Teenagers

Today someone asked me how many teenagers I had. 

“Too many,” was my response.

My youngest child hit 13 last Friday.  When my oldest turned 13, I had a bit of a meltdown.  I myself had recently turned 37 – a number I considered, at the time, too close to 40.  Having a teenager put me over the edge, so to speak.  I was officially “old” and I didn’t take kindly to this milestone.  I comforted myself with the fact that I still had a child, in fact many children, who were not teens.  The distinction was necessary to me. 

My children’s teen years so far have proved to be just about as difficult as I expected them to be.  Not horrific.  Not a cake walk.  In our house we have combated attitudes, body odors, messy rooms, car accidents, defiance, overuse of the word “like,” ambivalence and even some angst.  The social and friend stuff is always hard with the teens: such a difficult time that I remember with painful clarity from my own life.  Truly one of the hardest parts of parenting is watching your kids hurt by other people.  I have to believe that the pain makes them stronger.  I have to hope that the pain doesn’t make them harder.  I’m here to help model channeling the hurt into something positive and not something destructive.  Sometimes I succeed.

The frank teen sex talks have had a different twist with every kid.  I know now that the best talks happen in the car – all eyes forward.  No question is off limits, and I generally throw in too much information.  Enough to scare them.  But also enough to teach them.  Always trying to maintain the distance I think needs to be maintained: I am their mother, not their friend.  My latest bit of wisdom to one of my not-to-be-named teenagers was, “I am on a need to know basis.  Like you doctor.  If it isn’t something you would tell your doctor, then don’t tell me” with the hopes that the shock-value details will be reined in.  This bit of instruction is tailored to a specific child – like most of my conversations with my children.  I hope that by the time they reach the teen years, I have come to know them well enough to have the kind of productive conversations unique to each of them.  It’s definitely not one size fits all.

My youngest turning into a teenager has been harder to accept than the first born turning 13.  Because with it came this realization:

                                              

I no longer have small children.  

I haven’t fully grasped this concept yet.  It’s been 22 years since I first discovered I was pregnant.  So for 21+ years …I’ve had a small or small-ish child.   Not having a “child” feels less like a chapter ending and more like a whole library closing.   For almost half of my life, I had a baby or child in tow.  Half. Of. My. Life.  And now the last one is a teenager.  And I know what that means.  I’m going to blink, and he’ll be gone.  Off discovering college and a whole new exciting world.

And I’ll be 50 when that happens.  Which to my 37 year old self is exceptionally old.  Even to my 45 year old self, 50 seems old. 

Almost as old as having teenagers.