What to Call the ‘11-Year-Old Kid’ Going on 13? Now, That’s a Problem

The start of a new year seems a good time to assess the nomenclature of the 11-year-old-kid-going-on-13. Several crucial things are now taking place in his life. In addition to turning the corner on the downhill slope to becoming a teen-ager, he has mastered--more-or-less--the task of taking out the trash each Wednesday morning and has also discovered girls. As girls.

At such a watershed in his life, it seemed appropriate to discuss with him his views on his treatment in this column. He agreed that approaching the hallowed age of 13, he should probably no longer be referred to as the 11-year-old kid--a change of position since last summer when he decidedly preferred that title. But that, of course, was before he found out for sure that he was going to have to take out the trash anyway.

“So how,” I asked him, “would you like to be referred to now?”

He put down his Batman comic book and thought it over for at least 15 seconds.

Then he said: “As the 13-year-old kid”--and went back to his comic book.

When I pressed him for an alternative--pointing out that while this was mathematically correct, it showed a certain lack of imagery--he couldn’t come up with any. He said the 13-year-old-kid would be just fine with him.

So I’m on my own. What I didn’t explain to him is that we apparently need to do a nose job on his name. Cosmetics have entered the picture.

A lot of people--both editors and readers--continue to feel that I am somehow demeaning my stepson by referring to him as the 11-year-old kid. What I can’t seem to get across is that this is not a generic statement about the dignity of youth. It is quite simply a rather accurate expression of the relationship between two people: my stepson and me. He thinks it’s funny. So do I. It also catches the flavor of the way we deal with one another.

Columnist Mike Royko refers to his wife as “the blonde” in his column, which probably sets feminists’ teeth to grinding coast to coast. But that is no more a statement about womanhood than the “11-year-old kid” is a statement about youth. It simply reflects the rapport between Royko and his wife. If she doesn’t care--or even finds it amusing--why should anyone else?

So I’ve resisted change, but he is clearly growing up, and I suppose that should be reflected in the way I refer to him in this column--even if he prefers a slight modification of the old way. So I plan to come up with a new title. I’m not sure at this point exactly what it will be, but one of my New Year’s resolutions is to find a way that can be at least marginally satisfactory to both of us.

Meanwhile, I’m making another resolution: to not back away from dealing with both personal and public issues in the year ahead with a quality called irreverence that seems to be in very short supply around here--and quite possibly all over the country. My stepson was puzzled about the name change, and I thought about discussing the leavening quality of irreverence with him, but he’s not quite ready for that yet. He understands it instinctively well enough that intellectualizing it would serve no purpose at this point.

But we are surrounded by people who perpetually take themselves and their institutions too seriously, and the best antidote I know is irreverence, which is a much misunderstood quality. It is not cynicism, nor is it a tearing down of values and principles. The cynic has given up on humankind, and the revolutionary would rend its institutions and replace them with chaos. But the irreverent genuinely likes people and supports institutions by shaking them a little and saying, “C’mon, take a look at your own absurdities and mellow down.” Irreverence--which is effective only when it is couched in humor--is the only known cure for a social disease called stuffiness.

I’m as guilty as the next guy. I get carried away on some of my own crusades, but I’m lucky enough to have friends and family who pull me up short when I start taking myself too seriously. I can’t imagine a greater service a friend can perform.

If this seems a long way from changing the nomenclature for my stepson in this column, perhaps I’ve allowed myself to launch a mini-crusade from the fragile platform of letting go of an affectionate name. If so, I’m guilty as charged and will do penance by reading the collected speeches of Rep. William E. Dannemeyer.

Meanwhile, the “11-year-old kid” is dead. But long live “the 11-year-old kid.”