Parenteen …
…like parenting but with later nights, extra stress, endless pushback, and bottomless tacos.
[During my final edits to this piece, I learned that my teen had just superglued a toy car to the dash of the car that he drives, of which he is not the owner. Had I known sooner, my writing might have taken an unfortunate turn. May we all find out about ridiculous teen antics just a little too late to write our fury.]
Today’s hubristic claim is as follows:
I maintain there is no more complicated relationship than that of a parent and teen.
Maybe it’s naïve to think that I’m in the thick of the most difficult phase of parenthood. Maybe it’s arrogant to think I’m working just a little bit harder than many to conserve balance, peace, and general well-being. But I suspect that if you have a teen, had a teen, or were a teen, you are nodding, wishing you could give me a virtual hug because … teens.
In one month, I will have three teenagers living in my home that they think is their home. They will gang up to leave gentle reminders of their existence in the form of name-brand formerly-white dirty socks they use as grass-slippers left on the kitchen stools, popcorn kernels in the garbage disposal (should we be so lucky they made out of the couch cushions), and only one accessible spoon from our set of 16.
They are simultaneously the lights of my life and suckers of my soul. They’re cool cats and crazy bats. They’re wise beyond their years and years away from being wise. See? Complicated.
The first teen, of course, is referred to as the free trial. If it doesn’t work out well, there are still two more options to test. He has boldly accepted the role of trail-blazer, forging through weeds of rules, guidelines, and suggestions, pruning them to nubs of background noise where his fun may flourish. He says the following teens may give thanks for the path he has curated.
He began this pattern as a newborn, and, until he turned 12, I thought I had worked as hard at parenting as I ever would. He cried when hungry, when tired, when waking, when put down. I assumed babies were just high maintenance and wondered when I would ever actually sleep again. It wasn’t until I met his cousin, born five months later–who giggled to herself as she lay in a pack ‘n’ play, slept for hours, and only nursed when actually hungry–that I knew I had been duped. By a baby.
I had been reading Dr. Sears’ attachment parenting advice like Bible verses. I slinged him. I nursed him. I cuddled him. I rocked him. I changed him. Repeat seventy hundredy thousand times forever more.
Then I learned about Baby Wise. Huh. A stark contrast to the Sears, this style encouraged rigidity, schedules, crying, and putting down. Eat, play, sleep, they said. Watch for cues, but do not veer from routine.
But just as I could not hold my baby all the day long as I thought I was supposed to, I also could not tolerate prolonged crying. And so eventually we adapted and found our way. Learning to trust myself in a role called mother that I had no business owning, we discovered our own methods that worked for us. A lot of loving and holding and slinging mixed with watching for cues, placing in swings, and occasionally turning off the monitor kept our sanity.
I have reflected on the spectrum of mothering babies that I ultimately found sliding and nuanced, with Dr. Sears on one end and Baby Wise on the other. Seeing one extreme work so well for some Mom friends and the other being the norm for other Mom friends was fascinating as I considered, maybe for the first time as a new mother, that there wasn’t just one Right.
Rightness accounted for a portion of my human core. Possibly disguised as a need to please at times, but serving me well in algebra, Rightness seemed foundational to parenting. It was wrapped up in what I thought my parents would think I should do, what I thought God would think I should do, and what I thought I should think I should do which was a little dependent on what I saw others doing. Kinda messy.
If I learned anything from parenting my first baby, it was that Rightness was arbitrary. One little baby managed to give me a lot of feelings and lessons.
I should have known that my first-born’s craft would resurface, but the school-age years were so pleasant that I didn’t really know there would be so many more feelings and lessons. When they were little we were mostly concerned with chasing sleep, finding routine, encouraging reading, discouraging sugar, making friends, and managing screens. Now that they’re big we are … still concerned with chasing sleep, finding routine, encouraging reading, discouraging sugar, making friends, and managing screens.
We have come full circle, but this time around the stakes feel so much higher.
So here we are with our teens … full of complicated emotions and also showing no emotion, needy but insisting they don’t need us, independent but still strewing amuck their dirty socks. I know, I’m stuck on the socks, but seriously, pick up your damn socks.
They have every opinion; they want every resource; they expect to be fed and clothed (well). They don’t understand our rules nor are they interested in our rationale. They would prefer every privilege stripped of accountability.
They’re also incredibly perceptive, endlessly funny, and totally resilient. They’ve discovered we don’t actually have it figured out and they are patient with our missed attempts.
It’s our job to find the balance in all of it–to sort through the BS, to hold firm, to let go, to nurture their souls.
Here is where the difficulty lies. Good parenting seems like making the best big decisions when they count, but the truth is that good parenting is camouflaged by every small decision along the way. And we never know when those little decisions will have big impacts. And it’s terrifying.
When our teens ask permission, do we say a “yes” because we don’t have a well-articulated reason to say “no” or do we listen to the nagging in our gut that encourages a “no” even if we don’t really know if it matters?
Are we killing rapport for a night to win the relationship war in the end or are we just slowly killing off the relationship one battle at a time?
Will choosing to trust big lead to preventable disaster or more honest transparency?
At these crossroads, I would like to have Rightness back, or at least a “This Way” sign.
We tell our children that we try to determine our answers to their requests by asking two primary questions–1. Is it healthy? 2. Is it safe? Health and safety are our priorities and sometimes that leads to restrictions our children aren’t fond of (read, detest and resent).
When the oldest was 14, with a new testosterone-fueled drive for risk I might never understand, he insisted I only cared about his health and safety and not his happiness. I had to chew on that. His accusation had merit and although it wasn’t true, I had to recognize the writing on the wall. This child was becoming. He was doing it the refiner’s fire way, but whether I liked it or not, it was happening. Thus, I had to add, “3. Will it make you happy?” as a line item on my decision-making flowchart.
I maintain my initial claim–the raising of teens is the most complicated business.
As a mother of teens, I see a new spectrum. Instead of Sears and Baby Wise as my continuum poles, I see health and safety on one end and risk and impulsivity on the other. While I prefer one end all the time and maintain that fun happens there too, my teen leans to the other end, and maintains that YOLO. We are once again finding what works for both of us. This time, though, we are not casually falling into an eat, play, sleep routine. We are working hard here. We are considering our values and his values, our needs and his needs, all the while wishing there was a manual of Right.
As the teen continues to blaze his trail, we are gently guiding his direction. Sometimes our resistance is just enough to lead him in a different direction. Other times the resistance generates just the level of friction he needed to blaze more aggressively. In these moments, when we inadvertently swapped out his pruning shears for a chainsaw, we have to decide if he’s in fact, just ready to own the saw.
We thought guiding kids with sharp tools was the most difficult work, but it’s letting them use the tools out of our sight that’s the real terror. Will he use his saw haphazardly, chopping down the shade trees that would have protected him from the elements or will he put it in his crate of tools, using it at the right moments to cut though the thickest weeds not serving him.
I’m confident both will happen. Some thriving sycamore is bound to be over-pared, but if he’s strong enough to use the saw, eventually he’ll remember those moments of light resistance gently leading him in a direction that isn’t necessarily Right, but is good and healthy and safe and fun and, most of all, his.
Our role is shifting from making those small but impactful decisions to trusting his process for making them himself. Who knew that parenting less would be the hardest parenting of all? (Parents of adult children, that question was rhetorical. We know you knew all along.)
I really like these teen humans. They are smart, witty, and sassy. They make me feel every opposing emotion, and sometimes all on the same day. I want to snuggle them more than I want to shake them and that’s called winning. Seeing them get it Right brings me joy, but knowing they will get it right, whatever way they get it, brings me comfort during the highs and lows of each day together.
Godspeed parents of teens, teachers of teens, neighbors of teens, and also teens as we forge through the unknown forest with shears and saws, opposing ideas, and only love to guide us.
And if you’re wondering, his cousin is still the easier one.