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Bubbly, not pearly: This K-12 writer took her teen back-to-school shopping one last time

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Bubbly, not pearly: This K-12 writer took her teen back-to-school shopping one last time

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Even education reporters have to do back-to-school shopping.

In late August, I took my high school senior — we call her Nila at home — on a final shopping trip for school supplies before our mutual K-12 journeys — hers as a student, and mine as a mom — come to an end.

But first, a sentence about priorities.

For the nearly 17-year-old female, clothing is as much a necessity for a satisfying — and honorable — return to school as are sharpened pencils and a charged Chromebook. High school shopping budgets must balance stationery with the sartorial. Please — but a trip to purchase a senior’s first-day outfit, coordinated with other girls in their cohort, was on the list.

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Why did I forget to take this into account? What was I thinking? Am I even a mother of that mystifying mix of savage fragility and uncomplicated want — shaped by God and consumer culture — that is the American teen?

On the other hand, they do know what they want.

First stop: Bubble tea shop

We began at the mall. To kick off shopping, we visited that fixture destination of nearly every visitor between the ages of 11 and 17 with pocket money to spare: the bubble tea shop.

She ordered a bright yellow Mango Diamond Slush, and I chose a lavender-colored Taro Milk Tea, in see-through plastic cups with straws the diameter of small pipes.

The voice of an older woman interrupted us. She was asking for tapioca pearls, going on about those irresistibly fat and chewy, purple and black boiled little balls that swarm in the depths of bubble teas and have taken the palates of teens and tweens by storm.

Only when my daughter elbowed me did I make an important connection. That voice was mine.

Another voice telling me to please quickly shut up was my daughter’s.

“We’ve already got tapioca pearls in the drink. Stop telling the guy how much you love them,” she whispered. “Now can we go shopping?”

I stepped out of the store with a haughty shrug.

With an eye roll to match, my daughter said to me in exactly these words: “Geez, mom. That was something else. Am I really the daughter of that mystifying mix of savage fragility and uncomplicated want that is the American mother in midlife?”

Turning a deaf ear, I followed her into a clothing store, Brandy Melville.

We bought three white tops.

The blue jeans to go with them would be ordered online.

The surprise element of the detour to the mall — and any ensuing costs — melted away into the sugar rush from our drinks. As it should be.

Binders, pens — and a weakness for pencils

Next, we drove to Target. My daughter and I groaned at our proletarian options: a wall of PVC-free, sturdy, 2-inch, D-ring plastic binders in garish reds, blacks and blues.

I did not know this: D-ring binders are called as such because they have D-shaped rings, instead of O-shaped ones.

This I know, don’t ask how: Humans make great yelping sounds when struck by binders. If you hear a whoosh, duck.

The world needs better-looking binders. Where’s a tapioca pearl when you need it?

After some digging, my daughter picked up a lone black binder decorated with happy pink petunias — and the only one that didn’t look like it was not conceived in a bat cave. This would do for AP Government and Politics. Filler paper? We had loads of it at home.

Next on the list: a packet of dividers, 12 #2 Ticonderoga pencils, and 10 Bic blue ballpoint pens.

Again, no pearls here, though we both have a weakness for pencils.

“Why won’t you get roller ball pens? They’re better for handwriting,” I asked.

“We use a stylus on our Chromebooks, mom.”

But she nearly squealed for joy at a composition notebook for her philosophy elective. Aptly named a “Decomposition Notebook,” it had a cover featuring pen-and-ink drawings of trees and skies with a tent in the center, making for a zen feel.

“Perfect!” she said. This would do for a pearl.

A T-shirt with the words ‘Senior 2025’

Next on her list was gum.

“Why do you need gum?”

“For chewing in class.”

Like any masterful parent, I did not question this.

Then we were on our way home. My daughter drove. As she is a week away from her 17th birthday, she still needs an adult with a license in the car till she takes her driving test and gets a permit.

This meant we had one more week to drive with her, one more week of her needing me and my husband in that way, for pickups, drop-offs, last-minute runs to the store. This was that one more ring binding us to our child, as other rings spring loose, day by day.

I watched from the passenger seat. Her hands were on the steering wheel, her eyes staring at the road, intent on sticking to the speed limit, her hair tousled by the wind. A T-shirt with the words “Senior 2025” lay on her lap.

Here, now, was a pearl.

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