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Roberta Israeloff
Junior Year

“I’m going to do good in school this year,” Jake says. I’m driving him to his first day of eleventh grade, which falls on his sixteenth birthday.

“Well,” I say.

“Well what?” he asks.

“You’re going to do well this year. I’m happy to hear you say that . . .”

“Don’t,” Jake says. I haven’t begun my new sentence; he hears my catch-breath.

“Don’t what?” I ask.

“Don’t say anything else. Just stop right there.”

“All I was going to say was . . .”

“I know what you were going to say. You were going to tell me how to raise my average, right? Right?”
“Yes,” I say. There’s no point trying to deny it. We know each other too well. And we’ve had this conversation hundreds of times before. “But you brought it up.”

“And you can’t leave well enough alone. That’s why I have no respect for you. Or Dad.” He doesn’t turn away or slam anything, but he hardens his eyes. Silently, we watch his friends pull into the parking lot. I’ve forgotten that this is the year they all learn to drive. Jake behind the wheel. Now there’s an image I’ve done my best to suppress…

Excerpted from I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers Copyright 2005 by Roberta Israeloff