Elephants and Teenagers

Elephant Fact # 4: An adult female elephant is referred to as a ‘cow’.

I’m currently writing this in the car, coming home from school. Mainly because I feel that if I have to spend another second reading about Usher and his damn House, something—someone—is going to be set on fire.

You think I’m kidding?

Anyway, I know that I don’t have much to complain about. I get driven to school every single day by parents that I know I don’t appreciate enough, am given anything and everything I could ever want for and more and most importantly—I have clean socks to wear each day. The grass is greener on my side.

But I still do my fair share of whining, complaining and generally being a complete brat—I curse, I fume, I rage like a woman in labor.

Just being a teenager, I guess.

But why does this happen? Is it that when we reach a certain age, something in our brain switches on the production of ‘dick’ hormones, ready to use our body as a vessel to unleash its fiery wrath on the rest of the unsuspecting world?

I guess all of this sort of just came to mind. Not too long ago, my friend who is quite a bit younger than I am was having a go at her mother for messing up her order in a restaurant. Her mom works long hours each day, takes night shifts regularly and is a single parent to two kids. And she still has time to take them somewhere nice each weekend-- Movie World, Dreamworld.

I couldn’t help but feel a sort of bubbling confusion interspersed with slight indignation when I saw my friend talk down to her this way on one of the rare nights she had time off. Couldn’t she see how much her mother was doing for her? How much fun she was having at the moment?

Then my ‘hypocrite’ senses began tingling.

I am an only child. All my life, everything has been about me. If I were a planet, my parents would be the two largest of my many moons.

When I was younger, my parents did their best to give me everything—piano lessons, violin lessons, swimming lessons, tap, ballet, jazz, fucking interpretive dancing lessons, acting lessons, singing lessons (those didn’t pay off so well), tennis lessons, etc. Whenever we went to the mall, there was always a set routine: I’d point, they’d buy.

I have everything.

And how do I repay them now? Yikes, I don’t even wanna get into that. Let’s just say that I’m, ah…less than grateful.

Okay, I’m a total asshole.

But I don’t have to be. For example, if they say to me, “Get your underwear off the floor of your room, it’s disgusting” I can just do as they say without any snappy comments. If they say to me, “No, we’re not watching Spongebob Squarepants, it’s Easter and we are going to watch motherfucking Jesus of Nazareth” I can just comply without any eye-rolling or back-sass. It’s not hard.

But why is it so hard?

Because we’re human, that’s why. We’re not perfect. When we get annoyed, or angry, we don’t  think, ‘Hey, at least I’m not being raped by grizzly bears!’ we think, ‘Bitch, give me that ice cream or die’.

It’s not easy being parents—but it’s not easy being teenagers either.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, maybe we should all be a little nicer to our parents. They love us, and underneath all our clichéd rebellion, I guess we love them too.

So be nice. Hug your mom. Laugh at your dad’s lame jokes. Watch TV with them for awhile, even if nothing interesting is on.

Or, if you’re me…

…motherfucking swear less in church.

The Unlucky Elephant