Parenting Teens is HARD!!!!

Being a teenage mom is freaking hard. My daughter tells me too much, my son tells me nothing. Do I punish my daughter for telling me too much and being open and honest? Do I punish my son for wanting some privacy? What are the privacy rules when it comes to phones and social media? I do my research and I listen to people who supposedly know how to handle this. But who really knows how to handle this? We are the first era of parents to have to really deal with social media and phones that are attached to our children like another arm.  Do teenagers really get privacy? Is it like having a diary when I was a teenager. If my mom had read my diary when I was a teenager I would have died. Where is my diary anyway?

Do parents not allow kids to have phones and social media accounts. I get this parental control to a certain age. Then it gets to a point if we want our kids to be able to function in this society, we can't keep them in this bubble of security. If they want to succeed they have to know how to work a phone and a computer. They can't even finish elementary school anymore without knowing everything about a computer and an iPad.

I have drilled into my kids about never posting a nude picture and about being aware of Stranger Danger and about being kind on social media and in life.  Let's face reality, social media is here and it is a big part of a teenagers life. I get that. But, do I have to have an argument with my son that he cannot have a private Instagram account and he CANNOT block me from his Snapchat. Or that he has to add the Bark Me app to his Snapchat. Why does he have to be so sneaky? His sister wasn't like this, or was she?? Actually, is she?

I was raised with all sisters. My brother is so much younger than me that I have no idea what he was like as a teenager. I'm the first one to have a boy on my side of the family in a long time. Everything about my son is brand new to me. I'm trying to figure this out, but boys are not like girls, obviously. He is my baby and I want to believe he does nothing that boys his age do, but I know I'm being naive!!

His sister, being a junior in high school, is also becoming a bit more challenging. I'm trying to let her be more independent and spread her wings, but also still trying to be a parent.

As my ex-mother in law said when I had newborns, "You think this is hard, just wait until they are teenagers." Holy Crap, how right she was!!!!

Parenting is one of the most rewarding and joyous things I have ever done, but it is definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done. And I'm right smack in the middle of it.

I know this will pass, but the problem with that is I don't want it to pass! I want to keep them with me forever. The adorable toddlers they were to the rebellious teenagers they have become. I love them no matter what, unconditionally FOREVER. So, no matter how hard and stressful this is, I'm trying to embrace every moment for one day I will wish to have this moment back. For now,  I have my wine to help get me through this!!

My kids when they were little and liked me!!

 Now, they kind of like me. 

Wine to the rescue!!