The teenage years. A time when everything accelerates. Height, emotions, independence, intelligence, physical abilities, the need to establish a unique identity. When it happens, no young person seems ready and for some reason parents seem even less prepared.
I've wondered, at times, how the son of a revolutionary would rebel against his dad. Do Alice Cooper's kids turn the music down when they want to aggravate him?
I saw a documentary the other day on George Harrison. He is gone now, of course, but old interviews and comments from family and friends gave a great portrait of the "quiet Beatle."
It was over three hours long, but what fascinated me most was a part that focused on George's teenage son. A thoughtful young man, handsome, well-spoken and a musician himself. Longer hair and tattoos embellished his own laid-back musical persona and I found myself drawn to the story of his relationship with his father. Specifically, in his early teen years, before he became a good guitar player on his own, and at that age when many of us want to express our own opinions.
How does a 14 year old push back against his world famous musician father? The older Harrison was a man who experimented. He checked out drugs, exotic varieties of music, political ideas. He could question authority as easily as any figure that ever emerged from the 1960's, and when his son began to understand and appreciate it all, how difficult it must have been to show his dad and the world that there was a brand new Harrison in Liverpool.
Of course he found his own way: He told dad he wanted a haircut and wished to join a military academy.
The father must have been astounded and probably didn't take it well. Arguments ensued but the young man got his chance to leave the rockstar world for a little more order and discipline.
That version of a crewcut and starched younger Harrison apparently didn't last long. In the end, like many father - son relationships, there came a healthy resolution. It just takes a while.
And so I try to remember that the most I can ask of my son these days is to be himself. Not a leaner and smoother skinned version of me. But a unique young man, coming up with his own ideas about the world that may be completely right, or wrong, or in-between, but discovered and shaped in his own way. Even though I'll swear sometimes he's using some sort of backward-to-dad compass to navigate the first portion of his very long journey.
He's smart, and I know he will sometimes listen. I'll try to gently remind him that adventurers are willing to set off into the wild being prepared but never certain. Because turning completely around happens at times, and the best of navigators always keep careful track of where they have been.
