Who Invented Teenagers

Raising children is hard. I don’t care how many other mom bloggers tell you it is their

greatest joy, there are days you want to pack your bags and leave and never return. Then you come to yourself and realize while you may not like your kids in that moment you don’t trust anybody else with them. When I became a mother I had such high expectations of motherhood. I had completely romanticized the whole idea. Who was I kidding? Kids are nothing more than tiny humans with no resources and high demands. My kids were a force to be reckoned with. They were cute so they had that but they were demanding and hungry all the time and heaven help me they didn’t like naps. But that wasn’t what challenged me, believe it or not. It was when they became teenagers. Who’s idea was this? Teenagers?!?!?!? I mean really. They are entitled know it all's who only care about food and uber. I am 100% certain my mother would agree that if it were possible to skip the ages of 13-18 every parent would. I got more gray hair between those years as a parent than anything else I’ve gone through in my life. The hard part is when they are honor roll students and want so many things. Or should I say demand so many things. phones, gym shoes, cash, food, housing, just so many things.

There’s something about when your kids become teenagers that gives them a sense of arrival. At least that’s what happened with mine. They instantly knew so much more than their father and I. They had answers to questions that no one asked. They had all the solutions. And heaven forbid they are wrong about anything you may as well declare World War 3. What I realized though, the biggest struggle with teenagers is they aren’t little kids anymore but they aren’t adults. They don’t quite know who they are or where they fit so they lash out usually at their parents. My teens want to be adults in name but not in deed. They want you to clothe and feed them but they want to come and go as they please and have you as their personal chauffeur. I say NO! Moms I say no more. No longer will we yield to the demands of our teens. No longer will we have our bathroom time interrupted to listen to weird dreams. No longer will we leave work to run their errands until 9pm. We will say NO!! NO to their tantrums. NO to uber eats when they don’t want what you cooked. We say NO!!!

The truth of the matter is we will never say no out loud. We always say no in our heads. But we don’t want our once beautiful babies now head spinning monsters roaming the world alone. We want to protect them for as long as we can. We want to be there for them as long as they want us to be there. We are great moms. Even on the days when we feel like complete failures. We are fantastic because we keep showing up. Even when you actually do say no and have to stand firm on that No, you may or may not have a sense of guilt but you have to have boundaries. You have to teach them life is not going to always be great, but they will survive. Of all the years I have been a mother (almost 22 now) these teen years have been my greatest struggle. Watching them evolve from needed me for everything to needing me for mostly everything (LoL). When they have these temporary moments of rage they calm down and come themselves and remember that you were always there. They will no longer be teenagers when this happens so don’t get your hopes up.

So if you have raised teenagers and survived, I salute you. If you are currently raising teens, stay in the fight sis!! But if your little ones have not reached their teen years start working out and doing push ups you are going to need your strength.