..... since I had my heart broken by a 14 year old boy. And after all that time, I've become fairly confident that it wouldn't happen again. I quit dating boys that age when I was that age. I grew up, dating older boys. Eventually marrying one of them. Started my own little family. Began the rewarding task of raising my two beautiful boys. Boys that loved and adored me. Boys that thought I could do no wrong and was the most perfect, "bestest" mom in the whole wide world. Life was working out wonderfully.
Until I suddenly found myself the mother to a 14 year old boy.
Who, for reasons known only in his testosterone-soaked, frustrated with all things related to Freshman English and Algebra 9, nothing my parents ever do is right or good enough teenaged mind decided today to reduce his mother to tears. Not once, but several times.
The first was over, of all things, his stupid cell phone. That, even though he will claim it was due to incidents and cosmic forces completely beyond his control, he broke. We went to the Verizon store to see if it could be fixed. Nope. No suck luck. Which apparently was the result he was hoping for, as in his mind it meant he could get a new one. Totally sucked for him, though, when it was discovered that I've been carrying insurance on that phone; so all I have to do is call the number and they will send him a new phone exactly like the one he's currently using. (Well, mostly. They don't actually make his model anymore, so he'll get the updated version of it.) That was not what he wanted to hear. Apparently, rather than just accept that I *still* have to spend $50 on the stupid replacement phone, he would rather I spent $150 on the phone he really wants. It might have helped me at that point to just calmly remember that ungratefulness makes me cry. Then I could have just taken him home and avoided the next confrontation.
It gets better.
We moved on to the pet store for dog food, and he refused to get out of the truck to come in and help me carry the 50 pound bag of food. Ok, to be fair, he didn't so much refuse as do the whole eye-rolling, huffing and puffing, whining thing about how he'd rather stay where he was, thankyouverymuch. So I left him, and went inside where at least the animals there were friendly.
This next part of our afternoon was probably the worst. This is where we progressed to name calling and full on, Category 10 attitudes. In the interest of fairness, I was probably almost as bad as he was at this point. I had been enduring several solid hours of his puki-ness (yes, its a word!), and had reached my breaking point.
Jock has an English paper due on Tuesday. Its a fairly major research paper/persuasive essay. He's had the assignment for 6 weeks. Guess how much work he's actually completed on it? Go on.... guess. If you guessed any number above ZERO, you'd be wrong. Well, he has done something. He picked a topic.
Now, I can make excuses three ways to Sunday for this kid for almost anything. I'm just weak like that. However, the fact remains that once he found himself having any sort of difficulty with this assignment, he absolutely should have come to SOMEONE for help. His teacher, certainly. His mother should have been a given. *sigh* But he didn't. He waited until his baseball coach came to me to discuss his eligibility, which prompted me to email his English teacher, which prompted our confrontation. (And yes, it was a confrontation. I'm not proud of that, but I've never claimed I had this parenting thing perfected, either.) Anyway, after much whining and excuse making, he agreed that he should have come to me before this, but could I please, Please, PLEASE help him now, Mom? Being the weak, give in to almost anything sort of mom that I apparently am, I agreed to help. Of course, that was when I was under the impression he'd appreciate it. Silly mom, thank you's are for grown ups!
So we are spending this long weekend working on his English paper. I take a break every time he gets pissy, so we don't start fighting again. Which means that this whole process will take at least twice as long as it needs to. But as God is my witness, this paper WILL get done.
And as an added bonus? I'm learning WAY more about the damn NFL Instant Replay System than I ever thought I would. That ought to make me a lot more fun when football season rolls around again!
12 comments:
Thank you. Thank you for being human, for being the parent of a teen, and for making me realize that I'm not the only one battling the teen hormones alone and having my own grown-up meltdowns because of it.
May tomorrow be better for both of you, and the paper get finished quickly.
I'll admit, Karen, that I struggled writing this one. Its not always easy to admit that you fight with your child more often than you'd like, and that often your own behavior is just as bad as theirs. :)
While I don't have a teenager yet I can still understand. Clever seems to be a huge procrastinator. She has a writing assignment due every Monday. She SHOULD be writing a little bit each day, but come every Saturday and Sunday we are still reminding her to get it done. "Can I play on the computer?" "Get your writing done" "Can I watch TV?" "Get your writing done" This goes on for two days straight.
Oh sweetie, you have my fullest empathy. Two teens make me crazy some days. My son has a project due in two weeks and today I MADE him do some of it. We've had so many last minute projects just this year. And the attitudes! I'm with ya. It passes, right? Right?!?
oh hon, I hope you get the appreciation you deserve when this is all done.
You are a great mom. Mine would've said something about learning from my mistake and you better get on it right away.
Thank you everyone for the support and empathy! I'm just glad that we had three days to get this done. It's allowed us to take a break when we're getting frustrated with each other.
Wow...if teenage boys get pissy enough to drive their beloved mothers to tears then I am soooo not looking forward to what teenage girls will be like...wish me luck!
And in the meantime, don't sweat it, I think it's like, a rule or something that parents need to regress and YELL at their kids at least twice a year ;)
Wow, I remember when I was fourteen - I used to make me mom cry all the time. It's so sad that cellphones are so damn important to the kids these day (I've coined them self-owns, for that reason).
It sounds like you're doing a great job though. Keep it up, he will really appreciate it one day.
What sucks the most is that it doesn't matter how good of a parent you are, teens ALWAYS think they are smarter than you and they're never grateful as much as they should be. Ugh. I dread those days.
You're doing a great job, by the way. Just remember, some day he will have a fourteen-year old of his own, and he'll know exactly how you felt. ;-)
*Hugs*
It's not weakness. It's love and it's hard not to let that get the best of us moms. I'd do it too (then mope and cry about it later). You're a great mom, I can tell. He'll realize that. Maybe not tomorrow, but he will.
Oh, and I'm with Karen. It's good to hear that I'm not alone in my frusterations about parenting...:)
Oh, teenagers!!!
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