Hey there, awesome Moxie-Dude readers!
This weekend I got to drive for a certain distance (read: to the grocery store) with my teenager daughter. Mundane, you say? Clearly your children have not reached puberty.
Note to young mothers. Or mothers with young children. If you think that driving with a crying baby or unhappy toddler in the back seat is some kind of hell, let me introduce you to your life in about ten years. It’s my duty as part of the sista-hood of moms. You’re welcome.
Drive to grocery store
Me (after glancing at my daughter in the passenger’s seat): What’s the matter?
Teenage daughter (sitting quietly with arms crossed, in a fuming kind of way): I’m mad at you right now.
Me: What? Why?
Teenage daughter: Because you rushed me out of the house and I hate my hair.
Me: You said you WANTED to come!
Teenage daughter: Yeah. Because you never buy anything GOOD.
In said grocery store
Me: What kind of cereal do you want?
Teenage daughter: I don’t care.
Me: What kind of juice do you want?
Teenage daughter: I don’t care.
Me: What should we have for supper this week?
Teenage daughter: I don’t care.
Drive home from grocery store
Me: When we get home I want you to help me put the groceries away.
Teenage daughter: Whatever.
Me: NOW what’s wrong?
Teenage daughter: You didn’t buy anything good.
Ugh. I’ve had that conversation way too many times. My five kids are 15-22 now. I’d like to think we’re getting closer to some sanity, some maturity. But I’m not counting those chickens until they hatch and move out.
I was prepared for the snotty attitude and constant sniping of teens. I’d read enough about that to see it as an important developmental phase and them just trying to find their way. But I wasn’t prepared for the superior attitude of my adult children still living at home. Seriously. Rarely does a day go by when one of them (I have three right now) doesn’t tell me how I’m running my home wrong, how I’m messing up their siblings, how I’m managing my money wrong. Shaking those off is a little harder because I wasn’t prepared for it.
So this is me preparing you for it. I don’t want it to slap anyone else unexpectedly in the head. Good luck.
Thanks for the “prep talk”! Yup. Can’t wait 🙂
Laughing so hard because every word of it is true!
It’s hard to believe that we were once like that . . . okay maybe not that hard.
Oh boy. I don’t have any girls so I don’t get to look forward to this, but I surely remember being this. My friend and I discussed it and agreed that being a teenage girl is like having a mental illness that goes away sometime in your 20’s. 😛
Don’t know which is worse, having that type of conversation or a convo with the know it all kid! My 17 year old boy would debate me on every single grocery item put into our cart, uuuggghhhh!!!!!!!!!
Good grief, indeed! You mean it gets *worse*?? My girls are already semi-professional eye rollers… I can’t wait for the moodiness to kick in. They’re 5 and 7, so I have a few years. Right? Right??
Yet another reason I am happy to be childfree.