Teens...But They Will Always Be Your Babies

My first teen ager grew up without a hitch...maybe a fumble or two but I remember thinking "This ain't so hard".

I still had a little girl behind both boys and thought after raising two boys I would have enough training to tackle raising a girl.

My second has been a teen ager for over ten years now...he obviously never read the "Teen Manual". He started acting like a teen when he was eight years old and has been wearing me out ever since. He learned to debate when he was nine...he won all debates by the time he was ten and by the time he was eleven I gave up trying to debate him.

He's eighteen now and has made me feel like I am seventy (on a good day).

The difference in raising teens when I was one in the seventies and now is hands down ONE thing...the cell phone.

When I was a teen and you got ticked off at your parents you usually couldn't call friends immediately. Your mom was most probably on the only phone in the house, chatting with her best friend smoking a Kool Mild and drinking Iced tea...and that would be the wall phone hanging in the kitchen (with a rotary dial).

Today they are already texting their friends as you are screaming at them and before you take a pause for a breath ...your tirade has been broad casted about to a hundred of their closest peeps.

Next they turn to Facebook and by then have 600 peeps commiserating with them.

If you had told me when I was thirty years old that all of my kids would have cell phones by the time they were in middle school I would have asked what YOU were smoking?

Now I couldn't imagine them NOT having one.

My kids aren't BAD kids...but they are kids.

They think they have every answer to every problem and that you are the cause of most of them.

To their credit...I felt the same way when I was a teen, I just didn't have the Internet and social networking for all my buddies to back me up instantaneously...I had to wait for the next school day.

I do like the fact that they have cell phones (that I pay for) so I can reach them at any time, any where for any reason.

In this day and time that is a blessing... and very often a consoling thought.

I also like that my house seems to be "Teen Central". Yes they eat and drink me out of house and home but at least I know where they are and who they are hanging out WITH.

WOW!! What will it be like when MY teens are raising teens of their OWN?

Will you have to go through a body scanner to gain access to your high school (or your friend's house?)

Will cell phones be a thing of the past... only people in Ethiopia will have them?

Raising three teens has been an adventure...sometimes misguided and sometimes even "I" have gotten lost.

I feel like I have survived (somewhat) and sometimes think they are luckier to have survived having a nut like me for a Mom.

I sit and look at pictures of them chronologically arranged on my bedroom wall...where have the years gone and how did they pass so quickly?

I think back to when they were toddlers and realize how much they have changed, evolved and grown within the time span of a decade.

I don't know how, but I have three extremely intelligent kids that have had every advantage I could (and sometimes couldn't) afford.

They have worn me down...they have given me more gray hair and wrinkles than I ever wanted at the age of fifty but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

Having kids is a journey every person should travel...even if it is via nieces/nephews.

They make you old but they keep you young.

I am off tomorrow for the first time in over a week. I have already announced I am actually cooking so I can expect my kids and at least five of their friends to show up wanting a plate.

What a wonderful feeling.

If your kids want to bring THEIR friends to your house...always welcome them.

Life is fleeting...Life has no guarantees.

Enjoy the time with your kids and the friends of your kids.

I plan on being one popular "BE OTCH" in the nursing home and hearing how much my homemade macaroni and cheese meant to my kid's friends when they didn't have enough money for a McDonald's value meal.

The value of life?

Having kids that love you... remember what you taught them and knowing that they love you despite your faults and THEIRS.

I hope they get me a really cool walker with bright orange tennis balls on the front.

Til next time...COTTON