The Joy of Parenting Teens

Mark Twain once said,  "When a child turns 12 you should put him in a barrel, nail the lid down and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug the hole!" Interesting choice of words considering the untimely deaths of three of Mr. Twain's four children. Yes, I checked on the validity of Mr. Twain's parenting advice.

(Now, now.. I'm sure he was a great parent.. just bad luck with his childrens' health!)

I have six girls to shepherd into adulthood.  Six! Two of the six will be 18 in December. In fact, they will turn 18 on the 18th - I am thinking a theme party might be in order but that's another post for another day. Today I am pondering the stress of raising teenage girls to be happy, healthy and wise. Wise!  Did you just hear my snorts of mirth? Sorry, I will contain my laughter by imagining the ticked off girls who read this post later and inevitably shoot me furtive looks of irritated disgust. All I can say is that I am damn lucky my mom didn't have a blog when I was a teen!

Even though I joke about having teenagers, I will be the first to tell you that raising my girls has been relatively smooth sailing. They are compassionate and kind, tell me every day that they love me, never skimp on the goodnight/goodmorning hugs, and they are awesome helpers around the house! (Only some nagging required!) Up until now, this parenting thing has been cake and I've occasionally wondered what the big deal is. How can there be so many books written on a subject that seems to steer itself?

Ha!

Enter the variable. One of my teenagers has entered the love phase. You know, the undying-can't live without you or I'll stop breathing, kind of love? Believe me, Romeo and Juliette have been in the front of my mind a lot lately and it's all I can do to control the gag reflex on some days. However, I do remember what teenage love feels like and I also remember that there is actual pain involved. You mean I have to hang up the phone after only 2 hours of conversation? Ouch, what is that pain in my stomach? I can't be with Mr. Adorable today? Ohmigosh, there's a burning sensation in my heart.. my actual heart! Oh yes, I remember it well. So I'm trying to be understanding without putting my toe over that razor's edge of being a parent and being a parent who acts more like a friend (a friend who doesn't have parents).  Most days I collapse into bed emotionally exhausted. Oh the drama!

It turns out that this parenting of teens isn't exactly as easy as I thought!

The other day an issue of cell phone use came up (I'll spare you the long backstory) and I had to go online to check cell phone usage for one of my girls. I had to use both hands to pick my jaw up off of the floor. No joke! In two weeks, my darling little girl had racked up nearly 2400 text messages! How is this even possible? As I looked at the texting details, I discovered that this daughter of mine had been texting through the nights, texting at school, pretty much texting every single minute of every day. I wondered outloud if she had calluses on her fingertips. (Just a bit of advice on that... teens don't like that kind of humor. It didn't go over well for me and it probably wouldn't for you either, so I suggest you avoid that temptation.) As shocking as the texting frequency was, it wasn't what got my daughter's phone taken away, no matter what she tells her friends about it now.

I have one very big rule in my house. Don't lie! I have always taught my girls that it is better to tell the truth, even if they think it is going to get them in trouble. To emphasize this lesson, I have always gone easier on any required discipline if they tell me the truth up front, and I lay down the grounding hammer of doom and gloom if they tell me a lie. You think they would learn that when mom asks a question, she sometimes already knows the answer so be sure to tell the truth! Even with more than a dozen years of training, I quickly found out that this lesson needed to be taught again and as a result the cell phone gets to take a nice, quiet vacation for the next two weeks.

Helpful hint of the day: If you don't want to tip someone off to anything amiss, do try to hide your panic when your cell phone gets confiscated. Otherwise, your text messages might be checked when alarm bells start going off along with the red flags being carelessly tossed in every direction.


Again, I'll spare you the details because quite frankly, I wish I could erase it from my own mind. But a word to the wise: If you're going to read your teen's text messages, be prepared! (I have been reassured that it was all completely innocent but it just looks bad when taken out of context. I've chosen to believe this in order to deal with it.)

As parents, we know that we have to teach our kids how to be respectable, successful adults. We spend every waking minute carefully crafting their behavior and manners in a way that we can be proud of. I don't want a bunch of mini me minions... (Triple M Mafia?) I want them to be individuals and be happy with their choices in life. To me that is the hallmark of a successful parent.  What I did not take into account was the boyfriend factor. Now there is another person, with different thoughts and upbringing, impacting our daily lives and I am completely unprepared for it!

I actually caught myself sounding like my mother and that made me cringe like I was chewing tinfoil!

"I don't care what everyone else is doing, this is my house and these are my rules." Great one. I think the edges of reality blurred when I said this and I actually time traveled to my childhood home.

"You may think of yourself as grown up, but you're still just a child. It is not OK to cross that line." I hated it when my mom said that to me. I am certain it was just as cheesy when I said it to my daughter, but I don't know how else to convey the principle behind it.

So the discussion my Dear Hubby and I had with Daughter was awkward for us and beyond tearful for her. She was mad, offended, defensive and fixated on a spot of the ceiling that held her icy glare, thereby protecting me from the deep freeze radiating off of her. I was thinking how I wished we could go back to the days when our biggest issue was avoiding the temptation of sticking poptarts in the VCR.  Now that's a lecture I can really get behind and deliver with style!

But wait, there's more!

We could have had the discussion with Daughter and called it good, but I felt that I needed to speak to Boyfriend as well. Who knows what he is hearing from her... she may be telling him that our family believes in midnight texting sessions and that the moon is really one great big Cookie Crisp cereal bite and we own real estate there.  You get the idea.  Boyfriend was already planning on coming over to hang out on Labor Day so I figured my opportunity was about to arrive. I told Daughter that Boyfriend could expect to have a sit down with Hubby and me.

Just try to imagine the terror a 15 year old boy would feel upon hearing such news! I have never before seen a kid shake in fear as I walked into a room. (My own kids have never feared me, and that's a good thing!)  I imagine this is how world leaders must feel when they walk into a Peace Summit.  Oh the power!

I talked to both of them by myself. (Hubby chickened out at the last second.. he was afraid he would throttle the poor boy!) They were both extremely quiet and would nod their heads or mumble "OK" from time to time, but other than that there was not much conversation happening. All of the earlier drama was completely missing. I am still trying to figure that one out. Does it mean that Daughter finally saw the point I was trying to make or does it mean that she just doesn't want Boyfriend to see her dramatic side?  The only thing I know for certain is that neither of them, at this point in their lives, can comprehend how difficult it was for me to have that conversation with them. However, I do hope that 20ish years from now, Daughter will call me up one day and say, "Mom, I finally get it! How did you cope with the drama when I was a teen?"  I hope the Universe doesn't disappoint me on that one. My mom earned it and now so have I!

So, Mr. Twain, while I don't necessarily believe we should barrel our children for four years before giving up on them entirely, I do have days when I wish there was a barrel in my size. Not anything permanent, mind you, just someplace to hide until the teenage storm has passed and then I can sit in my too quiet house and get teary eyed as I reminisce and miss the wonderful days of parenting teenage girls.

Forty Six Seconds After Midnight

Four or five years ago Emily went on a youth camping trip and I was asked to write her a letter that she would be given on the last night around the campfire. Unfortunately, the leaders goofed and didn't give her the letter that night. It still hurts me to think of my little girl sitting around that fire, watching the other girls read their letters from their parents, thinking she didn't have one. I can imagine her making some light comment about how she was fine, it is all right, etc. Emily is like that. She keeps her emotions hidden, for the most part, unless it is happiness or abundance, and those she simply has too much of to keep bottled up and is almost always bouncy, happy and silly.

I digress.

Anyway, when Em came home from that camping trip, I couldn't wait to hear what she thought of her letter because I had poured my heart out to her in it. For a split second I saw sadness in her eyes when she said, "What letter? I didn't get one." I was mad! I started calling leaders until I found the person who admitted she had the letter and had forgotten to give it to Emily when the rest of the girls were all enjoying their own letters from home. I arranged to have it brought to our house and I gave it to Emily myself, which is the best way to deliver such sentiment anyway! Emily read the letter and I could tell she appreciated what I said about her in it. It made me so happy!

But there's more to the story of the letter.

Not that long ago, Carley lost her phone and we were helping her search the house for it. Since Carley and Emily are best buddies, I thought that Emily's room was the likely place it would be found. I searched the floor, the nightstand, the top of the dresser, and then I decided to start shaking out the bed, one blanket at a time. Keep in mind that this mom does not make beds for the girls. They have been in charge of their own domains since they were old enough to understand consequences for chores left undone. Needless to say, I had not had any reason previously to move Emily's pillows. But on that day, when I moved her pillows to the floor, I was stunned. There under her pillow, was the letter that I had written her years before. Just writing about it chokes me up! My little girl placed so much importance on my thoughts and words that she kept them in the place where they would be near her while she dreamed. How's that for sentiment? I may have written the letter, but Emily turned it into a treasure.

That's my girl. She is completely amazing in the way she continually surprises me. She has this goofy exterior that keeps people guessing about what is going on inside. But I know the truth. She has a heart of gold and she carefully protects it from the outside world, much as the greatest treasures are carefully kept around the world. Hidden and protected, even though we know it is there.

When Emily was born, I was wary of the chaos that had surrounded Carley and Madison's birth just 13 months prior. I was adamant that I wanted none of that this time and I told my family that this time it would just be the key players at the hospital but that they could visit later. The doctor induced me around 6 in the evening but warned that it would likely be a long labor.He reasoned that because Carley and Madi were born via C-section, it would be just like a first time mother in labor and the body would take time adjusting to it. HA! He had no idea (Nor did I!) just who was about to make her grand entrance into the world. The doctor was expecting me to be in labor for 12 hours or more. Emily had different plans.

In true Emily fashion, she was born a mere 46 seconds after midnight. The doctor almost didn't make it there in time. He told us that he had just gone to bed when he got the call to return. Thankfully he was there though, because there was a terrifying few minutes when the nurse announced that she was losing Emily's vitals. Something was very wrong. Emily's cord was wrapped around her neck twice and the life was being strangled out of her. There were shouted commands, nurses running in and out of the room, and just as I began to panic, Emily wailed and announced her presence to the world.

Forty six seconds after midnight, January 10th, 1994. My life would never be the same.


Emily had this amazing ability to wrap people around her tiny fingers. Carley and Madi were in awe of her. Who was this little creature who rarely cried, smiled so huge that her face transformed, and who loved smacking and pulling hair, much to the delighted giggles and pained screams of her older twin sisters? Grandma Thomas warned us that it is the quiet ones you have to be careful of, presumably because they would turn into terrors as they grew up.

Emily was definitely precocious. She knew what she wanted and would settle for nothing less. NO was not a word in her vocabulary. In fact, if you told her no, she would smile sweetly, do what she wanted anyway, and then return for a hug. It was as if she was saying, "Oh silly mother! I understand you have a job to do. Just don't move and I will be there to apologize in a minute." She was never a "bad" girl, she was just busy and wanted to explore everything. Looking back on it now, I have to smile because she is still a lot like that, and I try not to tell her no.

Emily hasn't had an easy childhood in any sense. She was hospitalized several times as an infant for RSV, asthma and pneumonia. The doctor's couldn't give us a reason for her respiratory problems and we spent many nights making emergency trips to PCMC when our baby girl was in distress. But there was a bigger medical issue lurking that we didn't understand and Emily's life was in constant peril because of it. She had survived all of the respiratory ailments and an operation to open her tear ducts, but when she began having frightening swelling and redness around her mouth and eyes, no one could understand it. I will never forget sitting in the doctor's waiting room with my 2 year old Emily whose eyes were bruised looking and swollen shut. Other parents glared accusingly at me - they probably thought she had been abused. The doctors told us that day that she probably got soap in her eyes. They flushed her eyes, gave her benedryl and sent us home. It would take several more terrifying trips to the doctor before we figured out what it was that made Emily swell so terribly.

Peanut Allergy.

I don't remember the exact moment of the epiphany, but I do know that our lives changed forever when we finally figured it out. Emily could not eat, touch or even smell peanuts or peanut products without triggering an immediate and severe allergic reaction. Unfortunately, because it had taken us so long to figure it out, her little body reacted by going into anaphylactic shock when she was exposed to peanuts. We had to declare war on peanuts.

I refer to it as a war because I never fought so hard to make people understand. No one wanted to believe us! Emily had to endure taunting from classmates, parent helpers purposely putting her in harm's way (here, hold a peanut butter coated pine cone!)and even a school secretary who had the nerve to tell me that she personally saw Emily eat a peanut butter cookie and therefore knew that Emily was not allergic. EXCUSE ME? Not possible lady! I remember telling her that I'd like to see her approach someone in a wheelchair and tell them that she knew they were faking. I didn't waste much time on her though. I called the district and brought the war to them. That secretary retired a short time later, but not before she tearfully apologized to me. I know she truly felt remorseful about what she had done, but I was not sorry to see her go. I like to think that by laying all the groundwork for Emily to be safe in school, maybe we made it easier for another allergic child somewhere down the road.

Emily started her first year of High School this year and it is the first time in many years that I have not asked for a meeting with the school staff to put safety measures in place that would protect Emily from potentially deadly exposure to peanuts at school. It is important for me that Emily learn to manage her own health so that she will always be OK. I can't always be there to protect my girl, so I must trust her to be vigilant on her own. But the truth is that I will always worry about her.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are everywhere and they are our nemesis, even if they are delicious! Mistakes can happen anywhere, even in our own home. We unknowingly brought peanut chip cookies into our home one year(a Christmas plate of goodies) and we nearly lost our Em that night when she ate a bite. I will forever be grateful for my brave husband who didn't hesitate to inject Emily with the epinephrine that saved her life. I never want to go through that again so be careful, Emily!

One of Emily's greatest qualities is her gift for entertaining. She loves to sing, act and make people smile any way that she can. She has a great group of friends who are much like her that way, and we have been treated to many occasions when they all burst into song together, laugh and dance around the room. Great kids! I have many great memories of show choir concerts, plays and other events where Emily performed and made us all so proud!



Emily, you are one of the sweetest people I have ever known. You are almost always happy and have a gift for cheering up everyone around you. I love the way your happiness and silly antics are contagious! You were not given the nickname of "Happiness Concentrate" for nothing. I hope that you always have the courage to follow your dreams, and don't be afraid to dream big. I adore your smile, your laughter, your hugs, and the way you like to kiss people on the nose when they are sad. You are the light of our family and we are so grateful for your wacky personality! You have an inner strength that not many people possess - always use it to do good things in life. Continue to share your happiness and strength with those around you and you will always be blessed.

I love you, sweet girl! Happy 16th Birthday!!!!