Those Crazy Teen Years

I remember thinking that my parents just didn't have a clue what it was like to be a teen in my day and age. I thought that they couldn't understand what it was like to be in my shoes and that they were making a big deal over nothing all of the time. Now I'm the parent of four teens and I can tell you that I was partly correct, but I was mostly wrong. My kids are going through things that I didn't have to deal with, Social Media being a big one. I had to use the house phone in the kitchen until after high school and then we finally got a cordless phone. My parents didn't have internet until I was married and pregnant with my first child. I was quite sheltered once my mom re-married when I was 14 so I wasn't dealing with drinking or sex in High School. I dealt with some bad stuff in Middle School but nothing too out there in High School. So in some ways, I can't relate to my teens.

That said, I spent a lot of time in Middle School and after High School getting into trouble, figuring out who I was and generally making bad decisions and I'm trying to protect my kids from making some mistakes that either I made or I watched others make. The thing is, I'm not the strictest parent I know by a long shot, but to ask my kids, I'm over protective because I want them to check in and I want to monitor their Social Media presence. Human Trafficking is a big deal, it's happening in my own neighborhood so being blocked my kid and not knowing who is seeing their stuff or what they are posting freaks me out big time. The days of sending your kids out to do whatever they want until the street lights come on are gone when you live in the ghetto and I'm not even in the very bad neighborhoods, but we do hear gunshots regularly and somehow we have become used to hearing the "ghetto bird" flying around searching for criminals.

Now I'm facing a whole new experience of having foster kids in my care who are used to roaming freely day or night and they look at me like I'm an idiot for wanting to keep them safe. I picked one up from a bus stop where a homeless person was sitting with everything they owned. Now this lady might have been completely sane and looking out for my girl, but she could have also been mentally unstable and hurt her if I hadn't picked her up as well. This girl won't speak up and advocate for herself with me to get what she wants or needs but I'm supposed to believe that she will stand up for herself to strangers after dark with nothing to protect herself and she's barely bigger than my nine year old. I think it's definitely important to teach kids to protect themselves. Maybe some self defense classes and a can of pepper spray would make me more comfortable letting them wander around town or ride the bus or take a train. I wish we lived in a nice rural town sometimes so that I could feel safe letting them go out, but even then, that creates a sense of peace and bad things happen everywhere.

When I was 16 we were able to get a license and drive around to and from different places which feels safer somehow. In order to get just one of my teens driving it costs us twice as much as it did to insure my husband and myself and we had hire coverage. So now here we are paying three times as much and we have three other kids who are old enough to learn to drive. They will need to get jobs and pay for their own insurance before they will have that opportunity or the oldest will need to get a job and move out and then the next oldest can have a chance. One thing is for sure they are all able to drive me up the wall faster than anyone ever has been able to. They know exactly which buttons to push to get me upset and they know exactly what to say to get me to give in. Being a teenager these days is more complicated than it was when I was a teen, but I can't really say that it's better or worse. Kids these days have some advantages we didn't have but they also face challenges we didn't have. I'm trying to keep this in mind when I am talking through issues with them but it's like we speak two different languages some days. I'm looking forward to that day when my kids "get it" and thank me for what I've done, but some days I feel like I'm just pushing them further away and they will never see it from my point of view. It sure makes me miss those days of cute baby kisses and words said incorrectly. Either way, I love all of my kids and I just keep trying to do better today than I did yesterday and when I screw today up, I just hope that I will have another chance tomorrow to do better.