Yesterday, I powered through Jennifer Senior’s book, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood
Parenting teenagers is tough. They change over night from self-centered beings who simply need food and shelter to complicated individuals with semi-formed prefrontal cortexes. Their bodies are undergoing massive changes. My kid grew six inches in six months. He has a baritone voice. There is horrible jockeying for power and status in the cafeteria. There is massive pressure to perform in school and in sports.
As a parent, it’s extremely hard to watch a kid deal with pressure, change, and disappointments. It’s difficult to know when to support and when to push and when to hold back. I make mistakes all the time.
It’s also difficult to get advice from others, because parents of teenagers keep their cards very closely to their chests. Nobody will admit that their kid is stumbling. (And they ALL stumble a bit during those years.) If we chat with other parents, the party line is EVERYTHING IS FABULOUS. If everyone else brags about straight As and touchdowns, then we will also.
And it’s hard to help the teenagers when they struggle, because the kids are going through their own natural detachment from their parents. They don’t really want to deal with you at all. You are an embarrassment. Hugs and kisses are dodged. Pretty much any advice that you might have is completely ignored.
There are good things, too. When they aren’t ignoring you, they are able to ask sensible questions about your lives. They are growing into adults with opinions and interests that make for nice conversations. Hopefully, they are growing into good people that make good choices, and you can feel enormous pride that you’ve created a kind person.
But parenting a teenager is a different kind of difficult from parenting a toddler. You’re not mopping up vomit at 3am, but you’re dealing with a closed bedroom door and wild emotional swings and texts from strange girls during dinner-time.
Apt. 11d 
EVERYTHING IS FABULOUS
This seems to be the party line for most everyone I know, regardless of their situation (kids or no kids, young children or older). That facade breaks down a bit as I get to know someone better but in the beginning stage of a relationship I usually feel like a bumbling fool because I don’t have it all together.
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Yeah–as soon as I know somebody well, I know what their problems are. If I think they don’t have any problems, it’s a sure sign that I don’t know them very well.
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You’re not mopping up vomit at 3am
That will come again later, when the parties and illicit drinking starts.
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It gets easier. Sometimes I think the teens who give their parents gray hairs do the best in the end. They know what they want, and they’re able to express their independence.
I think it’s a mistake to expect teens to share everything with you (the parent.) We had any number of conversations in which we say things like, “I know people do this, but I don’t approve.” We give up the possibility of being “friends” for the role of “parents.” Which oddly leads to closer relations with college students, because it’s like staying in touch with someone going through a time-limited case of insanity. It was really amusing to see our eldest progress from an angry freshman who found all adult rules objectionable, to a high school junior who would roll her eyes at the “immature” freshmen.
There is a time when the question “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you join them?” doesn’t feel stupid to the teenager. I think it’s better if the kid knows mom doesn’t approve of jumping off of cliffs, (without having to text to confirm that knowledge), rather than feel that all the hip people are jumping off cliffs these days, and mom’s taking cliff-jumping lessons.
If we had a much larger family, I think by the time I got to teenager no. 5 or so, I’d stop trying to warn them of anything. It doesn’t do much good. They learn from witnessing peer catastrophes. Then they will come to you and say, “wow, you know, jumping off cliffs is not a good idea. Xavier really got hurt.”
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“They learn from witnessing peer catastrophes. Then they will come to you and say, “wow, you know, jumping off cliffs is not a good idea. Xavier really got hurt.””
But how do Xavier’s parents feel?
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Hopefully Xavier’s parents recognize they have one of those people who only learns from their own experiences, and try to arrange a lot of survivable, low-consequence learning experiences for them. Possibly Xavier’s parents later learn that Xavier has a personality disorder or a high need for adrenaline, and if that happens while Xavier is still in the home, they can help manage those things too.
Maybe Xavier’s parents (and Xavier, too) only find out years later that there were long-lasting problems like depression or anxiety, and they wish they’d found out earlier but we are now where we are now and have to deal with today and the future instead of wishing things had gone differently in the past.
I mean, how far do you go? Do you check your teenager’s body every day for signs of cutting or other self-harm, or are you blind to the possibility that your kid might do that? Do you check whether your teen has had a period and ask them if they’re pregnant or do you still think that won’t happen? Teenagers start making their own choices long before we parents are able to endure watching them face the consequences of those choices.
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And, we have no reason to believe that any of us wouldn’t end up being Xavier’s parents. Cars and drugs are my big touchstones and I plan to keep pretty invasive watch over my kids’ involvement with both.
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“Which oddly leads to closer relations with college students, because it’s like staying in touch with someone going through a time-limited case of insanity.”
I’m starting to think that the main point of go-away college is to quarantine 18-22-year-olds from the adult public.
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I honestly have no idea how to parent a teenager. I’m not really worried about drugs or alcohol yet. He doesn’t have that much free time at this moment to get into trouble. And he still tells me some things, like which of his friends are smoking pot. I am more concerned with keeping up channels of communication, when they keep slamming down. I’m worried about a few of his friends that hang out in front of the Rite Aid in town. I’m worried about teenage angst.
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I have a confession here — our oldest had his wisdom teeth out last week, and my husband and I came up with a list of questions to ask him before the anesthesia wore off. The answers were pleasantly reassuring — but I feel bad that we saw this as a legitimate way of getting information out of our kid and took it!
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LOL @ Louisa. I’m on teenager #2. The first one still is a teenager, though he’s at college where basically, he fends for himself on all fronts, which is how I think he wanted it for the last 2 years of high school. If you want to know how that panned out, go read my blog. It didn’t turn out well–but is turning out better now.
My daughter has shared stories of what some of her friends (freshman and sophomores) are already doing and it horrifies her. For girls–drinking and sex are the go to taboos. Usually at the same time. Obviously, it takes two to tango, but boys have sex primarily as a consequence of being in the right place at the right time whereas girls seem to seek it out. Just my experience so far.
Keeping the lines of communication open is huge. And sometimes not possible. Prying questions don’t get answered. Even trying to sneak information out through a seemingly innocuous conversation sometimes doesn’t work.
We had a few rules: no drugs or alcohol in the house. Curfew is loosely at 11. Text if you’re going to be later with a specific time. No getting in the car with someone who’s intoxicated. Call us–even if it’s 3 a.m. and you’re going to be in trouble for being late. Practice safe sex (and this we talked about a lot; it was the one thing he would be willing to discuss).
Those rules still mostly apply, though curfew is later now for the college kid. I’m not too hung up on curfew now that cell phones keep you in touch. If our kid hadn’t walked in by 11 and I hadn’t heard from him, I texted or called. Often he was on his way. It was rare that he was out past midnight. He and several of his friends didn’t have drivers’ licenses so they actually stayed within walking distance a lot. My son would walk a mile home.
Pain in the ass raising a teenager. I actually wish more parents did talk openly about where things went wrong–big or little. It gives you some ideas for what to expect and how to handle it. Most of my neighbors and friends share only the good stuff, never the concerns or problems.
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Part of parenting a teenager is also learning to respect their privacy which I’m sure is a big concern on your part, too. There’s so much you really can’t say in a forum such as a blog or even a coffee chat with friends. It’s inevitable that it will get back around to the kid in a traumatizing way.
Eldest is close to turning nineteen and we’re cautiously optimistic that the teenage years have been a success, albeit one with challenges along the way stemming from all sorts of issues we couldn’t necessarily have predicted at the start of this ride. What’s as important as being clear (about everything from house rules to expectations) is being flexible so that when a big challenge comes along, you’re ready to help your teen navigate the tough times. And never, ever, EVER think it’s over. There’s always some new challenge to face, or so it seems.
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“Part of parenting a teenager is also learning to respect their privacy which I’m sure is a big concern on your part, too.”
Yes! And even the bragging can be seen as intrusive by the teen.
“And never, ever, EVER think it’s over.”
Looking at my extended family, I’m pretty sure you have to wait at least until your kids are grandparents before declaring the venture a success or a failure.
It’s like the old joke about “What do you think about the French Revolution?” “It’s too soon to say.”
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