Power play

What kind of kid would break up with his mother? Mine, apparently.

By Amy Sunshine

Mar 16, 2000 | One of the first things I did after my son was born was to consult Ellen, my best friend from high school, who had moved to a fraying ranch house on the edge of Santa Fe, N.M., and fancied herself an astrologer. Given David's exact time and place of birth, she said, she could produce a full astrological chart that would offer up a map of his character and his future.

But I already knew what was in store for this scrawny, tufted chick: He would be a poet, a mystic and an intellectual. Anyone could see that this child was an extraordinary Old Soul come back to foster spiritual growth on earth and, under my tutelage, become the perfect partner for some very lucky woman.

Ellen didn't see it that way. "Wow, April 20 -- he's on the cusp of Aries and Taurus," she reported. "He's a headstrong little sucker; you'll have your hands full. And look at this -- Leo rising. Money and power, that's what will drive him. He'll be a whiz at business. "

Business? That's ridiculous, I decided. What did Ellen know, anyway, a woman who ate weird grains, such as amaranth, and sometimes slept in her clothes? My son would be contemplative, like me, not competitive. David went on to confirm my prescience with his first words, spoken remarkably young: "yogi," "Buddha" and "light." Of course, yogi was short for Yogi Bear, and Buddha turned out to be his best pronunciation of "bird," but I knew where he was coming from. "Welcome to the world, my gentle spirit," I whispered into the delicious folds of his baby neck.

My first hint that Gandhi Junior might have entrepreneurial leanings came when he was 8 and I brought him to work for my company's annual Kids' Day. While my co-workers' offspring swarmed the magician, my son headed off to a computer terminal, tapped out a message and whisked it through the copy machine. Within minutes, each of my colleagues had this flier on her desk:

DAVE'S DELIVERY SERVICE

Water and juice brought directly to your desk. 5 cents.

P.S. Damn I love this job!

"What a piece of work he is," one of them remarked. "What's his sign, anyway?"

"Aries and Taurus," I told her, feeling silly. I like to think of my otherworldly interests as practical and grounded, not to be confused with anything as airy-fairy as the alignment of stars. "He's on the cusp."

"Oh wow, April 20," she said. "Same birthday as Hitler. Now here's a kid who knows his own mind. Is he terribly willful?"

"My boy?" I said. "Of course not. He's the sweetest, most emotionally available, easiest child on the planet." And so he was, spending as much time as he could curled up in my lap or, earlier, draped over my shoulder, until adolescence kicked in.

David matured early; he was shaving at 12. By that time, his father and I had gone through a bitter divorce and I'd been making skittish but steady progress in a new relationship for a few years. David and Don, my boyfriend, liked each other, but there were undercurrents of jealousy. "Tell him he can't park in the garage," David said. "That's Dad's spot. And he can't use the leaf blower, and I don't want his kids sleeping over in my old room."

Things got worse when Don moved in a year later. David took to his room for days at a time, surfacing, sullenly, only for meals. Having pored over all the "how to create a happy stepfamily" manuals, I knew enough to recognize his behavior as normal. Give the child enough room to express himself, the experts counseled, but not to call the shots.

"The only thing worse for a kid than having an Oedipal conflict," said my friend Pat, a therapist, "is winning it." So I listened empathically as David raged at me in hair-curling language, and quietly continued to build my life with Don, hopeful that David would come around in time.

Meanwhile, David was busy making his own way. At 13, he walked to the end of our street and got himself a job behind the counter at the local sporting goods store, of which I knew nothing until he casually asked me one day for "a ride to work." Completely uninterested in any of the thoughtful, enlightening activities I had in mind for him, he was obsessed with hockey, electronics and, as usual, commerce. "You know, Mom," he told me in a rare moment of communication, "sometimes I can't wait for high school to be over so I can start my business."

I let myself believe that he was settling into our new arrangement until the weekend Don and I decided to get married. "That's it, I'm outta here," David thundered, slamming the door when he heard the news and moving in with his father across town. I had chosen another man over him, David told his father, and that was that -- he was done with me.

"I hate you, you bitch," he spat over the telephone, both of us in tears. For nearly six months afterward he refused my calls.

Next Page: He was in pain and I couldn't help

• View blog reactions