccustomed to having people in my living space, I still have that attitude. even when my place is tidy (rarely) it just feels wrong when others are there - I'm fine in neutral spaces (hotels, restaurants) and do ok at others' houses, but home is for me.

[dani_the_girl]

I'm not sure how helpful this is, but I read this and really really identified with Child and how you described his self confidence here. I remember having a realisation at an early age (say 10 or so) that I basically didn't care what other people thought of me at all and I think the results of this were hugely positive for me. I remember distinctly being taken aside by a teacher when I was 12 or so and asked about being called names by other kids and told that I should totally report bullying like that and thinking "Yes, but does it count if I don't give a shit?"

As I got older, I got much better at figuring out how to manage other people's reactions to me, but I did go through a phase where I would consciously do things which seemed vaguely unstable or emo (like sit under the desk) to kind of see how people reacted. I relaxed a lot more when I got to university and connected with more people who were as smart as me and I connected with more naturally, which I bet is a whole lot easier now that the internet is around.

Anyway, not to write a long essay about me without some relevance to your post! My Mum is still un-nerved by my levels of self-confidence (neither of my parents are naturally self confident) but it worked out pretty awesome actually and I bet it will for Child as well. It makes for unusual teenagerdom but pretty fucking awesome adult-hood.

[sinclair-furie.livejournal.com]

I was like that as a teenager too. I just didn't feel the need to go to friends houses, I guess, since I saw them plenty at school. It's mostly an introvert thing, I think. Nothing to worry about, as I am not a serial killer/bank robber (at least based on the one data point of me)!

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

I always LOVE your posts about your relationship with your son, not just because you both seem like good eggs but because I love how you respect him for being himself even if as a parent you care about nudging him along the best, non-bank-robbing path you can without crushing his spirit inside.

I hope you feel better soon. Bronchitis is officially No Fun.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I always LOVE your posts about your relationship with your son, not just because you both seem like good eggs but because I love how you respect him for being himself even if as a parent you care about nudging him along the best, non-bank-robbing path you can without crushing his spirit inside.

This, so very, very much. I hope Seperis won't roll around on the floor laughing too hard to hear that I aspire to be as good a parent as she is.

I also agree with the above comment about hermit behavior being an introvert thing. I love to socialize, I love to run around with my friends, I love to chatter, but I absolutely need my own solitary space to recover from all that socializing, and if I'm meeting people in neutral territory and I can then go back to my own space to recover from all that social stuff, that works just about right. Being in other peoples' personal living spaces makes me jittery for reasons that I vaguely guess are about territory and personal bubble.

[lucifelfalling.livejournal.com]

I didn't go over to people's houses much as a teen either. It had much less to do with my friends than it did with their parents. (As in, my friend's parents were white and I didn't know how to behave around white people... mostly b/c I'm a first generation immigrant; like my mom doesn't even speak english)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh damn. *winces* I'm so sorry. That must have been nightmarishly difficult to deal with.

When I was growing up, I had friends and schoolmates with parents from Mexico that didn't speak English either, but in Texas in general (though in some more rural areas in Texas this is definitely not going to be the case) it's common enough that while it gets its very own racist rhetoric, being socially isolating on its own would be less common because especially in urban areas, there's a high population of Hispanic families who have parents and other family members who don't speak English (this is true both among documented and documented immigrants and in a few places, natural born citizens going back a couple of generations).

I didn't go over to people's houses much as a teen either. It had much less to do with my friends than it did with their parents. (As in, my friend's parents were white and I didn't know how to behave around white people... mostly b/c I'm a first generation immigrant; like my mom doesn't even speak english)

Related: my son's school has a lot of first gen as well and I assumed it was school reputation and because it was owned/run by first/second/third generation Turkish immigrants and so was Muslim-friendly as well as not a majority or not defined by a majority of white families/white students. However, what you just said is something I hadn't thought of that might have contributed to that; it must have been a huge relief for families and kids both to have the kids go to a school that also had been founded by people who had been in their position as far as coming to a new country on top of the other factors, and even more, interact comfortably with other families in the same position even if they were from different countries.

Thank you for that; I figured that religion and race would both be a factor in the popularity for immigrants, but specifically being a recent immigrant who is also POC and Muslim in a brand new country would definitely be a draw at very minimum in being able to interact with other people with that exact trifecta as well. I was thinking of the three as separate but related reasons, but all three things together would be an issue by themselves in addition and have it's own set of challenges to face.

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

He sounds like he's pretty happy with the way he is. I'd be concerned if he didn't have swarms of friends when he was out of the house but it doesn't look like it's a problem at all.

LOL on the bank robbing. :P