My daughter Wende and I were doing a little shopping the other day when the song "My Guy" came over the PA system. You know how it goes: "Nothing in the world can take me away from my guy (my guy)."

This is a very bouncy, fun song, so naturally, I started dancing. Well, from the way Wende acted you would have thought I was swinging from the ceiling wearing nothing but a shopping bag. She was absolutely mortified. It surprised me, because just a few months ago she would have been dancing right along with me and even showing me a few new steps right there in the paper products aisle.

It isn't just dancing in the supermarket either. She shushes me when I try to sing in the mall. Grabs the phone when I try to tell her friends cute stories about her. Locks herself in her room to make up dances to songs that have no discernable rhythm instead of watching cartoons with me in the afternoon.

I used to be fun. Now, all of a sudden, I'm weird.

Of course, I know what's going on, because people have been warning me for years about how kids change when they get into the preteen phase. Then I realized that this is all new territory for Wende. Unlike me, with my access to racks and racks of books and magazines about parenting, puberty and adolescence, not to mention my network of battle-scarred friends who have older kids, Wende has no resources to help her get through the uncomfortable parental aspects of these years.

If I have a question about some puzzling phase of adolescence, I can drive to my local Borders and find dozens of books written by parenting experts that address the problem. Then I can just order a cup of coffee and stay there until my kids go off to college, and I don't have to put up with their little snits any longer.

But Wende's only 11 so she can't even drive. And if she could, where would she go for help? None of her friends have any experience, because they too are in the process of discovering that their parents exist merely to embarrass them and make them do things they don't want to do.

There also are no books for kids her age that address important issues such as how to handle a parent who, when you storm off to your room in a rage, drags you out and makes you sit back down to dinner and act civilized, by golly! Or, worse yet, tries to sit down with you to talk reasonably about your "feelings." Gross.

In all my reading, I've never seen a magazine article titled, "How to Make Your Entire Room Appear Clean Without Ever Removing Your Headphones." There isn't a section of the newspaper devoted to how to cruise the mall with your parents while never, at any time, actually making eye contact with them.

Even so-called "teen" magazines don't cover these issues. They're too concerned with boys, clothes and makeup. They'd be better off to occasionally run something useful like an in-depth story about girls who survived to adulthood even though their parents wouldn't let them wear lipstick to school until they were in junior high.

It will get worse, of course. She is only 11 after all. She still has to contend with trying to date, assuming we ever let her do so, with a couple of parents who aren't above using guerrilla tactics to intimidate her boyfriends. There's also driving, another milestone that I'm sure won't pass without her wondering incredulously at least a million times why we don't just give her the keys and leave her alone.

For now, though, we have reached a compromise. I've promised to stop breaking into song in public places. I won't do my Curly from the Three Stooges imitations around anyone but the family, and I'm going to try to act more like a "normal" mom when her friends are here. I'm not sure what that means, but at least I have plenty of reference materials available to help me figure it out.

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