Raising teenagers has got to be the toughest job. I mean come on, you are doing your job if your kid hates you. Really!! Who wants their kid to hate them.
We all want our kids to be happy well adjusted priests or nuns. Or maybe instead to graduate summa cum laude or whatever from Harvard. Then turn down the high paying job to go save the world. Stand up against oppression and poverty and still make good money. Marrying a great person, have 2 beautiful kids, who you get to see all the time.
Instead we watch the news, read the stories and get paranoid about losing our kids to drugs, alcohol and teen pregnancies. We worry they won't graduate, they will huff or puff some weird stuff. We debate snooping or spying, to drug test or not. Always thinking we are making the wrong choice.
Then we see those who have it together and wonder! We see them at church, restaurants and movies. Sitting with their teenagers, being affection and having reasonable conversations. We convince ourselves that unlike us they have it together. Our mind tells us not to compare just like we tell our kids. Does it work, do the thoughts go away. Maybe you have it more together than me.
I totally agree. However, I have come to believe that once you realize that no two kids are alike, it makes the good times better and the bad times tolerable. I once thought that "just get them to 18" and then put them in God's hands. But you never stop being a parent no matter what the age. The best we can hope for is wisdom with time and thank God for Guardian Angels!
ReplyDeleteWell said!!
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