The Parents Curse

I took my 15 year old daughter to the hair salon today. Not by choice, but by a 4:30 pm phone call from home asking/stating "I need a hair cut!! Can you take me? I want to get my hair cut & dyed."

My first thought...I'm at work! Can this wait??? No, obviously it cannot. Nothing can wait when you're 15 & menstruating. Even if you're not menstruating, you're not a nice person overall. Anyway, that's another angle. She must get her hair cut, "layered" tonight. Fine, call the salon & get an appointment, if you can. She hangs up & calls back 5 minutes later with an appointment at 5:15. Great, I get off work at 5pm and even though I work just over a mile from the house, the salon is not and getting there on time will mean speeding or leaving a 2 person office a few minutes earlier. I now need to tell my boss I'm not staying until 6 pm tonight to make sales calls because my daughter has an appointment. God forbid my husband, her father, take her because he has someone meeting him. In other words, I needs to do this

Now, once we get to the salon, I need to rein my daughter in because contrary to popular belief, I will not be able to purchase all that she sees/wants(basically the same thing) because the money tree in the backyard went down with the last hail storm. Also, being 15, 5'8" and curves in all the right places, she thinks the world revolves around her and grateful should be the "little people" who can do her bidding. I'm not sure where this superior attitude came from but I am sure that her therapist in 10 to 15 years will blame it all on me.

We meet her "stylist", Tracy, who seems to be basically normal; some of the stylists have funky hair & outfits, various piercings & visible tattoos that I personally do not agree with/like, Tracy has none of the above and recognizes that I'm Mom & probably paying (most important to ANY service work). As to not be intrusive, I chose a seat under the hair dyers & about 10 feet away from them. I'm far away enough not to be the interfering mother but close enough to hear the conversation.

The conversation..... I probably would have been better off choosing a seat further away. Or better yet, sat in the waiting area that way no one would know she's my child. I'm ready to concede that I have no idea what goes on at my daughter's high school. All I know is I'm hearing words & language that should be coming out of a proverbial sailors mouth, not my angelic daughter! She goes on and on about a situation at school which occurred in the halls going to class between her boyfriend and another boy. I tried my best not to look over in disgust & shock, but Tracy saw my face & slightly giggled at my response. By her response, she's heard this before, and also seen my response from other parents.

My greatest concern is that on the way to the salon, I asked her how her day was and her response was "fine". Now, sitting in a public place, not only having a stranger get more information from my child inside 3 minutes of meeting her than I have in her entire 15 years, but also other patrons now using their peripheral vision to see who's talking and who is "that child's parent!" Concern? Absolutely! Self preservation? Absolutely! I was just waiting for DFS (Division of Family Services) to come busting through the front doors & arrest me on the spot. Not only because of my obvious lack of concern or knowledge but also by the string of obscenities used in correct context. Where on earth did she learn all that? Yes, her father & I utterly the occasional curse word but only in my high school days did I speak like that.

Wait................... Only in my high school days??

The curse had worked. The curse my own mother placed upon me when I was 15. Those unmistakable words "I hope you get one just like you!" It had worked beautifully. On closer examination, I see myself, branching out, speaking like I thought an adult spoke, trying to be grown up, trying to prove something, but instead looking like an idiot. There was nothing my mother was going to tell me to change my mind, and it will probably be the same for my daughter. At some point, my mom sat back & watched, watched carefully so nothing serious would happen, but I think I'm going to have to do that as well. For the most part anyway.

I now understand why some species eat their young.....................