Q: Why it is that adolescence takes so long to happen?
A: It gives parents a chance to love the child.
This is for all of us that have teenagers, and are wondering what happened to that adorable baby or little kid who used to love you, and who you may still be trying your best to still love.
Remember when, after that first one was born, and one day soon after the highs of the birth had passed...when you realized that you had to pay attention to them twentyfour hours, seven days a week? I remember asking my firstborn, at about three weeks, "You mean that you're not gonna sleep all day and look cute til you're eighteen?", and then resigned myself and became a real Mom.
Now, the four of them are growing up and taking to their first wings, and I have to readjust all over again. You mean they're not gonna be appreciative and follow the rules and morals that I set and tried to teach them to follow? You mean they're not gonna be tolerant? Not polite and kind? You mean they're gonna know just what to say or do in order to stick in the knife just where it hurts the most..."Eat your vegetables and brush your teeth so that you will be healthy and pretty." "Like you, fatass? With your cavities?"...sigh.
I never appreciated that joke before. I always thought that MY kids were gonna be different and better, somehow. How quickly the circle comes to a full close. My own Mom is laughing, and now I understand why...I used to think it was just her style of revenge to laugh.
How hard it is to really know that my kids are normal and what they are doing is normal, and it's me that's gotta change. And how to change, after so many years and my whole life and energy and resources spent exclusivey on them? I don't think that the kids want me to change...they have me in a perfect position...cook, clean, care, provider of funds, believer of fibs...and big black lies.
Years ago, I heard an African song on the BBC world service. If I could find it, I'd frame it. It went something like this...'Your children come not of you, not from you, but through you. They don't belong to you. You must feed them and take care of them and teach them, but they are not yours...'. At the time, I didn't get, but now I am beginning to. How else could a parent survive?
A: It gives parents a chance to love the child.
This is for all of us that have teenagers, and are wondering what happened to that adorable baby or little kid who used to love you, and who you may still be trying your best to still love.
Remember when, after that first one was born, and one day soon after the highs of the birth had passed...when you realized that you had to pay attention to them twentyfour hours, seven days a week? I remember asking my firstborn, at about three weeks, "You mean that you're not gonna sleep all day and look cute til you're eighteen?", and then resigned myself and became a real Mom.
Now, the four of them are growing up and taking to their first wings, and I have to readjust all over again. You mean they're not gonna be appreciative and follow the rules and morals that I set and tried to teach them to follow? You mean they're not gonna be tolerant? Not polite and kind? You mean they're gonna know just what to say or do in order to stick in the knife just where it hurts the most..."Eat your vegetables and brush your teeth so that you will be healthy and pretty." "Like you, fatass? With your cavities?"...sigh.
I never appreciated that joke before. I always thought that MY kids were gonna be different and better, somehow. How quickly the circle comes to a full close. My own Mom is laughing, and now I understand why...I used to think it was just her style of revenge to laugh.
How hard it is to really know that my kids are normal and what they are doing is normal, and it's me that's gotta change. And how to change, after so many years and my whole life and energy and resources spent exclusivey on them? I don't think that the kids want me to change...they have me in a perfect position...cook, clean, care, provider of funds, believer of fibs...and big black lies.
Years ago, I heard an African song on the BBC world service. If I could find it, I'd frame it. It went something like this...'Your children come not of you, not from you, but through you. They don't belong to you. You must feed them and take care of them and teach them, but they are not yours...'. At the time, I didn't get, but now I am beginning to. How else could a parent survive?
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