Teenagers Give me a Headache.......

Blah. Raising teenagers is a thankless job. One of my biggest complaints? Raising the kids is difficult, but fighting all the other parents out there is the biggest battle of all. If you don't yet have teenagers, just wait, you haven't even gotten to the fun part yet.

Because I care about what my kids are doing. Because I don't approve of or allow my children to do things that break the law. Because I feel it is my job to maintain control over where and what they are doing....well, I am often on the receiving end of a lot of hate in this house.

My girls are both nearing the end of their time needing parental guidance-at least the day-to-day kind anyway-but they are not at the end. Or past the end. In other words, I am still the boss.

Good parenting is difficult enough to do with your own kids; add in other parents who allow drinking, have mixed gender sleep-overs, and will lie for any child that asks them to and you have the recipe for a Mixed Martial Arts smack down in South St. Louis County at 3 pm on a Tuesday.

I am sick and tired of having to second guess what is going to happen at another house. Will there be underage drinking-I have face that at three separate homes. Is there a curfew and is it enforced? Would I be told if they missed it? Is there any standard of parenting at all; or worse are the parents even home? Seriously, a house full of teenagers with no supervision.....not while I'm still breathing.

To make matter even more complicated, both my girls drive now. There are parents out there allowing their underage children to drink-with their knowledge-then see no harm in letting them get behind the wheel of a car. WTF? Who thinks this is OK? How can I compete with poor judgement of this stupi-itude? Some days I feel I must live in an alternate reality.

These questions are not a matter of trust. These questions are a matter of not being stupid, not falling off the turnip truck yesterday and not enabling my kids to make some of the same mistakes I did. I'll tell you something else too, if you find this hypocritical, not only are you part of the problem, you should not have kids. No matter what I did as a youth, it is not my job to be fair or without sin; it is my job to raise my children with proper morals and supervision; to give them the best possible launch in life; to not allow them to crash before they even have a chance to launch.

As I so often have to tell them-I am not your friend, I am your mother. Blah. Teens....what a pain.