By: Samantha s. Daviss
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 an 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”.
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