Parenting woes n concerns and happy bits.

I recall my mother telling me with great vigor that one day... ONE DAY... I'd have kids of my own and then, and only then, would I understand her p.o.v.

Well she wasn't whistlin' Dixie that's for sure. Holy shit.

I gotta be fair though... my two daughters who are now both teenagers, are two lovely wonderful creatures... they have manners, do absolutely excellent in school, and have a good sense of self, which is something I've only just recently come to know myself.

And it is true... once you've been an adult for awhile, you start to say the same things your parents/grandparents said :

"You call THAT music?"

"Turn off the light after you are done using it, it costs money!"

"Would you please pick up after yourself, I am not a maid y'know"

"So this is the new slang eh? Neat-o" (to which they roll their eyes)

Yes... we all do become some form of our parents. Embrace eet, cause denial will get you nowhere.

Unfortunately there are things going on with the modern teenager that we never had to face. With technology the way it is... sexting, verbally abusive texts, even bullying has become so much worse now that people can be anonymous while doing so... creating fb pages aimed at one person, or people targeting teens on instagram who have let it be known they're depressed (my youngest daughter informed me of this and had mentioned she had been targeted, but that although there were nasty people on there doing this, that she actually had a lot of positive encouragement from other members who had informed her she had been targeted and how to prevent them from continuing to do so by changing some of the settings).

Holy fuck, what is going on in this world?? *shakes head sadly*

Although I have gone through many lengths to educate my girls of the good and bad in this world, and not to let some ignorant lil shit to get into their head... I still worry profusely. I hate that I can't protect them anymore... all a good parent can do is arm them with knowledge and understanding of this world and then hope they were listening.

Also my worry just increases due to the fact that, as all teenagers have before them including myself, distance ourselves from our parental units... not just with them not communicating openly like they once did, but them locking themselves into their room, sometimes coming out to give an occasional grunt or 'meh' when asked how their day went, grabbing something to eat, then going back into the confines of their room. Now that I'm an adult, distancing myself to that extent is the last thing on the agenda...when I'm stressed out, sure I keep a tight lid on how I'm doing (I figure people are going through enough and don't need to worry about me)... but I suppose we all need a sanctuary... somewhere we can hide and feel comfortable... but goodness, I miss the time we would spend when they were only a few years younger :/ Playing cards with the 'rents isn't as enjoyable as a pastime as it once was.

It's scary not truly knowing what a teenager is thinking or dealing with... assumptions can backfire, and straight up demanding to know will get you fucking nowhere. I just feel badly, because I CAN vividly recall how stressful highschool was... the demands for excellence, trying to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, and then there's the outside world problems that can weigh down heavily on our lovely lil childrens heads/hearts... war, violence, bullying, indifference, financial difficulty...it can seem like everything's against you with nothing positive to look forward to. Us adults get jaded/indifferent after awhile... heartaches don't devastate us, problems don't frazzle us, and we don't just throw our hands up in the air and exclaim "I give up!"... but they have yet to experience all the things we have, everything is all fresh and new and overwhelming at times, gotta keep that in mind.

The girls and I had a pow wow not too long ago, and it was well needed. Sometimes as adults we're too self absorbed with our own stresses and concerns, that to us, their problems seem less and we tend to dismiss it or figure they're doing okay because they didn't bring anything to our attention. They don't have to suffer in silence.

Assume nothing folks. Remind them how much you care, how proud of them you are, praise them for taking initiative... these kids are going to be running the world when we're too old to give a fuck, they need to feel confident enough to do so, and that's our job (aside from being maids/nags/therapists/cleaners) so take it seriously...because once those moments of childhood are gone, you can't get them back.

Parenting is a hard ass job, but the rewards are totally worth it (if you are lucky enough to remain sane through it all, then you're a stronger person than I lol). And although, at times, I feel like a complete failure with this parenting business... when I see how lovely all 3 of my children have become... it gives me hope that I'm not fucking everything up, at least.

Soon my girls will be young adults, and we will have a different kind of relationship...it'll be a bit weird, since we all look at our kids like they're still babies, but I look forward to watching them evolve into adults.

And then I will endure the teenage years once more when my lil guy grows up... time to start writing some notes down now so I'll (hopefully) be better prepared when he's a teen!