I would sit and listen to my friends complain about their teenagers, and how they turn into these mutant creatures; they didn’t even recognize their sweet babies that they once held through the night, just to listen to them breath, or to nurse back to health.
These wonderful beautiful creatures that we would lay our lives down for, these innocent beings that we love unconditionally and they love us back. And I would sit and think, gosh, this will never happen to me. I have such a great relationship with my kid that we are going to coast through these teenage years beautifully.
Well…BOOM! It’s like and Atomic bomb was dropped on me one day. All of the sudden, no joke, this perfect little creature went from loving me, thinking I hung the moon, needed me for everything…to this rude, disrespectful, STILL needing me to do everything…mutant creature.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love him with all of my heart. And I have been doing a lot of reading, but dear Lord, all the information keeps pointing back to the same bit of information. And that is the fact that their brains (primarily the frontal lobe) isn’t fully developed until they are 25 years old! WHAT? 25 years old!
And we are supposed to send them out in the world driving a 2,500-pound vehicle, we are supposed to send them off to other cities to go to college, we are supposed to allow them to travel and see the world, ALONE? Mine can barely put his shoes away in his closet, let alone manage a vehicle or a class schedule.
But it is the defiance, the lack of interest, and just the all-around “slug” attitude that is killing me. At first I was taking it personally. Like he didn’t like me, or love me…but then my husband reminded me that this is part of being a parent, and parenting is the toughest job you will ever have…and not be appreciated for in your lifetime.
I keep looking in my junk drawer, and my file box for the instruction manual that the doctors and nurses sent home with me, but I guess it got lost in my moves. Oh, THAT’S RIGHT…there isn’t one. You’re on your own for the rest of their lives. You get to figure out what a grunt means, you have to know that they need their basketball uniform ready to go at 6 AM the next morning (when you were so selfishly sleeping), you should know that they have a project due in two days that requires at least 72 hours to prepare and observe for recording purposes, you are supposed to know when they don’t text you back…that they really meant to, or better yet they thought they did.
Here’s a thought, look at your phone and see if you texted your mother back. You know the one that feeds you, that gave you life, the one that is the keeper of your schedule and you would be lost without her, the one that washes your clothes, the one that gives up buying new underwear or hairspray to save a little extra money for those new basketball shoes.
Yea, remember, that lady that keeps wandering around your house, reminding you to do homework, feed your pets, clean your room. Yep that lady…she’s not going anywhere.
So, if any of you happen to find my manual on being a teenage parent, please feel free to drop it in the mail to me.
Because as they say, there is an extremely fine line between love and hate, and right now this teenager phase is not ranking very high on my list of “favorite kid phases”.
