A Foolish Teenager Grows Up, Sort Of

I was driving home this afternoon from the mall with the CD player blasting in my car.  I had an old Stevie Wonder song playing, "Isn't She Lovely?" and I started thinking about how I was when I was an ignorant child, and a foolish teenager.  That song in particular brought back memories of my mother listening to that song, and my first reaction was guilt.  When I heard her listening to it when I was a child I had reacted to her by saying, well it was more of a forced reaction due to my need for being cool, that it was a stupid song.  And really it wasn't a stupid song.  It's a beautiful song.  A song about a man, a father, celebrating the joy of parenthood and sharing it with the world.  But being the rebellious child that I was, well I wasn't all that rebellious, but I was rebellious with my mother, I didn't dare allow her to enjoy it or so I thought.  If she liked a song, then I didn't.  And not only did I not like that song, even if I secretly did, it was immoral for my mother to play it much less like it.  I would almost become angry at her for liking a song.  She could only like the songs that I permitted her to like.  Perhaps it was more like contempt for her because she was my mother and she couldn't like a song that I liked.  That defied the code of parents and popular music.  And to make matters worse, my mother would then dance to the music.  Granted she didn't have much rhythm, but how dare she dance to a popular song.  But it gets worse my friends.  To dance and play a popular song in front of my friends or in public at any kind of party or event, such as a wedding.  Mortification sets in at this point.  Just shoot me and die.  As I sit here and reflect on these difficult memories, I recall that they continued on into my 20s, too.  Oh, the foolishness of my stupid pride.  My mother should've smacked me, and hard, too, for being so ignorant and unkind.  She did nothing to deserve it, but she must've understood that fine line that parents walk on with their kids.  While she didn't like how I was towards her with the issue of music, she never punished me for my cruelty.  I kind of wish now that she had embarrassed me more than she did.  I certainly deserved it.  Maybe that foolishness really never goes away.  I hope that there are others out there that have experienced this uncomfortable recollection of stupid behavior. 

But now the tables have turned, and perhaps it's my twisted way of working out my past, as I now have the pleasure of embarassing my stepchildren, particularly my 15 year old stepson.  I don't go to the extreme, but I have fun with it when the opportunity presents itself.  He hates everyone already, so I have nothing to lose at this point.  But eventually, hopefully, he'll grow out of this general hatred stage, and then I'll back off on embarassing him.  Maybe.  I guess we never really completely grow up, do we?