My mom, sister and I - each parenting a teen

 

My mom, sister and I - each parenting a teen
14 October 2014

Never in my wildest dreams, would I ever have envisioned this scenario.  The one where my mom, sister and I, are each parenting a teenager.  At the same glorious time.

What a funny twist of fate.

Last week, saw the three of us, spending two nights together.  This is always a highlight.

Yet every so often, we’d find ourselves grumbling about “our” teenagers.  Cause though my mom and sister are each parenting a stepchild, they’re fulltime mothers to those stepchildren.  Kids who live with them, that they’re raising, and that go to school from their homes.

But while I’m whinging about my annoying and hormonal sixteen year old teenager in Grade 10, my sister is whinging about her annoying and hormonal seventeen year old teenager in Grade 11, and my mom is whinging about her annoying and hormonal eighteen year old teenager in Grade 12.  Crazy!

Through consultation with my posse, I can concur that there is definitely a recurring theme.  Self-obsession.  Self-indulgence.  As well as a decided preoccupation with food, clothing, their social lives and their virtual social media lives.  Furthermore, there is large scale disenchantment with parental rules, the necessity for formal education and the by-their-standards abysmal amount of money at their disposal. 

How cruel life treats them.

It is awesome to have my girls on my side.  My mom and my sister.  Who better to consult with, and to bounce ideas off? 

Many of my friends who are parenting teenagers, sadly no longer have the luxury of a parent to consult.  Their mothers have passed on.  Are no longer there.  Not only is my mother still around, she’s also right in the very thick of parenting a teenager.  I can tap directly into the power source, from someone that I greatly admire and respect as a parent (just look how great my brother, sister and I turned out - J).  I can actually see her parenting at the same time as me.  In addition, I thought that without a doubt, my sister’s kids would be younger than mine.  She’s nearly seven years my junior.  Yet three of “her kids” are older than my eldest.  Funny, that!

How peculiar, that we’re all dealing with it at the same time?  The very same joys.  Kids and their curfews.  The dangers of social drinking.  Have they been secretly smoking or not?  Have their cell phones and i-pads morphed into their hands?  Their shoddy attitude towards chores and helping around the home.  Their propensity for thinking they are far superior to us, in every possible way.  Their assumption, that their intelligence far surpasses ours.  Their body language, which portrays their frustration with our pedestrian attitude towards all things they deem we don’t understand. 

It is indeed true what they say – rent a teenager.  They know everything.

Few people can make me feel more thick, dense, and all round stupid, than my teen.  And I’m clearly not alone.  They have a disdainful way of talking down to one.  As if they’re explaining stuff to a toddler.  And not a very bright one at that.

Anyway, such is life.  Grateful for the support.  Cause all three of us, are in the same boat.  At the exact same time.  Perhaps we should look for a life raft for three?  Abandon ship? 

Alas, it is a  wonderfully enlightening experience doing this jig together.  Cause we compare notes, and laugh together.  At our kids.  At each other.  And at ourselves.

So I’ve had a scary thought.  If we’re all parenting teens of a similar age, does that mean we’ll all be grandparents at a similar stage too?

Please click and LIKE on Facebook - Thanx!