Family Daze

Apartment conversion comes on the heels of 9-year-old's birthday

By Debbie Farmer

I've just received some unexpected news: I've become a landlord in my own house. Let me explain. Yesterday, when my daughter turned 9 years old, she put on her most stylish shoes, hoisted her new CD player onto her shoulder, and informed us that from now on we should refer to her bedroom as her "apartment." I was shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

I don't need to tell you that this conjures up all sorts of unpleasant images I'm not ready for. Like, for instance, my daughter inviting 15 of her closest friends over for a housewarming party. Not to mention the reaction I'm going to get from the city zoning commission when I tell them that I'm now the landlord of a 100-square-foot fully furnished rental unit wedged between the linen closet and my son's room.

Of course I realized this for what it was: her first faltering step toward independence. And any parent knows what's called for here is tolerance and perhaps even encouragement.

"No way! " I shouted. "No! No! No! No! No!"

She countered my airtight argument by rolling her eyes and turning up the CD player.

Clearly I needed some backup, so I enlisted my husband's support.

"Oh, be reasonable," he said. "It's not like she's really moving out or anything."

Naturally, this is a very fatherish thing to say. But, you know, he could be right. Maybe I should try to be reasonable.

And, mind you, all this reasonableness probably would've been fine if my daughter had left it at that. But noooo. She didn't stop there. A few days later she insisted on redecorating. First she took down the ballerina bunny border and the pink satin balloons I so artfully put up over her crib six years earlier and tacked up a Mary Kate and Ashley poster. Then she hung purple beads along her doorway. And if that wasn't enough, she had the nerve to replace her bright red toy chest with a new lava lamp.

The last straw came when she requested her own phone line.

"Who are you going to call?" I asked.

"It's not for me, it's for you," she said in an "of course" sort of way. "That way you can call before you come over." She smiled brightly.

My automatic response was to ask if she mistook me for someone with the IQ of, say, a dung beetle. But instead, I decided to call someone who would understand: my friend Julie, the mother of two teenagers.

"What is it about girls turning 9?" I hissed into the phone. "It's like living with, well, a crazy person."

"I know," she said. "It's just nature's way of preparing you for what's ahead in the next couple of years. Sort of like a dress rehearsal for a really bad play."

You've got to admit that she had a good point. Needless to say, about the only course of action left to me was to try to be a Sensitive Mom--an "I-once-was-a-9-year-old-girl-and-remember-how-it-is" kind of mom. With this in mind, I bought her a bean bag chair and a plant for a housewarming gift. She invited me in for a neighborly snack of graham crackers and milk.

In all honesty, once inside, what I really wanted to do was launch into my three-part lecture series on Real Life, supplemented with diatribes on trivial subjects like getting a full-time job, becoming a self-sufficient adult, and finishing college and all that.

But all that came out of my mouth were the words: "Hey, groovy pad."

"Gee thanks, Mom," she smiled.

I can only hope that for her 10th birthday she doesn't want a car.

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Debbie Farmer is the author of Life in the Fast-Food Lane: Surviving the Chaos of Parenting. Order online: http://www.booklocker.com/bookpages/debbiefamer02.html, call 925.695.2020, x7166 or visit her website at: www.familydaze.com. Questions or comments? Email her at paradigmnews@familydaze.com or write to her c/o Paradigm News, Inc., P.O. Box 111372, Stamford, Conn. 06911-1372.

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