Parenting Teens

When my husband got the job of his dreams, we packed up and moved from the west coast to Massachusetts. We knew that this would be a culture shift for us, but we’re pretty resilient and were excited to explore new places. 

With very few options near my husband’s office, we landed in a small town in mid-northern Massachusetts, just south of Lowell. The important thing to note, as we have found out after a bit over a year, is that Lowell is where all of the “bad” people live. According to locals in our town. 

By “bad” people, they appear to mean anyone of color, but particularly anyone who do not conform to middle-to-upper class, white dress codes and behaviors. Ultimately, if your family hasn’t been in this town for multiple generations, you’re pretty much a social pariah. 

My 16 year old son is nonconforming in every way. He has big ear rings “stretched” or “gauged,” as he calls them. He is stocky and likes to wear bigger clothes, mostly to feel comfortable for his size. And, as if these things were already not enough for locals to despise him before he speaks, he is brown. 

EVERY single walk he takes (we are from Seattle and have always been big on walking everywhere), he is stopped by police. “What’s your name? Where do you live?” Same questions, every time. 

There is VERY little crime in our area. The police get most of their revenue from speeding, drunk driving, and the occasional drunk & disorderly outside of the local dives. So they have a LOT of time to mess with my son.

Recently the police cornered my son in a parking lot, and heavily interrogated him for 20 minutes. Allegedly there had been a robbery two miles away. Never mind that my son was on foot; walking, and that the police see him walking near our apartment EVERY DAY. 

After hearing the full story, I contacted the local Chief of Police to make sure to let him know that *I* was on the ball when it came to police harassment. Coincidentally, my son has not even been questioned or stopped at all since that day.

I did not inform the police Chief that I am an American Bar Association certified Paralegal. I figured we could play that card if they push the line any further. Either way, I’m documenting EVERY stop, every question, and every conversation that the police have with my son. Just in case we need that for court, some day. 

I read about this 22 year old who killed himself from texting while driving. My mommy heart broke into a million-gazillion pieces; all of my worst nightmares of every time they drive, flooding my mind. 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/parents-hope-photo-fatal-text-serves-warning-18926600#.UWcAy5PDmoE

Alexander Heit’s last text was to tell his friend that he would see him soon. A screen shot of the fateful last words was shared by his parents. 

“In a split second you could ruin your future, injure or kill others, and tear a hole in the heart of everyone who loves you,” Sharon Heit said.

Tears. Reading that brings very real, wet tears to my eyes. Sharon, you got him to college and driving, you did what so many moms hope to do as part of our parenting. I’m so sorry for this loss, and thank you for providing this opportunity to talk about this publicly. 

What is “this” that we should be talking about, to honor the Keit family? It’s texting while driving, which is a well covered topic in many state legislator sessions and on voter ballots around the nation.

It is also what happens when your adult offspring have been driving for just enough years to get super confident in their multitasking abilities. 

If you have sons in the 18-20 range (probably older, but that is outside of my personal experience), you may be familiar with the invincible nature of their thinking. And if you have “good” kids, who have worked hard and achieved all the “right” things like graduation and college, you are probably even MORE familiar with the over-confidence. 

Cockiness of young men aside, even “full grown” (let’s not pretend that everyone who ages grows up) adults can also get over confident while driving. Heaven forbid that our older teen or young adult kids see US grab a phone while driving, or peak at a text, or JUST read a little email on the iPhone while at a red light… Ooops. So many moms of teen drivers have confessed this to me.  What did we just teach our kids??

What I am saying is this: Talk about over-confidence, talk about the myth of being ABLE to multitask while driving, talk about not killing yourself (or others on the road!) to text, “See ya, man!” 

Say something. Do not remain silent and assume that your young adults already know-it-all because you taught them back when they were 16, or you paid someone else to teach them that thing. Listen if your teenager catches you doing that horrible thing in front of them, tell them that they are right and that you SHOULD NOT risk everyone’s lives because you’re “old enough” to think that’s okay. 

Most of all, always, always, always, remind your kids that you love them and that your heart would be broken if they were taken from you. Particularly over a not-as-important-as-their-life text. 

Let them roll their eyes. Let them moan at you about their perfect driving record. But let them hear your voice in their heads when they reach for that phone while they are driving. 

You know that voice. You hear your parents voices sometimes, too.

I have a 19 year old son, who will be 20 next month. He is taking some time off between graduating from high school and going college, in order to work his first real job and live in his first shared apartment. He and his long time friend got jobs at the same place and an apartment together. 

My husband and I moved across the country a year ago, so my adult son is now 3000+ miles away. *mommy heart bleeds*

We speak a few times a week. I’ve been working on NOT replying to him with the “OH NO! Don’t do that thing! It will not end how you think…” Usually about his interactions with his boss, or his choices of letting people “stay” with him at his apartment, and similar we-all-had-that-bad-idea things. 

The important piece to this decision to NOT do the knee-jerk “OH NO!” response, other than the fact that I learned how bad that is when he was about 2yrs old and toddled and fell a lot, is that he is hyper sensitive to doing everything the “right” way. 

This kid stresses so hard about perfection that he causes himself acid reflux and illness. If I permitted myself to helicopter parent him too much, I would only be driving nails in his stress coffin. 

The later part of parenting, the late teen years and into adulthood, are all about fostering the skills that your teen will need to survive in the real world. Nothing sabotages this more than refusing to let them learn lessons and grow, on their own.

So, even though I’m wincing over the phone and driving my nails into my leg, I remain supportive of him. I identify the things he is doing well, his strengths, and push those as sources of wisdom in his decision making.

Honestly, sometimes I resort to the “at least you have backup” mentality. I remind him that our house has a room for him if he EVER needs it. This has reassured him a few times, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing, entirely.

It is quite an exercise to look back at nearly 20 years of parenting and see where my early decisions have gotten us. Parenting is an on-the-job experiential learning thing. The longer you are on the job, the more you see how the “perfect” things you did at the age of 3 actually panned out.

Oh man. I remember resenting the hell out of old moms for trying to teach me about parenting. Ha ha! Well played. Joke is on me about how valuable that would have been to LISTEN to someone rather than resent them. 

I ventured out and made some spicy foods, which I don’t normally do but my husband enjoys them so much and I like them on occasion. It was only one meal of spicy foods, but it turns out that my 16 year old decided this was not okay.

I made beef fried rice, with a good amount of garlic, Cajun rubbed pork chops (mostly a cumin/sugar flavor), and Korean seasoned celery twigs.

The celery was left over from making a roast, so I sliced it into twigs and added Korean chili paste (you use it for kimchi, bi bim bap, cucumber salad, etc), rice cooking wine, dash of apple cider vinegar, tsp of sugar, and chopped garlic. 

The next morning, the teen came out to the kitchen to confront me. He says, butt-hurt and demanding, “STOP making all those spicy foods! They are killing my stomach!” 

Dear Teen, 

Get off your lazy ass and go grab some cereal, a sandwich, or the microwave dinner of your choice! This is not a diner. I cooked for several hours to make that AMAZING spicy food, that I happened to enjoy the hell out of. And, I know one meal must *feel* like a lifetime of ass to you, it was ONLY ONE MEAL! 

Your grumpy teen routine is not acceptable!

Love,

Mom, who will not take your shit but still loves you.

In reality: 

What I did say was, “You have two different kinds of cereal, a few different sandwich options, and three tv dinners to choose from. Please feel free to serve yourself.”

This seemed to appease the teen, or at least make him stop being openly disgruntled at me. The open-cupboard policy is one he grew up with, so there really is no reason for him to even care what I make.

…..Other than to be a grumpy teen and growl at me, which gets old when Grumpy Teen is the station he has been stuck on from 12yrs-16yrs, and counting. 

He has his non-grumpy moments, but switches to outrage out of nowhere even at the happiest times.

It is a challenge to love someone who makes every moment together be an emotional roller coaster from laughing to crying and screaming, and back again, every day for years on end. 

And this is a normal range of teen. Welcome to teen parenting! 

I’m a mom of teenagers. I’m doing this:

-Because all the new mommies of 0-10 year olds seem to talk about parenting allllll the time and act like they have discovered all the best parenting ideas. Then their kids become teens and they shut the fuck up because the “use your nice words” parenting doesn’t work as well at 16 as it does at 6. 

-Because parents of teens are too ashamed to admit how they *really* handle things like when their kids get suspended for fighting, or when they find porn on the family computer, or even just the daily mental marathon that teenagers and their hormone filled minds perpetrate on the family. 

-Because sometimes you need to get it all out someplace that is not in front of your teenager in order to turn to them and speak in bigger than four-letter words.