The Lonely Art of Parenting Teens- A Mother’s Day Tribute

At that moment of clarity, I could never have imagined what was in store for me or my family in the coming months.  But in that moment, I gained emotional maturity that would carry me through…

 

Recently, I was sitting at breakfast with my 16-year-old, who will remain nameless lest I embarrass her and she won’t speak to me for an unspecified amount of time.  I wanted a picture but before she would let me snap one she made sure to clarify that it wouldn’t be posted on social media.  I assured her it wouldn’t, it was just for me.  Like most everything I have experienced while parenting teens, I do it alone.

When someone has a baby, the social media sharing starts early from pictures of positive pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, gender reveal videos, the details of all their struggles, worries, joys, and excitement, right up to the moment they go into labor.  We all know when they are headed to the hospital, we wait anxiously for those first pictures of the baby in the delivery room, the new family together for the first time, how much baby weighed, the birth story…all of it.  Over the coming months and years, we get to enjoy pictures and stories from each precious month of the little one’s new life.  We literally watch them grow up before our eyes.

As a new momma, if you are looking for advice or guidance there is no shortage of mommy blogs on which diapers to use, the best way to get them to sleep through the night, how long you should keep them rear facing in their car seat, to vaccinate or not to vaccinate.  Mommy blogs that share all the realities, joys, and struggles of raising that tiny little human.

As they get older, mommies all over the world share their ideas to get organized, stay organized, how they home school, how to keep a clean house with not so tiny humans running around, how to find joy in the business of mothering.  Blogs for working mommies, blogs for stay at home mommies.  How to make money working from home so you can be there for all the important stuff.  All of it…so many blogs.

Then your sweet not so little one turns thirteen.  All of a sudden, they don’t want any pictures posted on Facebook, and for heaven sake, don’t you dare share a funny story!!!  No, you can’t talk about the naughty things they do, the sassy things they say, or look for advice about teen behavior from your social media friends.  Suddenly, we have to be respectful of the child’s opinion about what people know or don’t know about them, what they like, what they do, and what kind of a kid they are.  And FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, do not let on that they are anything other than perfected bliss…kissed by angels and delivered to your step still wearing their halo!

Sure, you can find blogs on talking to your teen, the best curriculum to use for middle school and high school, which social media apps to avoid, and a list of things you should do with your teen before they graduate from high school.   However, if you are looking for other mothers of teens to share your experiences with, you are looking down a black hole with no end.

Everyone talks about how difficult it is to have toddlers and a bunch of little kids, but let me tell you, and I hate to be the bubble breaker for all of you struggling to keep up with your little kids, there is NOTHING that compares to trying (and I stress the word TRYING) to raise teenagers.  As I have mentioned before, it is a white-knuckle ride on a rickety roller coaster…on a good day.

These people (no longer tiny or small…or really even that cute) wake up every day with their A-game on…and let’s face it, we parents are still tired from chasing them when they were tiny and cute.  These are adult sized, opinionated, sassy, sometimes very rebellious, definitely too big for their britches, expensive, and completely dependent children that we are on the hook for emotionally and financially until they wake one day in their early twenties and think to themselves how smart we have become in the past few months.  It is only then that we find respite from the teen years.  We will no longer have our looks or our zest for life…but dammit, we will have survived raising teenagers.   That’s the dream.

As I sat there at breakfast that morning, I mused about the irony of raising children.  When we need support the most, which is during the teen years, we cannot share…mostly because the wrath of an embarrassed and angry teenager is not worth even the best of advice you might get from another parent.  But also, because other parents will not share their stories out of respect, or fear, of their own teenager who went through the same thing.  I surmise that, perhaps, it goes much deeper than that.

As mothers, so much of our joy and self worth comes from our children’s successes.  When they are little they mess up by painting the bathroom with baby oil or breaking a whole carton of eggs on the floor (really happened)…these are things that we all look back on and smile one day.  When you have a teenager, they mess up by developing a sailor mouth, shoplifting, stealing a car, or getting involved in an inappropriate relationship.  Yes, I am totally referring to myself as a teenager in all of those examples.  I highly doubt my poor mother looks back on any of those experiences and smiles about how cute I was, or how she misses my teen years.  Her more likely thought is that she is just glad we all survived, because she’s nice like that.  As parents we invest 100% of ourselves in teaching our kids right from wrong, shaping their moral values, having all the important conversations, ensuring they have good friends, and spend time developing talents and learning all the important things in life.  Then, they become teenagers and they begin to explore their own identity, and sometimes they start to rebel, sometimes in crazy ways.   We look to ourselves for the reasons why.  What did I do to cause this?  What did I do wrong?  What did I miss?  Where oh where did all of this crazy behavior come from?!?  And we tell ourselves that we have FAILED as a parent.

Last year, I had what could quite possibly be classified as the worst Mother’s Day in the course of history.  But, as the parent of teens, I don’t want to disrespect or call anyone out, so I will not share all the details…of course!  However, I will tell my side of this story.  After spending a lovely morning with my children, things went sour very quickly when I had the unmitigated gall to tell someone ‘no’.  I know this might come as a shock to the mom’s of toddlers out there, but the truth is, teenagers throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their way…much, much worse temper tantrums.  Not like the screaming and fall on the floor kind you have come to dread from your own little fireball of joy, these are worse…and they make you fear they may actually hate you forever, not just until they quit sobbing and need a hug.  That’s another thing, teenagers don’t like it when you hug them…unless it’s their idea.  I tried telling them that mom’s live on hugs to encourage them, but I’m pretty sure they all got together after that and conspired to starve me out by withholding hugs out of spite… another teenager thing.  But I digress.  Later that afternoon, I found myself missing one child, not like missing them because I longed to spend time with them but missing as in they were gone from the house.   When one of them goes missing, you start looking for clues as to where they may have run off to.  My search for information led to some very disturbing discoveries that left me reeling.  At this very moment of distress, my own mother called me, because mother’s intuition is a real thing that does not go away no matter how old our kids get, and I needed her more than ever at that very moment.  I completely broke down.  And I mean completely.  I cannot remember a time before that day that I broke down to the depths I did that day on the phone with my mother.  This moment had been building up for years, and I was suffering so deeply because of what I perceived as my own failures, that something inside of me just snapped.  Forever broken.

I woke up the next morning with clarity I had not been privy to for many, many years.  No, my child’s problems were not fixed, nothing in my world had changed…it was the same mess I went to bed to the night before.  But I had this very clear understanding of where I was, how I got there, and where I needed to go next.  This was not MY failure.  This was not MY burden.  I had done EVERY, SINGLE thing I was supposed to do.  I taught every lesson, I set every standard, I had done every RIGHT thing…and it hadn’t made one single bit of difference.  That did not relieve me of my responsibility as a parent to teach those lessons, set those standards, or do what I believed was right at the time, it just meant that this was not my fault, and it was not my failure.

At that moment of clarity, I could never have imagined what was in store for me or my family in the coming months.  But in that moment, I gained emotional maturity that would carry me through unfathomable, and indescribable tragedy.  It was a lesson hard learned, but desperately needed.If I have one thing to share with every parent who finds themselves waking up each day, bracing for the onslaught of teenagers the second they open their bedroom door, it is this.  YOU ARE NOT ALONE!  I feel like there should be a secret sign of solidarity that we could all flash each other since we can’t walk up to each other like moms with little kids do and say something supportive. It might go something like, “Oh, what a sassy teenager you have!  He reminds me of my own son.  I bet he used to be so cute when he was little.  Hang in there momma, he’ll grow up too soon.  These are the good years!”.  Ha!  I would pay someone to do that, but only if I could watch.  Maybe it could just be a peace sign, because it’s easy, and we’re already too stressed out for anything fancy…and because that is the only thing parents of teens really want…peace…and quiet.  But really, here is the big take away.  Teach them, give them the tools they need, and then get out of their way and let them decide whether they will succeed for fail.  Because at the end of the day, the responsibility for success or failure is theirs.  We are each the masters of our own destiny, and that includes the teenagers that will grace our lives with their big personalities, strong wills, endless potential, and bright futures.  We are just here to teach them to sail and make sure the boat stays afloat until they take the helm on their own.

As my children will tell you, the mother I am today and the mother I was a year ago are two different people.  I try really hard not to yell…unless the dog poops on the floor…because I just can’t even deal with poop on my floor…but really.  I do not force.  I do not control.  I do not care how our family looks to others, or govern my decisions by what other people may think of me…I am my own person dealing with life in my own way, regardless of how that looks from the outside.   I do take phones when needed.  I do draw a line when it comes to safety.  I do use the power of the purse to say no.  I talk.  I ask questions.  I give guidance.  I have taught them, and I continue to teach them, but they are sailing their own ship with me there to help when needed.  There will come a day in the near future when they will be ready to take over, but I will always be here for them to offer support and guidance.  I will share in their joys and their sorrows.  I will be there to make that call at the very moment it is needed.  But their successes and failures will be their own.

On this week of Mother’s Day, I want to say thank you to my own mother who not only survived seven teenagers but did it with grace.  She did not swear, or spend too much time yelling, but she always loved us and made sure we knew it Every. Single. Day.  I know she spent a lot of time suffering alone through my teen years, but she never loved me less or made me feel like a burden.  She is the best example of a mother that there ever could be, and I am deeply, deeply grateful for her.

Hope you all have a Mother’s Day filled with flowers, cards, happy kids, helpful husbands, and sleeping in…but let’s be real, it probably ain’t gonna happen, so just know, we’re all here for you, cheering you on,  andflashing you the sign.

Peace out, mommas, you got this.