I Would Rather Be In Bed

Sixteen seems like such a magical number in a kids life. It’s almost like tasting freedom for the first time.

Because you know…parents are super dumb and ruin lives and keep children, ESPECIALLY teenagers from enjoying anything in life.

Funny how we go from the coolest people in the world to the worst. How we are the makers of all things better to the creators of the biggest injustices in the universe. How we go from awe inspiring to super lame. If my kids even bothered to read this and made it this far I can just see their rolling eyes being lost to oblivion.

Anyways, that’s a matter for another time.

As you might have guessed by now, I have a kid turning sixteen this week. I have about three million feelings about it. Think no human alive can have that many feelings? Well, to quote Hermione Granger, “Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have.”

Anyways, I’ve grown a human from a cell to a giant. Literally, he’s taller than me and could probably take me in a fight if he ever tried. It’s been a lot of work so like high five to me. It’s also been insanely expensive and just the most exhausting thing I can think of.

The worst part?

Instead of your child being some abstract idea of being an adult in the distant future…it’s now practically here. Like RIGHT now. Kids can get drivers license’s and jobs at sixteen. Start planning for college. Really, the next two years are meant to be transition years into getting your child ready to leave the shelter and comfort of your home.

And I. Am. Not. Ready.

He is not ready.

Somewhere I missed the boat on preparing my child to start thinking ahead and kept him in my mind as my forever child. He was my first after all. The child that saved me from myself. In many ways, for most of my life, he’s lived on a pedestal in my mind as the one who can never leave me.

Don’t get me wrong. I have another child. My beautiful, shining, strong willed, adventurous, taking life by the horns fourteen year old daughter. Aside from giving me a gastric ulcer mixed with a permanent headache, I don’t worry about her. Somewhere, somehow, I taught her how to get everything she wants out of life and to take no prisoners. She moves mountains even now and generally puts them right in my way which is really about the most annoying thing I can think of.

I think I taught her to be just like me and two strong personalities end in fiery destruction most of the time. Oh well, that’s what clean up crews are for.

But my son? I don’t think I prepared him. I’m fact, I might have even handicapped him. Now that he looks like a full grown adult and most of the time can’t order his own food at a restaurant I wonder…what do I do now? What plan is there to put in action in these two short years I have left to grow this boy into a man ready to meet the world and be successful? How do I undo the damage I’ve done, the coddling I’ve enabled, in time?

We spend infant and toddler and elementary. years obsessed with our children meeting their benchmarks. Are they walking on time? Are they talking on time? Are they reading at their grade level?

Nobody really thinks to warn you, that there are a million bench marks to meet for your teens too. Their high school grades matter. Make sure you check off all their credits in high school. Extra curricular’s look good on college apps! Scholarships! Driving! College application deadlines!

The pressure to be perfect starts at birth.

If your kid isn’t making their goals you’ve failed as a parent. If your kid isn’t eating right you’ve failed as a parent. If your kid’s mental health is suffering you’ve failed as a parent.

Why weren’t you there? Why weren’t you paying attention? Why didn’t you do more?

I wasn’t ready for sixteen. I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t do enough.

Or maybe. Just maybe.

Benchmarks are stupid. Guilt is ridiculous. And kids mature at their own speed.

So here’s what I’m saying, maybe I held on too tight to one and gave the other the ability to slay dragons. Maybe one just loves the place he’s at in life and the other has walls to break down. Maybe I didn’t fail. Maybe I just raised two very different people.

Maybe I just get the wonderful, insane, frustrating, rip your brain from your skull, fun, terrifying, exhilarating experience of raising these two kids who are really great humans at the end of the day.

So don’t worry, we all feel like we are the worst parents on earth MOST days of the week.

But, we probably aren’t. Mostly.

One day when your kid turns sixteen you’ll panic about them being nearly adults and wonder if you’ve prepared them too well or not enough. Either way, it’s ok. Give yourself some grace. Just be glad for them today.