650 wds
Get my good side, will ya?
by Michele Ranard

A few years back Jaime Leigh Curtis discussed motherhood on a talk show and compared children to paparazzi. She said they take your picture when you don’t want them to and then show it to you in their behavior. The metaphor struck a chord.

It is true my children unknowingly expose my contradictions (FLASH!), reflect them back (it ain't pretty), and make denial impossible. To see your parental blemishes unveiled like Courtney Love’s latest botched lips or Tara Reid’s wandering boob can be unnerving.

The trick may be to learn something from the photos the paparazzi snap; to endure the light of their truth without pulling a Sean Penn. On a bad day, pictures are snapped of me losing my cool, gossiping, or failing to apologize--lots of red-eye. But on a better day, an emotionally stable mom allows those same unflattering portraits to point the way toward personal growth.

It’s not figurative photos which have me ranting today. Today I am more concerned with how technology turns my teens into literal paparazzi.

It seems nothing is quite so trippy for the eighth grader as punking his emotive mother and preserving that memory digitally. Irreverent in my sense of humor, normally I’m a good sport. But his last Bam Margera/Benny Hill inspired video incorporated a cousin and a tiny Speedo. I won’t say more.

And the texting! The incessant texting when we are doing nothing on God’s worldwide web worth noting. Even the most uninhibited parent would feel self-conscious sharing space with such a documentarian.

Texting junkies live for catapulting breaking news to the touch-screens of their peeps. While lunching with a friend, I spotted my eldest son’s ex-girlfriend who appeared not to notice us. However, by the time we arrived home, my friend’s daughter knew (via a forwarded text) where and when we had dined and probably if there were ice cubes in the lemonade. Slow day for serial stalking voyeurs?

We’re not even safe on holidays when the family gathers. On Christmas Eve, our family room dance party was covered by a paparazza nephew texting the holy night bump-and-grind. Entertaining an audience of other sophomores, his phone was inundated with texts from friends broadcasting assorted more inebriated festivities.

Like true paparazzi, capturing contentment or well-dressed parents won't bring home the Benjamins. Glossies of celebutantes sans makeup eating burritos or emerging from their ride thong-less are what the public craves, and likewise, papa-nazi here score with “check out my dad’s sleep apnea” or “dude, watch my mom’s eyes pop.”

At school, students are armed and dangerous with weapons of class destruction. Yes, phones are supposed to be turned off, but teachers know kids are a click away from filming and posting career killing youTube footage. I suspect even janitors and class bullies do a little more checking before wrecking themselves these days.

To live with techie mosquitoes and be stung by their obsession is to be solidly aware you are out of touch with millennial MySpacers. Old school, I have sent three texts from my phone in my entire lifetime while my son averages three every five-minutes. I honestly have no clue beyond hot girls, parkour, and Halo what pressing matters warrant one thousand texts from a 14-year-old in a single week.

In his defense, he assures me if texting had been available in 1980, I would have been hooked. He knows I love language and delights in reminding me how quickly I was sucked into a FaceBook frenzy. FLASH & SNAP! See what I mean? The papasnotzis are vicious.

Whether you live the high life or cautiously under a rock, the paps will catch you with your eyes closed. They simply thrive on mid-chew moments. Daily parental comings and goings, cursing slips, burnt dinners, dad in ripped boxers, or mom’s greasy ponytail are all fodder on their mission to keep the parents paranoid, defensive, and anxious and AT ALL COSTS, NEVER STOP TEXTING.

If only we could photoshop those freakin metaphorical pictures.

Michele Ranard is a professional counselor, academic tutor, and freelancer with a cheeky blog at hellolovelychild.blogspot.com.