Our daughter can't see.
She needs to get an eye exam and glasses. WE've been telling ehr this for weeks, and she's been saying for weeks that she can see fine and that she isn't going to wear glasses. She's even run off to her room crying at the thought of having to wear "stupid dorky" glasses.
Her arguments have ranged from "everyone will make fun of me" to "If you make me get them I just won't wear them". Our counters have been "since when did you care what other people thought" to "you damn well will even if we have to strap them to your head".
It's been a merry-go-round of misery. She's been upset, we've been frustrated, and everyone's been ounhappy. It's been our first real taste of parenting a teenager who is really concerned about how she looks. I can understand it; her body is changing all the time and it's hard for her to come to terms with it. On the other hand....I'm her mother, and I have to do what I think is best for her. And right now, that means wearing glasses because she can't see.
Dave and I had decided to take a break from riding the merry-go-round for a while, but last night we had a breakthrough. Shea came into our bedroom as I was putting my laundry away, and had stood there squinting to try and read her dad's certificates on his 'wall of honor'. I took my glasses off and handed them to her, telling her to try them and see how she liked them. She did, and she looked up across the room....
"holy cow!!!! I can read like ALL the words!!!!"
Breakthough number 1. She likes that she can see again.
I told her we'd go look at pictures of the people in her favorite bands to see if we could find any of them wearing glasses. I was trying to show her that just because you wear glasses doesn't mean you're dorky and un-cool; that some very famous and cool people wear spectacles.
I showed her pictures of River from Weezer, Lisa Loeb (of course, I couldn't leave her out!), Avril Lavigne....and then we had breakthrough number 2.
She worships Fallout Boy. We found a picture of one of the guys from Fallout Boy wearing some chunky black glasses. That sealed it for her. Glasses are no longer for the uncool nerds, in her opinion. If one of her idols can wear glasses in public, so can she.
She got up this morning and asked to wear my glasses again today (apparently she REALLY likes being able to see), so I asked her if she'd be willing to get an eye exam today and order some glasses of her own. She said yes, and as luck would have it, the optometrist had an opening just after lunchtime this afternoon. She wants some chunky black frames, and I know that the place she's getting her eyes tested at has some chunky black frames for a very low price - because I was going to order some for myself the next time I got new glasses.
I'm going to ride this wave of eyeglass enthusiasm for as long as I can, because the time before she decided she liked glasses was pretty miserable. Shea as a teenager is a force to be reckoned with, it's nothing like when she was a little girl and would acquiesce without too much trouble. Had push come to shove she'd have got glasses because we would have MADE her, but that would have made veryone miserable and she'd have likely 'lost' them or 'broken' them in pretty short order. I'm not a big fan of a miserable household, it destroys any and all positive energy and makes our home an uncomfortable place to be. Doing it this way is much easier.
Parenting a teen is NOT as easy as I thought it would be, and it scares me to think that it's going to get worse than this. It's going to be a learning experience for everyone involved, I think.