Sunrise, sunset

Laden with happiness and tears.

— "Fiddler on the Roof"

Luckily, neither of my kids is getting married or starting lives of their own. But as the days fly by, Reb Tevye's words resonate more and more: "What words of wisdom can I give them? How can I help to ease their way?"

As my 12-year-old creeps ever closer to his teens, he still looks to me for help, but mostly in the practical sense. I am ATM, chauffeur, personal shopper and master of the microwave. But life coach? Not in his reality.

He doesn't want to listen to me drone on and on about the ways of the world. He's more interested with his own wisecracks than any pearls of wisdom I may have to offer. To his credit, I often am, too. Lecture or laughter ... which would you choose? One big difference between 12 and 36 is that as you get older a lecture stops being something you only hear when you've done something wrong.

On the bright side, I know that my son does learn something from my pedantic monologues. Unfortunately, his new knowledge tends to manifest itself when he's using it against me, mostly in a maddening way, but every once in a while he turns my words so skillfully that I can't help but be impressed.

In general, though, I prefer his humor. Although I often have to inform him that his "jokes" aren't funny, I am just as frequently staggered by the cleverness of the ones that are. He only notices that I burst out laughing because he can't see that inside I'm beaming with joy that he let his smart-aleck 'tude drop long enough to display some real smarts.

It's that native intelligence that I want to cultivate, or get him to cultivate, rather. If there was only one thing that I could impress on him, it would be that he could really improve his lot in life if he used his critical thinking skills for more productive endeavors.

Sure, there's some value in the ability to make someone LOL over a witty comment tapped into the chat field of a computer game, but it's an endless struggle to convince him to use some of the same kind of insight in something he's writing for school. Along the same lines, I've seen him labor for hours to get a video just right so he can post it online, but I never see that kind of intensity and perfectionism when he's preparing for a class presentation.

I can point him, lead him or drag him kicking and screaming in the right direction, but he's quickly reaching the point where he's going to have to decide for himself which direction he wants to take.

If only there really were words of wisdom I could use to ease his way.