The Exhausted Dad: Tale of the absent child

When a kid becomes a teenager, schedules change.

The kid I used to see all the time now only makes the occasional cameo appearance in my life.

It took longer than some teenagers, but my 14-year-old recently overhauled her social schedule and personal interests. She loves marching band, and pep band, and color guard and ALL the people involved in those activities at school.

I’m not involved in those activities. Instead, I’m on the outside looking in, begging to hear about her friend Barb’s insights from last night’s practice. (Her name isn’t Barb, but it’s something close to it, and, for whatever reason I picture her as that character Barb from the first season of “Stranger Things.”)

At home, my daughter spends time in her room — reading, doing homework, texting her friends, watching “Grey’s Anatomy” and, in her words, “hiding from the chaos” of her three younger siblings. In her defense, I try to hide from the chaos too. But unlike her, nobody knocks on my door before entering and EVERYBODY comes right in with all their problems.

I understand the need for independence. Teenagers don’t want to watch kid shows. They don’t want to be lumped in with the rules and regulations of the non-teenager assortment. Still, it’d be nice to see her from time to time.

I refuse to see it as a "me" problem. I’m a delight! Nevertheless, it can be confusing to see her interests shift almost instantaneously based on a slight deviation in her mood.

A small example: My 14-year-old kept asking me about the Marvel movie “Thunderbolts.” She watched most of the Marvel movies with the rest of the family throughout the year but has trailed off as we ventured into the post “Avengers: Endgame” landscape. Can’t blame her, honestly.

Anyway, she wanted to watch “Thunderbolts,” and she kept saying she’d wait to watch it until the rest of the family made it to that movie. When we finally sat down to start “Thunderbolts,” my daughter came upstairs from her room for about three minutes. She made it through that long Marvel opening title logo and a tiny bit of the first scene.

Then she saw her sister sitting in the green recliner in our living room, AKA my 14-year-old’s favorite chair. Rather than sitting somewhere else or even asking her sister to move, she casually walked out of the room and said, “Eh, I don’t feel like watching this movie.”

I didn’t see her again until after the movie and all the other kids went to bed. When she came back, she sat down and started asking me about “Thunderbolts.”

“So was the movie good the second time? I want to watch it. Is Winter Soldier’s hair look better than that slicked-back look I saw? What’s the next movie after it? Do I need to watch something else to understand it?”

We went through all this before. Several weeks ago, then again last week and again just a few minutes before we started watching the movie.

As much as I didn’t want to take it personally, it bummed me out that she didn’t participate in the extremely passive activity of watching a movie together. I love movies! I write about movies! Spend time with your movie-loving dad! He has many, many, many recommendations!

I will still take any positive attention I can get. I happily answered all her questions about “Thunderbolts,” and made her cringe with a few references to the language of her generation (“It was bussin’!” “Definitely not mid!”).

Then she went off to bed, where she promptly slept until about 12:30 the next afternoon. She arose for some snacks then shuffled back to her room for most of the day.

Since she’s only 14, I do have one final trick for spending time with her. She can’t drive. She needs frequent rides to her afterschool activities, and, on the weekends, she likes to “get out of the house” and away from her younger siblings.

So I drive her around town. She’ll talk to me about anything and everything. Friends, school, boys, music, movies, her teachers, the dog, other people’s dogs, whatever season of “Grey’s Anatomy” she’s rewatching, whatever that random person on the side of the road is doing… anything. She’s trapped! And, I think, maybe, just maybe, she enjoys talking to her dad.

I won’t be rushing to sign her up for driver’s ed. Not until I convince her that I’m a fun person to be around and that I have many, many, many excellent movie recommendations for her.

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, an attorney, and parent to four kids, ages 8-14. He is tired. He can be reached at [email protected].

    The Exhausted Dad