Friendship rings

Earbaby is all graduated. Her two maternal aunts, a cousin, a new baby cousin (the next generation!) and her 94-year-old grandma, all came to the Northeast corner of the country to celebrate the last grandchild's foray into the new world. It was a fun, momentous occasion. She was later joined by cousins, an aunt and an uncle from her dad's side for a dinner in her honor.

And now the real world beckons.

As EB prepares for this next part of her world, it's been interesting to note how she balances her old life with the impending new. She's been out of school and adrift for almost a month and a half now, sleeping late, going out with friends, spending the gifted money she's received almost faster than she gets it (a physical impossibility that still baffles me), and yet becoming more anxious, not only about the fall, but the rest of the summer.

She's got to get a job. And she's actually turned down two jobs, because she's been promised another one through the city resources. She's been through workshops, CPR training, and yet the days drag on, with no start date in sight. After several emails to the coordinator, she was told she had mandatory three-day training for 2 1/2 hours in the middle of the week she had an intensive (and expensive) dance camp. When she told the coordinator those didn't work for her, she went into panic mode, thinking she had turned down two birds in hand and would be denied the promised one in the bush.

Now that mandatory training has been moved to the first week in July, since apparently she wasn't the only one who couldn't make it. There actually are some kids who were still in school until the last week of June. This has been quite the messy process to get a summer job, that will eventually last only a little more than a month before she is off to the wheat and sunflower state.

But she has occupied her time (between sleeping and Netflix) with lots and lots of friends. It seems every day she finds a new group or friend or two to just hang out with. It doesn't hurt that she has access to a car, but at least a couple of her friends have also been willing to drive to go to the beach, or to the mall, or to just get food. I figure they are all trying to squeeze in their last summer before they scatter to the winds of college or trade school. Interestingly, many of her friends are male and all platonic. She doesn't seem interested in dating any more, and we don't even talk about it. There will be time for the warning talk before we say our goodbyes, but for now she seems much happier with herself as a single lady than she ever was as half of a dysfunctional couple. This summer is definitely a turn for the better.

But June has been quite the swoon. Three straight weekends of whirlwind activity included her final dance recital, her graduation and her college orientation.

The trip to formerly my state U, and now Her State U, was for the most part good, but where would we be without the occasional return of the snarky attitude?

EB is a small city kid. I'm snarky enough to consider our place of residence a little city, because I grew up in what was then the second (now third) largest city in the country. But she's still a city kid, and she's going to a country college town, albeit one rated one of the top college towns for satisfaction, etc. Anyway, we spent a hot weekend in the middle of the country. Her dad and I got to spend a couple of days alone tooling around the countryside, since we both like long drives. EB went to two-day summer camp on steroids.

Of course she was snarky and crabby about it, texting us to ask if we could pick her up from the dorms early (we didn't) because it was boring and a waste of her time. Then she was tired, because they never let them rest. But even though she wouldn't participate in some of the goofiness, she couldn't keep from having somewhat of a good time, despite the fact that the temperature was 90-plus degrees every day. And she did make friends. One can only keep from smiling a little for so long in the face of all that relentless cheerfulness.

But the other part of her crabbiness came from the constant contact with her friends who went to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic the same week she had orientation with the country mice. The Snapchat stories and texts that she saw seemed as if everyone was having a much better time than she was, even with a few hiccups. (The stories ended up being a lot less fun, and a lot more dark when everyone got home, and she realized that even had we allowed her to go, her friends would have gotten on her nerves.) So EB spent way too much time comparing getting herself ready for college with the kids who work so they could go on the trip where there was drinking, drugs and sexual misconduct. After she heard the stories, she seemed to stop wishing she had gone.The reality didn't sound nearly as glamorous in the cold light of day. But she couldn't know that while she was turning her nose up, resisting the charms of the Wabash Cannonball dance.

Next month, God and the city services willing, Earbaby will have her first steady job. It will only be for the summer, but I'm hoping she will plan on saving something for college. I can't keep her in Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts for the next four years. In the meantime, she's waiting to hear from the dance department to see if she can start right away with her minor selection, since she didn't get any help in that department from the adviser who helped pick her classes in the psychology department. She was reticent about contacting the instructor we met in October, but I'm trying to make her see that she will have to advocate for herself in the coming years. We pay the bills, but we can't do everything for her anymore. Those days are over.

But it's going to take a minute before she's ready to let go.

Don't tell

Nobody likes a tattletale.

Snitches get stitches.

And wind up in ditches.

At some point in a teenager's life -- and that point is starting to come earlier and earlier it seems -- the probability of drinking and drug experimentation comes into play and they have a decision to make. Will they go along with the crowd or take a step back?

Earbaby recently had to make that decision when she was faced with such a dilemma. Now, even though she no longer goes to my church with any regularity (too many old people), and prefers to go with her dad, because she has friends who go there, she still holds firm to her United Methodist values (don't worry Mom, I'm United Methodist, I don't drink). We started talking early about underage drinking and drug use, specifically marijuana, and about the fact that she would one day be in a situation where she might feel pressured to use.

Although we talked about it early enough I thought, as early as seventh grade she had classmates who had started drinking and using pot. At first it was just acquaintances, and she looked with disdain upon this activity, but soon enough she knew some of the players as friends.

Some kids got into trouble, because they got into some parent's liquor cabinet, got drunk, took pictures, and you know what's next. Yes, they posted it on Facebook, the place where stupidity and indiscretions go for a longer shelf life. When a parent saw it and told the other parents in the group, so many kids were grounded, it was for a short time the talk of school. And that was before they even got into high school.

EB's attendance at an exam school that pulls from every neighborhood in the city exposes her to different cultures, ethnicities and income levels. It also exposes her to the knowledge of bad behavior many parents would like to bury their heads in the sand about. Or worse, laugh it off as youthful shenanigans. But do you really want your 12- and 13-year-old to have the reputation as a pothead? Is it really OK if they drink at your house so they will get used to it and not binge their first weekend in college?

EB grew up knowing our clear rules about drinking. Her dad is a social drinker. I'm a teetotaler. That's a choice I made and I told her why I choose not to ever drink. She, so far, sees no value in it and I've given her the reasons people do use alcohol -- to feel more comfortable in social settings, to be sociable, to have a good time. I've also told her that for some people, having a good time could mean getting blind drunk and doing things they might not do under sober circumstances. And some decisions made while inebriated can become dangerous and/or life-threatening.

I'm not going to say I was objective about drinking. I personally think it's unnecessary. She has heard of her friends getting drunk or high and thinks it's just stupid. That's my girl.

But then there's that middle school/high school parental angst because you don't know your child's friends -- or their parents -- anymore. Enough mishaps have happened that I no longer trust a parent's word as bond. Sometimes they're intentionally misleading, as in not mentioning they will be out of town as they invite your kid over for a sleepover. Sometimes they are evasive, as in leaving a sleepover where your kid is and not coming back and then offering no explanation. Ever.

And sometimes parents just have no clue what their kids are up to even when they're in the house. So when EB went to a sleepover recently, we had several long talks. We talked about drinking, pot use and those parties where kids find whatever is in their parents' medicine cabinet, throw it in a bowl, and take a few, not knowing what they're taking but trying to find a high.

"My friends aren't like that," she said. "They wouldn't be my friends if they were."

While I admired EB's confidence in her friends' characters, I also was 15 once, and happen to know that kids sometimes are totally different outside of parental observation and with older teens around. So I told her that if she was ever in a situation where she felt uncomfortable for any reason, to just call us and we would be there right away to get her. No questions asked and no punishment for her. She was never to get in a car with someone who had been drinking (Does that include Dad? Yes, although after a couple of drinks at dinner, I always get the keys), don't take an open drink from someone, don't come back to a drink you have left, and if you start feeling funny or sick, call and we'll get you home safely. That last part I was thinking of college, but I'm not naive enough to think kids can't get roofied at earlier ages.

With all the eye-rolling and "I know Moms" I wondered if she was paying attention. She was.

The night of her sleepover, I was headed home from work. I was 10 minutes from my door when I got her text "can you come and get me, right now?" I pulled over, texted her back, "text me the address," made a U-turn and headed back out into the night. Thirty minutes later she was getting into my car and I was pulling away.

Turns out the older sister of one of the kids showed up with a boyfriend and a joint in tow. A couple of her friends decided to smoke it with them and EB got uncomfortable. That's not her scene, so she did exactly what she was supposed to and got the heck out of Dodge.

Then the drama began. She was disappointed in the friends, who had an idea why she left, but they were begging her (via text of course) not to tell me why. They wanted to her to lie to me, and she didn't know if she should lie to them and tell them I didn't know. I said, no, you don't have to. Of course, once they knew I knew, they were petrified I would rat them out to their parents.

I didn't. And frankly, I didn't think about it much. Because I don't know their parents. Had EB been with kids whose parents I know, and I would be certain wouldn't shoot the messenger, I may have given it a second thought. But I was more concerned about my daughter getting out of an uncomfortable situation, than snitching on her friends and making EB a target for later. So I told her I had no intention of telling on anyone, but if asked a direct question, I wouldn't lie.

So EB didn't have to worry about being ostracized at school. Some of the kids who had been at the gathering and had left earlier, also were disappointed at the impromptu pot party. And gave it to the kids who took part. EB learned she isn't the only straight arrow in her group.

There were a few lessons learned that night. EB found out she didn't know her friends as well as she thought. She didn't want to judge them, but she was a little disappointed in them. She wasn't pressured into staying somewhere she felt uncomfortable and she knew we were proud of her for knowing how to extract herself with dignity.

Don't tell, they begged her. She didn't. But parents, if you haven't started asking, you may already be too late.