Fact: Your teen is going to hate you no matter what you do.

Good morning!

Hubs and I have always sort of thought of ourselves as cool parents.  Hey, we watched the Video Music Awards on MTV the other night!  Granted, I was waiting for Rick Springfield to perform, and okay, I watched until Mad Men came on...but still, that counts!

We've spent a lot of time and money, during our kids' growing up years, building the image of cool.  So, Monday, when Skippy turns 17, we will be celebrating another year of blissful parent/kid exchanges in a cool and loving atmosphere.

Only if that little dink eats his veggies.  And would it kill him to just once, JUST ONCE put his clean laundry in, oh, I don't know, his DRESSER so I can have the laundry baskets back?

Crap....there's my mom taking over my brain again!

Yep, it's rebellion season here as anyone with teens will tell you.  Teens don't care that you took them to Great America fifteen times one summer.  Teens don't care that you're paying for their car insurance and most of their gas.  Teens don't care that, given the cost of housing and feeding them is almost high enough that their threats to LEAVE FOREVER really sounds appealing.

Nope, teens do not care because no matter how cool we parents think we are, we are horrible, out of touch, dinosaurs in the eyes of our teen offspring.

Don't fool yourselves, parents.  You think this won't happen to you?  Hah! 

My parents didn't spend a dime on me beyond the basics.  I paid for clothes, I never got the car, and if I wanted to do something or eat something cool, I had to pay for it AND Get permission from them to do or eat or wear or listen to whatever.  So, in an effort to do things a bit differently and hopefully getting a different result  (I had an resentful relationship with my mother for about ten years, and my dad for about four.  Why the difference in the time frames?  Let's call it proportional to the amount of involvement.  LOL!)  Hubs and I have tried to do everything we could for the kids.

Yeah, a lot of good that did us.



Come on...I'm cooler than this guy...right??????



We were watching "Modern Family" the other night and Peaches and I were laughing at Phil, the dad who thinks he's super cool with his kids.  "He's such a dork," says I.  "He reminds me of you and dad," says Peaches.

Why don't you just shoot me now....please? 



The thing about teens is...well, they're teens.  They want to be independent.  They think they know everything because they've seen "Teen Mom" and "Tosh 2.0.  They think that just because I can't retrieve a voicemail message from my phone or update my face book from my phone, I don't know anything.  And, since Skippy's started driving, he's announced that I am the WORST DRIVER IN THE WORLD.  (Funny, my driving was just fine for the first 16 years of his life.)

It's completely normal, my friends.  Teens are supposed to hate us, I guess. It's part of the process of moving them out of the house so that we can return to the carefree, have sex in any room we want, days before the kids arrived.  (A direct result of having sex in any room we wanted, I'm sure!)



As parents, I guess we have to just take it day by day.  This week I can break the relationship down with Skippy this way:

Sunday:  Likes us
Sunday night:  Hates us  (Cable went out.)
Monday: hates us  (Not over the cable being out)
Tuesday :  Hates us less  (just filled his gas tank on his own and realized that he might need some $$)
Wednesday:  We're not bad  (Homecoming week...needs his curfew extended.)
Thursday:  We're okay enough to talk to for five minutes.  (Got his curfew extended.)
Friday:  Grunted at me three times on his way out the door.  HE LOVES ME

No, your kid is not going to want to be your friend on Face book.  (Would you want your mom as your friend?  Seriously, think about that.)  No, your kid is not going to take a phone call from you when he's with his friends.  (Send a text.  Learn to text.  Get your younger kid to text for you.)  And No, your teen is NOT going to WALK OR RIDE HIS BIKE when he can drive.  (don't even fight about it. Sell the bike.  Use it for gas money.)

Teens are going to hate their parents.  Cain and Abel, I'm sure, had issues with Adam and Eve.  Sure, they didn't have Face book or texting, but come on...if we can get through the teen years without one actually killing the other...we've done better than the original parents, right?

That's what I'm telling myself, and what I'll keep telling myself as I stay up late this weekend waiting for Skippy.

I'm not wise, you little dip...I'm sick!

Hello all!

So for the last three days I've had the worst summer cold I've ever had.  The thing about my colds is that they always, always land in my throat and I lose my voice.  This has been the case for years, but especially in the last two decades that I've been working telephone customer service.  Nothing better that a phone rep with laryngitis.  Even more cruel is the fact that my speaking voice is, quite frankly, my only natural talent.  It's the reason I've managed to keep phone jobs for so long.  "She's so good on the phone."

I was even told once that I should operate my own phone sex line.  "It doesn't matter what you look like," a former employer of mine told me...(he got fired from his position LONG before I quit that job, so I had a certain sense of victory!)

Anyway, not only can't I talk, but I feel like complete creeping crud.  So yesterday, Monday, I bailed out of all my after work obligations, went home, and took a nap.

I got up at 6 Pm to a kitchen full of teens making mac and cheese, and a huge hot mess.  I was surprised...Skippy almost never has friends over.  Which means his friends don't have a working knowledge of what I look like when I'm not sick.  Chances are, they assumed that what I looked like at that moment was "good." 

I was going to say something, but I couldn't, and besides, I wasn't exactly in any shape to be receiving company.  Hey, how pretty are YOU after a nap when you've been sick?  (Those of you who know me and have seen my bed head, well, you just go ahead and laugh amongst yourself.)

So, while they ate, I wrapped myself up in a blanket  (chills and sweats, chills and sweats) and watched some Tour DE France coverage.  (I do love other people working physically hard for my entertainment.)  After a little bit, Skippy's friend, I'll call him Eddie, came into the living room and asked if he could take Kit-ten into the basement with him because the girls wanted to play with Kit-ten, but obviously NOT around me.  I said sure.

To which Eddie said, "Come on Kit-ten, let's go play with the pretty young ladies."

Now, it didnt' occur to me to be insulted, until Eddie turned around and said, "which isn't to say you're not pretty, or young."

I let out a laugh, or something I wanted to be a laugh, but of course it really sounded more like a walrus bark.  Eddie took two more steps away and came back to add one final dart,"  You, you are wise."

Wise.

That's what that little fart called me.  I'm sick, I can't talk, I'm high on what I believe is a fairly dangerous mix of over the counter drugs, and this Eddie Haskell comes into my house and tells me I'm wise.  No one wants to be wise!  What woman ever said, "Hey, you can be sexy and cute and funny.  I'll be wise."

I barked again, because really, what, I'm going to be insulted by the fact that he's actually trying to dig himself out of a hole I didn't know was even there?  I've always loved watching guys twist after they've said something stupid, especially when what they said wasn't really that stupid.

So I sent Eddie on his way, telling him he'll make a great politician someday.  Not a big compliment in my world, but for a 16 year old, it is I guess, because he thanked me for that.  Teens and adults really do speak a completely different language.

Meanwhile, I'll just ride out this wave of voiceless wisdom.  But rest assured, the day will come when I get my voice back...we'll see just how wise I am then!

Wait...what?


As a post script, I do have to brag just a tiny bit.  Skippy got a 3 on his AP World History exam that he took this past spring.  (Results came in today.)  This means college credit and a big step toward that college scholarship we so desperately need!  Whoo hoo Skippy!

When did I become the parent in a John Hughes film?

Good morning!

So this weekend Hubby and I will be trekking across the state to attend his 25th high school class reunion.  (And in answer to your question, no I'm not going to mine. If you read this blog long enough you'll know why, but for now let's just say it's not going to happen.)

At any rate, we're leaving Skippy and Peaches home alone.  Well, Skippy will be at Summerfest or working most of the weekend and Peaches is actually staying with a friend, but stopping in to check on Kit-Ten.  Still, they will have no direct parental supervision for two solid days.

This is the first time we've left the area code for more than twenty hours.  Oddly enough I wasn't nervous about it...until I recalled all the John Hughes movies I watched in my teens.

For those of you who don't know or don't remember, the recently passed Mr. Hughes wrote and directed some of the cornerstone teen films of a generation.  "Pretty in Pink"  "Breakfast Club"  "Sixteen Candles"  "Ferris Buehler's Day off."  All his.  All genius.  All a perfect slice of teen life pie...

I've memorized those films and in all of them I'm Molly Ringwald.  (Well, except for Ferris Buehler...she's not in that.)  I'm the quirky, pretty, misunderstood teen who has to make her way through life...in spite of her really pretty terrible parents. 

John Hughes, when he did address parents in his films, was not kind.  He wrote parents from a teen's point of view:  Stupid, uncool, controlling, absent, bumbling, well meaning, forgetful, and out of touch with what's vital.

Pretty much how my kids view me.

Wait...what?

When did I become the parent in a John Hughes film?  I'm not the parent!  I'm Molly stinkin' Ringwald!  I'm pretty in pink...I sew my own clothes.  I eat birthday cake while sitting on top of a dining room table.  I am the misunderstood popular girl who can apply lipstick with my cleavage!

(Okay, that last thing...I can't even apply lipstick with my hands, and I was NEVER the popular girl...if you're watching "Breakfast Club" and you wonder who I was...two words...Brian Johnson.  Yep, the nerd.  The grade obsessed geek.  Minus the interest in math.  But I did own a terrible green sweatshirt.)

Still, when did this happen?

Oh yeah...right about the time I decided to have kids.

The minute you become a parent, your "Cool, with it" meter starts dropping.  Oh sure, until the kid is seven, you rule.  You can drive, you know how to order stuff at the drive up window, you know what the phone number for the pizza place is.  You can make a clock work by putting in a fresh battery!  YOU ARE AWESOME!

But someplace between 7 and 11, that awesomeness dies a little bit each day.  By the time a child is twelve, the only reason he/she will be seen with you is because you can drive.  By the time they're 13, they'd rather ride their bike or walk, thank you.  By the time they're driving, they'd like to pretend they don't have parents.

And so, with one driver and one bike rider in the house, I'm the absent, uncool, out of touch parent.  In spite of my best efforts, I've become that mom.  All the trips to the pool, the ice cream I've bought, the sleepovers I've hosted, the trips to Great America...all for naught.  They are teens, and that makes me the parent of teens.

So I'm going to my husband's class reunion.  I'm leaving the kids alone for the weekend.  In my head there will be a party ala "Sixteen Candles" and when I return I'll find a geeky freshman trapped in my coffee table.  My wine cellar will be destroyed, and there will be traces of birthday cake on my dining room table.

Oh wait...I don't have a wine cellar.  I don't even have a dining room table!

Okay then...I've got that going for me, I guess!