Me: Urgh! Teenagers drive me crazy! They're so selfish, self-absorbed, self-righteous...

Hubby: Hey, we've all been there.

Me: Yeah, but now I'm on this side and it's annoying as hell.

They always say that "you'll understand when you're a parent," and as stupid as that sounds, it's so, so true. So often I find myself baffled at my son's behavior, how he could be so 'this' and so 'that', when it wasn't so long ago that I was just like him. Okay, it WAS so long ago. But the point is that I was a brat - to my parents, to my teachers, to everyone. I remember acting as if the very sound of my parents breathing annoyed me. I remember my high school English teacher making a comment to me (once the demon was exorcised from my teenage body) about what an angsty, hormonal nightmare I used to be in class. And I vividly remember a day long ago, my friends and I were making up a dance routine in our babysitter's backyard when she peeked her head out the sliding glass door to ask me a favor. I sighed the biggest, most exasperated sigh I could muster, and she responded, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you!" In the most sarcastic tone she could muster. And that sigh? That infuriating, ridiculous sigh is representative of what my life is like living with a teenager.

The circle of life. What comes around, goes around I guess.

P.S. I had actually written this post before the big TV moment. The teenager is still playing nice. And I'm so thankful.

Labels: parent 'hood