Coming Of Age

I graduated from high school a year early. Thanks to yearly summer school attendance -- as an extreme nerd I had virtually no life -- I had enough credits to graduate. The problem was, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't interested in any of the universities that would have me, and I didn't know what I wanted to study. Above all, I dreaded the thought of staying in my hometown and attending our local university. I was bored and miserable and itching to get away from the familiar. And I was dying to have adventures.

One evening, I saw a notice in the university commons. Cuba was struggling to find enough workers to harvest their sugar cane and they were recruiting students. Anyone with the airfare who was willing to work hard was offered free room and board.

I couldn't believe what a good deal this was: free room and board and the chance to have the adventure of my lifetime! And living among Cubans, I would be forced to learn Spanish. It seemed almost too good to be true.

To my irritation, my mother did not see things my way. "Don't be ridiculous, you're much too young."

When I protested that I was seventeen, she snorted. "You're too soft."

This got my back up. "I am not!"

Every summer, my sisters and I helped our parents in the fields where my father and his colleagues conducted experiments on peppers. When I reminded her of this, my mother rolled her eyes. "You can't compare what you do in the pepper fields to real field work!"

She pointed out that we could take breaks when we wanted to, that we could sit in the head house and drink water, that during the worst of the heat, we were at liberty to sit in the shade. And finally, that we occasionally got taken out for hot fudge sundaes after our labors. "There are no hot fudge sundaes in Cuba," she concluded, raising her eyebrows.

"I don't need hot fudge sundaes!" I lied. "I can work all day if I have to!"

My mother laughed. "Can and do are two different things. You're the first one to plead exhaustion when we're pulling weeds."

"That's because pulling weeds is boring."

"Listen to me," my mother hissed, "because you don't know what you're talking about. Sugar cane shreds your hands and cutting it is hard work. The bugs are fierce, your co-workers would be veteran field hands who would mock you with your pale skin and soft hands and squeamish ways. You'd be a rabbit among wolves. Give up this crazy idea."

I had too much pride to back down, but she had me with the bugs. In fact, she'd had me with no hot fudge sundaes. I stopped talking about Cuba and sugar cane. A month later my cousin invited me to come and stay with her in Miami and my mother readily agreed. I ended up getting a job there and staying a year, and my mother was fine with that too. Ironically, I met a lot of Cubans and actually managed to learn a little Spanish.

Fast forward to now. I'm on MSN with Eldest Daughter, age seventeen, and she informs me that she has a great plan: she wants to backpack around Asia. "South Korea!" she writes. "Vietnam! Laos! Thailand! Cambodia -- and Chiiina!"

I suddenly feel week in the knees. "You can't go to all of those places if you're starting university," I hastily write back.

"Duh," comes her answer. "I can too. I'm saving up for it."

We're at it, back and forth, for half an hour or so -- "You can't...!" from me and "Oh MOOOOM" from her. My one advantage is that I'm a much faster typist than she is: I can say more in less time. I don't win the argument -- I can never win arguments with her -- but we finally agree to disagree. A week passes and there are no mentions of Asia. Then one day, she logs onto MSN in raptures of joy. "Mom, I've just found the coolest au pair job in Japan! It's starting next month!"

She arrived in Tokyo four hours ago. Ah well, her Japanese will definitely get stronger. And maybe she won't need to backpack around Asia after all...