Sticks and Stones and Parenting Teenagers
We don't all feel like we're equipped to parent, but we're all our kids have, so we have no choice. Plus, the Super Bowl!
One of the things they don’t tell you about being a good parent is that it also requires you to be a good adult.
Most adults don’t feel like adults. (I don’t.) Not even the ones you thought were the most adulty adults ever when you were a kid, whether they were your parents or your teachers or your bosses. We all assume everyone older than us has it figured out, but in reality, they’re all faking it too. Every adult still feels like a kid—internally, I still feel 25, at best—and most of the time when we’re being properly adult-like, we’re still just fumbling around in the dark.
It gets a lot harder when you have kids, because in order to be a good parent, you need to do more than fake it.
Sometimes, the mask falls off.
Last week, during a heated discussion about schoolwork and grades and responsibility—every teen’s favorite topics!—my 13yo lashed out at me and hurt my feelings.
Suddenly, I was 13 again too.
It’s a Teen Thing (Sometimes)
This isn’t new. Not that he’s constantly insulting me or saying mean things to me (he saves that for his little brother), but we are often at odds. We are too similar (stubborn, sarcastic, obsessed with being right) and too different (he’s insanely sensitive in good ways and bad, and I still can’t figure out how to respond to his ADHD), I’m too practical, he’s too thirteen, etc.
On this particular night, I was in the middle of a(nother) lecture about his need to buckle down at school. He pretty much tunes me out when I get into that mode, which leads me to get frustrated and him to pull away from me. As both of our tempers got hot, he said something hurtful about preferring it when I go to work, because it means I’m not around as much. Wounded, I responded like a good adult should: by petulantly storming off and giving him exactly what he wanted, like a wittle middle-aged baby.
I have a tweet from years ago, when my current teen was still a little kid, in which I state that incidents like that not only happen to every parent, but are actually a badge of honor. They’re an indication that you’re doing something right. But when a 6-year-old says he hates you, they don’t mean that shit; they worship their parents! 13-year-olds, however…
Older kids have wised up and started to realize that their parents aren’t infallible, that they aren’t the smartest or strongest people in the world, and they don’t know everything. They no longer worship their dads the way they do as kids (moms often get a little more leeway), and while he probably didn’t mean what he said, he definitely meant it more than he did when he was 6. And that’s fine. I’m a big boy, I was a teenager once, I get it.
Parents Have Feelings
But he actually did draw a little blood, and despite the fact that I reacted poorly, I think it’s fair to let your kids know that you’re not only not perfect, you aren’t impervious either. Mom and Buried and I believe it’s best for kids to understand that parents are people too, we make mistakes, we need support, we struggle. We have feelings too.
That said, as one of my kids’ designated adults and authority figures, I need to find a better way to teach him empathy without behaving like a kid myself.
Unfortunately, as we enter the teenage years, this is harder said than done. Despite my awareness of how fraught these years can be, and my openness about how frustratingly ill-equipped I am constantly revealed to be, I am blowing it left and right. Much of my challenging relationship with my 13yo is my fault.
Swallowing Your Pride
When you’re in the parenting trenches, it’s inevitable that there will be times when the very reason your kids are upset is you—often for good reason. And as they get older they aren’t always shy about letting you know it, like my son did the other night.
When that happens, it can hurt, and it’s easy to get defensive, especially when there are so many things we do for our kids that they aren’t aware of or take for granted. But that’s not their fault. That’s the job, and keeping them ignorant to and safe from some of the struggles of adulthood is often necessary to let them be the kids that they are. Instead you have to swallow your pride and find a way through that to help them.
Every time I post something about this on social, well-meaning parents assure me that my awareness and willingness to admit my shortcomings and accept my need to improve is half the battle. Maybe it is. But that’s cold comfort when I’m so badly losing the other half.
Newsflash: Parenting is hard!
And as your kids get older, one of the things that makes it parenting so hard is the lack of an escape hatch. You can’t bow out when the going gets tough. That’s when kids need you the most.
Because as much as you may not feel like an adult to yourself, you definitely are one to your kids. With great power comes great responsibility, even if you don’t always feel equipped to handle it.
I’m not a good parent, and I’m barely scraping by as an adult. But I did manage to get over my hurt feelings and invite him with me to a special screening of DUNE on IMAX.
Because nothing gets a kid to like you again like a little bribery.
Social Media Round-up
Pop Culture Stuff
My wife is a 49ers fan, and now The Hammer is too (they’re his second favorite behind the Dolphins. I can’t begrudge it, he needs some happiness in his burgeoning existence as a football fan), but I won’t lie, I was rooting for the Lions. It would have been fun to have such a long-suffering franchise finally make it. Of course, I wouldn’t want them to win it all before Miami does because I’m a pathetic person, but still, I wanted them to make it! (And not only because I had a longshot bet riding on them winning the Super Bowl.)
I like the Chiefs—Mahomes is too good—so I’m rooting for them, and I’m also pro-Taylor Swift, as if you didn’t already know. If only because she makes assholes’ heads explode.
In other news, I took my kid to see DUNE last week. I hadn’t seen it because I love the director (SICARIO, ARRIVAL, and BLADE RUNNER 2049 totally rip) and I wanted to see it on the big screen. When it originally hit theaters, I missed it, and I’d delayed watching it on HBO because I was hoping against hope that it might be re-released. And it was!
So I took my mean son—to an IMAX theater—and the movie didn’t disappoint. If nothing else, it’s incredible looking, and the cast is amazing. I’ve loved Rebecca Ferguson since I first saw her in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION and she rarely disappoints (She’s fantastic in DOCTOR SLEEP - but please only watch the director’s cut!). Not a huge Momoa fan but he’s a badass in this one. And I like Chalamet well enough, get off me.
Needless to say I can’t wait for the sequel, if only to see how much more George Lucas ripped off from Frank Herbert’s books.
One of the most important things I worked on before having a kid was to make myself be the best I could be so I don't fuck up my kids. Being an adult is hard but working on yourself is the only way to lead your kids.
I definitely appreciate how transparent you are about your parenting skills (or lack thereof). I will say I wasn't sure I was going to survive the teen years with my daughter, but we somehow managed to make it to the other side. And the relationship we have now is totally worth it. May the odds be ever in your favor.