Per my youngest daughter, Paige’s request,
we went fishing this last week.
It’s not a thing we usually do.
We’ve gone once in 10 years, I think.
It was spring break, and her mind was racing with possibilities of all the things she could do with my dad without pesky school interrupting her plans, which included (but were not limited to)
*Using his nail gun on something inappropriate
*Wearing his paint respirator mask in public somewhere
*Whittling a weapon out of another weapon.
Yeah.
She is a whole THING.
Fishing was a top request.
She must have been thinking about it for a while based on all the details she named.
She hounded me to text him, and see if he’d arrange everything, which he gladly did,
even going so far as to purchase new nets and four new poles so the girls and I could all have our own for any future fishing dates.
Knowing the response I would get about these plans, I waited to spring it on the teens.
Hours spent in the quiet with just their family and potentially no cell service?!
How could my heart be so full of hate?!
My dad messaged to tell me he’d bought a whole bunch of new, sparkly lures, as well,
“in case the teenagers don’t want to bother with the worms,”
but, I wasn’t going to tell them this fact.
To be honest, the thought of watching the two of them struggling to put worms on a hook felt like a small reward for all the drama, crisis counseling, and loss of time alone in the bathroom that I have recently endured.
Watching a few shooting worm guts were, quite frankly, the very least that I deserved.
Once I told them what was happening, I really had to walk them through and win them over to the idea with a monologue about their grandpa getting older, and that one day he wouldn’t be there to take them fishing anymore, and how they’d regret if they had just lay there with earbuds in, sequestered to their rooms.
My speech worked to, at least, have them agree to go,
but not without heads tilted back and slight groans.
They made it clear that this was to be a top-secret mission,
because if word ever got out amongst their friend group that they’d done something “outdoorsy,”
rest-assured,
many heads would roll.
Apparently it is the death of teens for their friends to see them in a jacket, with an umbrella, by any naturally occurring water with their family, or on any kind of boat.
“I can’t be known as a FISHER GIRL,” Chloe said, pleading with her eyes, hoping I’d just know.
I shrugged and told them maybe they should even invite some friends.
They looked like they had grounds now to be emancipated on that suggestion alone.
We arrived at the lake the scheduled day, and I pointed out the beauty of the scenery.
No comments. No nods. They barely raised their eyebrows, clearly fighting hard to never look as if they APPRECIATED any part of this whole thing.
They were going to Hot-Potato any joy lobbed at them.
Teenagers have reputations to uphold.
We set up in a lovely spot.
The hills and rounded trees almost looked like a Pixar cartoon.
Little kids around the lake with their own families whooped and hollered as they reeled fish in, grinning, and before long I saw my teens smiling, too.
My thirteen year old, Tessa, quickly became a casting pro.
She’d barely get her hook into the water, and she would catch something.
By herself, she caught half of the fish we all caught together just on her own.
Her in her brand new mid-drift window shirt, and makeup that had taken so long I’d called out, “We’re going FISHING, for Heaven’s sake! Can we PLEASE just GO?!”
Every time I’d catch a glimpse of the teens smiling there in the sun, hair blown by ocean air, I’d attempt to take a picture of it; You know – Proof that they’d had fun.
But those teenagers are onto you trying to prove them wrong in any way,
and the second they’d sense my camera lens with their highly advanced internal camera detection system,
they’d lose those smiles like they were ditching a murder weapon.
Teenagers do the opposite of “saying cheese.”
Basically, their cheese often has mold.
They’d spot me lurking behind a bush trying to prove they still had the glimmer of cheerful souls, and the moment they did, it’s like they cued their bodies
“Deaden the eyes. Good. Now let your posture completely go.”
At the end of the day, Paige was beaming.
She was covered in worm guts and in mud as if her spirit had found its true home.
Her little Mowgli self sure loves her Papa with his tools, and absence of shoe requirements.
She may have never chosen to go home.
I turned to Chloe and Tessa, who were taking selfies in between reeling fish in, and giggling at their inside jokes.
I said with a half-smile,
“Hey, Chloe, how are you liking it?” and she answered with what could be The Teenage Anthem,
“I’m really liking it, but I don’t want to be.”
“What about you, Tessa? You have to admit you liked it.”
“Fine. I will,” she said. “But only to you.”
There is a little secret I learned last week about forced family time, and luring teens with monologues about future regret to come out of their rooms:
They often actually like it, need it.
Their top mission, however, is to try to
never let us know.
Their faces may say they hate the scenery, the drive, the music, the activities and such,
But inside they secretly crave some screen-free, sunny, family time.
My teenagers liked the fishing.
Don’t tell anyone.
They are Fisher Girls.
They were “outdoorsy” once.
THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF-DESTRUCT.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
