Raising a teenager is not for sissies! Those of you who are doing it or have done it know what I’m talking about. Although we’ve all been one at one point in our life, seeing it from a different perspective, as the parent, is eye opening, to say the least! At the time I was going through my teen years, I remember thinking I was so grown up, so cool, so smart, my parents were SO dumb, and I was ready to take on the world. As a mother who has already seen 3 boys go through those years and is now wincing as I try to steer my 17 year old, Sam, through these ‘wonder” years, I realize how very immature teenagers can really be.
Here’s a picture of my clan, along with my husband, John. Sam is the adorable blonde, second to the left, helping celebrate his older brother, Christopher’s, 21st birthday. John made a really good point one night a number of years back. All four boys were still in the house and 3 of them were teenagers at the time. He looked at me and said, “Honey, we have 4 boys and they share 1 brain……….. And we never knows who has it!” Hilarious, but sadly true!
Right now it seems Sam is the one missing the brain, but he would argue that point with me for hours, along with the fact that the sky is not really blue (he’ll argue about pretty much anything right now!) The truth is he will never see my point about certain things, just as I didn’t see my parents’ point when I was his age. We have very different perspectives on life. He’s living in the moment, and his moment in time is very different from my moment in time. I’m worrying about things that he doesn’t give a thought to because, after all, he IS invincible and all those things I worry about will NEVER happen to him! Hmmmm, I vaguely remember telling my mother the exact same thing many years ago.
It’s teaching me that life is about perspective. These years that he thinks he never wants to end are ones that I can’t wait to get through! I’m just plain tired!
Life is funny that way. Your perspective regarding a problem or a situation in your life truly makes all the difference in the world. One person faced with a problem dives headfirst in to try and find a way to solve it, while another person faced with the same problem quits and moves on to something else. As Lipstick and Laughs, we’ve faced our share of obstacles and “problems” to overcome, mainly the fact that we live in three different parts of the country. We’ve had to find creative ways to deal with that, and we’ve had to try and see it from a new perspective, find ways to make it work. Skype has become our best friend and we love three-way calling on our cell phones. It hasn’t been easy and we could have had the perspective that this could never work, but we decided to try to see all the ways we could make it work. When you believe in something strongly, your perspective changes dramatically and no becomes just another obstacle to overcome.
While I know my son and I will be great friends again someday, right now I am okay with the fact that he probably isn’t going to like me a whole lot for a while. I’m confident that his perspective will change one day, just as mine keeps evolving, and pretty soon we’ll be on the same planet again, where the sky really is blue!
Jill
