Parenting teenagers: A survival guide nobody asked for

I used to think toddlers were hard. They throw tantrums in the grocery store, lick shopping carts and think eating crayons is a personality trait. 

Teenagers? They just throw emotional tantrums and hold grudges. 

When my oldest was little, he thought I knew everything. I could identify dinosaurs, fix broken toys and magically produce snacks from my purse. Somewhere around age 13, I became the least informed person on the planet. According to him, I don’t understand music, fashion, technology, or how “literally everyone else’s parents” do things. 

It’s been a dramatic fall from grace. 

There should be a support group for parents of teenagers. Not because they’re bad kids — most of them are pretty great — but because living with a teenager is like sharing an apartment with someone who has diplomatic immunity. 

I’m a millennial. We were the generation raised on “Be home when the streetlights come on,” questionable MTV programming and parents who somehow had no idea where we were for six hours. We drank from garden hoses, survived dial-up internet and documented our most embarrassing moments on disposable cameras instead of social media. 

Our kids have Life360, read receipts and somehow still act like they’re impossible to reach. They document every aspect of their lives, either to a full studio audience via TikTok or YouTube, or just a few buddies from school on Snapchat. Either way, it’s all on record these days, which isn’t always a good thing.  

My oldest is heading off to college next month, which seems impossible because I feel like I was 18 just a few years ago, holding him in my arms, swaddled like a tiny blonde burrito. Somehow, I blinked, and now that tiny human has opinions about investments, small kitchen appliances and he tells me how to use technology as though he’s explaining it to a female Brenden Fraser ‘Encino Woman.’ 

Teenagers have a fascinating ability to make you question every parenting decision you’ve ever made. 

You ask a simple question like, “What time will you be home?” 

Suddenly, you’re an interrogator in a true crime documentary. 

They answer everything with the confidence of someone who has exactly zero life experience. 

They explain taxes to you despite never paying them. 

They explain relationships to you despite asking if they should text someone back. 

And if you have multiples (not at once, thank Jesus), like me, forget about asking which one knows something, did something or better yet, DIDN’T do something, because none of them know the answer, nobody did it and EVERYBODY did what they were supposed to so it must have been the others. A continuous and vicious cycle of ignorance, denial and blame, forever and for always most likely.  

It’s breathtaking, really. 

And the eye rolls. 

I don’t think enough scientific research has been done on teenage eye rolls. Mine could power a small hydroelectric dam if we found the right converter. 

Then there’s the music. 

Remember when our parents said our music was just noise? 

I owe them an apology. 

Not because they were right … 

Just because karma apparently keeps receipts. 

I am lucky to have musically inclined kiddos, however. They enjoy most genres and have playlists with a plethora of music from every era, and like me, are big fans of '90s alt rock and hip hop, and of course the early millennia's best hits.  

Some of the new music I find on my Spotify algorithm, though, makes me glad they all have Bluetooth headphones. 

Teenagers also possess an incredible superpower: the ability to consume every edible item in your house within 24 hours. I don’t know where it all goes. You’ll buy groceries on Sunday, and by Tuesday you’re staring into the refrigerator wondering who ate an entire family-sized package of shredded cheese at 11 p.m. 

Then they’ll stand in front of the open fridge and declare, “There’s nothing to eat.” 

Sir. There was food. You ate it. All of it.  

Communication is another adventure. You spend years teaching your children to speak in complete sentences, only to have every conversation become something which you would need an interpreter to understand. 

And just because they are using some of the same slang terms we were using as youngsters, trust me when I tell you that it doesn’t mean what you think it means (insert Inigo Mantoya’s famous line from "The Princess Bride"). 

We cannot forget about the bedrooms. Scientists are searching for life on other planets, but I think they should spend a few hours studying a teenage bedroom instead. They’ll discover ecosystems never before seen by mankind. Dirty laundry somehow reproduces when left alone, and drinking glasses migrate there from every room in the house. 

The weirdest part is realizing you’ve become your own mother. 

Nothing prepares you for the day you hear your mother's voice come out of your own mouth. 

Not metaphorically. 

Literally. 

It starts innocently enough. 

"Did you really need to leave every light in the house on?" 

"Close the door. Were you raised in a barn?" 

"You'll understand when you're older." 

Who is this woman? 

Here's the ironic part: my teenagers are good kids. 

They're respectful. They make good choices. They generally tell me where they're going, who they're with and they don't give me nearly the amount of grief I probably deserve. 

Because if parenting operated on karma ... 

I'd be in trouble. 

I wasn't exactly what you'd call "low maintenance." 

I was the teenager who made impulsive decisions with the unwavering confidence of someone whose brain hadn't fully developed yet. Every time my kids leave the house, my imagination immediately assumes they're about to recreate one of the questionable decisions I made before I was old enough to rent a car. 

They aren't. 

But I was. 

Which, I suspect, is why I'm so protective. 

People assume overprotective parents don't trust their kids. 

Sometimes we trust our kids completely. 

It's our younger selves we don't trust. 

I know exactly how creative a teenager can be when they think they're invincible because I practically wrote the instruction manual. 

Somehow my own children skipped that chapter. 

Or maybe they're just better humans than I was. 

Either way, I'm grateful. 

The older I get, the more apologies I owe my mom. 

Sorry for every time I insisted I knew everything. 

Sorry for every eye roll. 

Sorry for making you wonder if I'd survive my own decision-making. 

Mostly, though, I'm sorry for laughing when you said, "One day you'll have kids just like you." 

Turns out I didn't. 

I got lucky. 

I got kids who are calmer, smarter and significantly less interested in testing the limits of my sanity than I ever was. 

But I did inherit something else. 

I inherited her worry. 

I finally understand that all those questions weren't about control. They were about love. 

Every "Text me when you get there." 

Every "Drive carefully." 

Every "I just want to know you're OK." 

 It wasn't nagging. 

 It was a mother's heart trying to exist outside her own body. 

 So, Mom ... 

 You were right. 

 I hate it. 

 But you were right.