Parenting Reflections Of A Hippie Mother: I Think My Son Is EMO

My 14 year old son, Dakotah (the name has been changed to protect him, whether he's innocent, or not!), borrowed my eyeliner last week without asking me. Apparently, it is part of his *new* look. Hours in front of the bathroom mirror allow him "hang with his friends" feeling his absolute best. This rather unique appearance includes a curtain bang sweeping from above his right eye to his left cheekbone, skin tight pants, and a marvelous kaleidescope of color combinations in his wardrobe. Did I say his pants are tighter than tight?

Now, mind you, I was a hippie girl at the tail end of the flower child generation. I paid the same kind of attention to my appearance as Dakotah. I spent hours adjusting my waist-length permed hair, lacing up my men's workboots, and making certain that my plaid flannel shirt from the Goodwill was sufficiently baggy. This was at a time in my life that I possessed an incredible female body. It is definitely true what they say, that youth is wasted on the young. I had no idea at the time the power a woman's body could wield in the world. Anyway, my image was completed with a couple of dabs of patchouli oil. I'm not sure how much beauty the world can, or could, handle. But I knew for sure I was right there. Far out. I'm sure my parents believed I was pretty far out there, too.

Fast forward twenty years, and I'm giving birth to the most incredible little boy angel that the world has ever seen. I was hypnotized by his blond hair and beautiful brown eyes - my eyes - staring back at me. I failed to detect the horn buds on his head until just a few years back.

He tells me that he's not emo, and that there are different meanings to the word. There can be emo music, emo people, and then, just "kind of like happy-emo people who dress emo but are really happy inside." He reassures me that he is "Scene", not "Emo". Not that any of the words really mean much to me, other than signifying teen-age rebellion. I sigh a huge breath of relief knowning that it isn't an orientation thing, the black nail polish and eyeliner, and friends who look stranger than even he does. It's simply finding himself. Kind of the way that I did way back when I wasn't wearing foundation garments.

My husband discovered the fated and melted eyeliner in the washing machine. He's not emo either. I think you would call him redneck. (That would be short hair, a Chevy truck, a tin of Kodiak, and a case of beer in the pantry in this neck of the woods.) Bruce doesn't buy the "happy-emo" explanation. It wouldn't be politically correct to label his explanation for Dakotah's unique appearance. I think Bruce might hold me responsible for letting him dress like that and steal my eyeliner. And, that is pretty much true. I sense the free spirit in Dakotah that needs to be expressed. It was the same passion that led me to protest a war that I was too young to understand. My friends and I burned our bras at a time when we didn't need them, and were too young even realize it.

Dakotah just started his first job working as a volunteer at the local hospital. He's there tonite working in the emergency room. He called me on his lunch break to tell me that he had helped a "cranky old man" who had been swearing and crying. He brought him a food tray and helped him eat his dinner, because the patient only had one arm. I guess angels come in all kinds of disguises, even emo ones. I couldn't be prouder of the man my son is becoming, regardless of the labels that I don't understand. Just stay out of my make-up, Dakotah.