To all the parents with young children, I have something to tell you that many people will not. You have been lied to. Remember all the folks who told you that it would get easier when your children get older? They lied! The truth is that it does not get easier.
My daughter is seventeen and my son is thirteen and the older they get the harder it becomes. When it comes to raising children, the teen years is the most difficult stage. Some days you walk into my house and you would think that you entered a full blown battleground. Once that sweet little five year old grows into a teenager, his or her hormones take over, and look out. My husband keeps telling me that our sweet little girl was abducted by aliens. I’m still waiting for her to be returned to us.
It takes a great deal of energy, determination and patience to raise a teen. Some days you will feel like you have reached that breaking point. You wonder how many more endless arguments with your child you can take. Some days you may even break down in tears, frustrated that nothing you are saying is getting through to them.
I don’t have any easy advice for you or magic answers. As a parent I’m learning as I go. Ask me in seven years when my youngest hits 20 and I might have some advice for you then.
I know that both my parents are up there in heaven having one heck of a laugh. I know now what I put my parents through. Believe it or not I was a stubborn, argumentative teen once. I still remember the many stupid mistakes that I made as a teen. The things I battle with my children over are the same things my parents battled with me over.
The teen years certainly are not an easy period for child or parent. Looking back now on the younger years, parenting a tantrum two year old seemed so much easier than parenting an argumentative 13 year old with raging hormones and a stubborn attitude. I think my son should join a debate club.
To all those moms that blog about the “terrible twos,” trust me the twos are a walk in the park compared to the teen years. Enjoy them now because some day you will be looking back at photos missing the innocence.
Each day as a mom and parent of two teens I try to find out what line I am on between loving them, protecting them, letting them make mistakes, spoiling them, giving in to them, being a friend, being a parent and keeping my sanity through it all.
I’m going to make mistakes. They are going to make mistakes. The mistakes we both make will be worth a laugh 20 years from now when they have teens of their own.
One thing I have learned through this was that my parents were right. Mom and dad, if you hear me up there in heaven this is the point where you say “I told you so Rose.”
If you liked this post, why not buy me a coffee?
RSS
16 responses so far ↓
Wrote: Aug 17, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Nice article Rose…. I don’t have children…and after this article I might never….
Wrote: Aug 17, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Hello my wild Rose!
How funny I should come home and read this just now. Not 20 minutes ago I was in the middle of a melt down in Zellers, caused by the fact that I would not buy my not-quite-12-year-old daughter some thong panties.
Sheesh.
I have occasionally read your daughter’s blog. She’s a wonderful young woman and you are doing a great job.
Wrote: Aug 17, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Don’t let the horror of parenting teens frighten you away from children. Between the alien nations there is joy.
Wrote: Aug 17, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Peri, thongs? Can you believe that! I have had that argument with my daughter too. I will not allow her to wear thongs either. Heck I did not wear thongs until I was 20. Thongs and other forms of sexy undergarments should not be worn by teens and they should especially not be warn by pre-teens.
Wrote: Aug 17, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Having been a “high Maintenance” child as a teen, I will tell you that the most important thing you can do for your kids is to remind them that they are your babies and that you still see them that way. The world can be so cold in the storms of adolescence!
Wrote: Aug 18, 2007 at 12:03 am
Well my friend I don’t have kids but I know they can be quite a handful at times you are doing a wonderful job with your kids my friend ((HUGS))
Wrote: Aug 18, 2007 at 4:39 am
I will remember this Rose. My daughter is still 3 and haven’t been abducted yet. I hope she stays sweet, argumentative but sweet.
Wrote: Aug 18, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Rose, it gets better around 20 when they move out and get their own lifes. My youngest was always a handful, now we have a lot in common, aliens for one (read my ufo post).
Wrote: Aug 18, 2007 at 10:06 pm
The worst time for us was when our adult daughter told us she was going ALONE to Oman. This was before 9-11, but it was still a middle eastern Arab country, where women do not have many rights. But she was an adult and there was nothing we could do about it.
She went, she came home, got married and we have two wonderful grandchildren now.
But we sure were scared.
She was also a bit of a handful when she was a teen. Just a little bit…
Wrote: Aug 18, 2007 at 11:07 pm
It does get better, Rose, trust me, but man there are/were days you have to truly believe you won’t make it through, but you will, the rest of us did and you will, too. (Of course I only had to deal with one.) In the meantime, if you can’t write the stories now, they will at least make great almost fiction later!
Wrote: Aug 19, 2007 at 6:29 am
I have a three-year-old; can’t wait.
Wrote: Aug 19, 2007 at 10:26 am
I tell people that I’m at a most difficult stage of life. My little one is going through the terrible twos, my oldest is going through puberty, and my husband is going through a midlife crisis! It can only get better.
Wrote: Aug 20, 2007 at 9:20 am
Speaking as a mom of two teenage sons, I feel your pain. Well, maybe not quite ALL your pain. I can’t IMAGINE having a teenage daughter!
One thing I keep telling myself, over and over again – “This too shall pass.”
Wrote: Aug 21, 2007 at 8:21 pm
i hear ya! i have 5 kids (thus the nickname) their ages are as follows…20, 18, 16, 14, and 12, the first 4 are boys and then comes my “little” girl…i had to laugh at the title, because i have often said to my children “If you ever see aliens, PLEASE beg them to abduct either all 5 of you or (and this is my preference) ME!!! i guess the “Mother’s Curse” worked quite well for MY mother, she always said “When you grow up and have kids, I hope you have one JUST LIKE YOU!” well, i have 3 of the 5 that are, and the other 2 are replicas of my ex-husband, but we won’t even go there!!!
Wrote: Aug 21, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Wow, Mom of five all teens? You need a vacation don’t you?
Karen lol….. With my daughter I know what to expect, because I was a teen girl once. With my son it is a whole knew ball park.
Tammy lol I’ll pray for you.
Yes you can Rog. lol
Marcia thank you. I’m sure I will and each day I see another gray hair on my head.
Mike just a bit?
Bob thanks for letting me know.
Grace there will be sweet days and then days where her head will spin and you will wonder where the sweetness went. lol
Damien thanks for the advice.
Wrote: Aug 22, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Since I have one who has already jumped through the terrible twos and horrible three’s I find myself some days longing for the younger one’s to be over it as well, but then I read these kinds of post’s and I am reminded it will all be here soon enough.