My work mate, Margarita, peered at me through thick, black glasses and answered matter of factly:
“American smile is sitting on face but eyes speak truth. In Russia, only reason for smile is showing joy, not pretend how you do or fake ha-ha-I-fine mouth.”
She’d been in the US only three years when I asked her what our biggest cultural difference is. I’d imagined her answer would be something about how we work. But instead she mimicked the brisk, late-to-a-meeting walk, gave me the hey “what’s-up" chin, and sweetly purred “how you doing” without slowing. It could’ve been me walking down that hall. Despite feeling quite the ass, the force to return a fake-smile and say “I’m fine” was strong in this One.
And like when you buy a new white Prius and pass five Priuses on the drive home from the dealership, once I saw the pretend “how you dos” and “I fine mouths,” I couldn't unsee them. That's still true. Now more than ever.
Since COVID, there’s been an epidemic of fake ha-ha-I-fine-mouths on parents of teenagers. Why teens? Because parents of little kids get universal acknowledgement of how hard parenting is. It’s obvious. No amount of noise cancellation can offset the unmistakable toddler wail in the middle of a video meeting. And as we watch moms and dads console their little ones, parents in meetings take turns sympathy-singing “Oh, I remember THAT age” and “It’ll be easier when they’re older.”
Lies.
It’s not easier when they’re older. Difference is teens wait until their parents’ video is off before fussing. As I write this, I can hear my son, A, yelling in his almost-man voice about having to do Physics homework on a Sunday and my husband’s pissed / not-pissed reply.
After a year of home-school, A prefers to watch Letterkenny. In that world, he can imagine being a big fish in a small Canadian pond who is always cracking jokes with friends. In this one, A is a juvenile fish with homework who never gets the chance to swim because of COVID.
School sucks. School is where life happens, but it’s not actually happening. So real life sucks, too. And A wants us to know just how much it ALL sucks, all day, every day.
With few chances to hang out, who else can he--and other teens--share this unnatural, unreal, unimaginable adolescence with except us. Unfortunately, we parents are mostly alone, too. Why? Because we’re terrified of sounding ungrateful.
While everyone’s struggle is unique, behind the “I’m fines,” there’s an undercurrent of something that’s hard to name. Something that includes a secret but substantial shame, making it darn near impossible to say anything after “I’m fine,” except ”the kids are fine, too.”
On a low-drama day, we might spill our guts to other parents, as a warning to parents of little ones and a confession to parents with teens. But only after first giving an “I know I’m blessed" caveat can we seek absolution through shared experience. Can we ask forgiveness for our teens' straight Fs and weekly counseling sessions and non-stop doom scrolling and disappearing friendships.
When talk turns to what it’s like being at home, however, words still fail. Maybe it's because nobody wants to be the first to say I've got parenting fatigue; it sucks every single day. Or to admit to being out of fucks to give because there’s no milk for the fourth bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats.
Or maybe there’s no English word that encapsulates:
I’m privileged by the very nature of this conversation. I know people are suffering. I don’t know how to reconcile the bigness of what’s happening in the world with the bigness of the responsibility I feel for the people I love most in the world.
I don’t know why. But until our teens start swimming again, I’ll keep my “fake ha ha I fine mouth” in my pocket ready and waiting for the 100 “pretend how you dos” I get in meetings each week. Why? Because nobody really wants to know about any of this.