MY FRIEND SUSAN and I were sitting together in the bleachers at a football game when the mother in front of us wrapped her arm around the neck of her teen-age son, pulled him close, kissed his cheek and then ruffled his hair.
Susan and I immediately looked at each other with the same rueful smiles.
"If I'd have done that with Joe, I might have gotten an elbow in the mouth," I whispered. She nodded in agreement. Her son never would have put up with that kind of affection, either.
That's because we have state-of-the-art, regulation, cookie-cutter adolescent boys. They woke up on the mornings of their 13th birthdays and found that they could not even be in the same room with their parents, let alone endure their touch.
What we had just witnessed was a rare, if enviable, physical closeness between a parent and a teen-age child.
Anthony Wolf, author of a series of lively and readable books for parents, including Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall, says that the "love-attachment-dependence" feelings that were the impetus for years of cuddling are now - quite suddenly - horrifying to the child who is beginning to morph into an independent young adult.
"The conflict inside them is real," Wolf said during a recent lecture at Beth Tfiloh Community School in Baltimore County. "The tension is real. And it comes out in the presence of the parent."
You can see it in their body language, Wolf said. They are physically uncomfortable. They are agitated the minute a parent enters the room.
"Just your presence is aggravating, let alone if you talk to them. God forbid you should touch them," he said. "It is as if they are allergic to you."
This yearning for the physical comfort of mom or dad, the overwhelming feelings of love, the comfort of knowing your parents will take complete care of you - these feelings are still active in the teen-age heart, but they are absolutely unacceptable to him. They are a reminder of what he was, and they are no part of what he wants to be - independent, adult.
Boys and girls deal with these conflicting feelings in different ways, Wolf said. Boys, by isolating themselves. Girls, by getting in your face.
"Boys will go into their rooms, turn up their stereo real loud, play video games and come out only for dinner and high school graduation," says Wolf.
"Boys absent themselves. Even when they are with you, they are absent." The grunted response and the thousand-yard stare are evidence that your boy is not actually there at all.
Girls, on the other hand, stay engaged with their parents, though it is most often very unpleasant. They challenge everything, wrangle over anything. But the good news is, even standing toe-to-toe, girls can draw needed support from their parents. Sparks may be flying, but there is still a connection.
"Boys avoid that kind of conflict because it quickly becomes physical. It will go over the line, and they can't seem to handle it," said Wolf. "Girls may actually have the healthier approach."
If these emerging independent young adult males don't want to deal with us, you can be sure they don't want to be hugged by us. They can't bear it, and they will throw us off like a heavy coat in a hot room.
That, too, may become more physical than either of us likes. You may not get a stray elbow in the face, but you will certainly experience a shrug of irritability that will break your heart.
"For parents, this is a terrible loss," said Wolf. "Overnight, your child changed from a snuggler to someone who can't be in the room with you.
"In the end, they will come back to you, but it will never be the same."
The only alternative is for the parents to retreat to cheerful ignorance - pretending we don't realize how utterly annoying we are.
"We are saying to them, 'I know you can't stand me, but I don't take it personally. And I like being around you anyway.'"