Recently, there was an article in our local newspaper that shared “surprise” information. According to the article, teens actually like hanging out with their families and value their relationships with their parents. When I brought this article up at the dinner table with my own teens, they scoffed and remarked: “Where do they get this stuff?” Regardless of whether my teens would admit to liking me in a blind study or not, in reality, most parents of teens are in direct competition with the peer group.
Sure, I’ve got money and I know how to cook and do laundry, but I am definitely not as cool, hip, entertaining or exciting as my kids’ friends. I get that. I hear them chuckle when I say something characteristically “un-cool”–little do they know that there was a time when I was pretty darn hip myself–all my own friends thought so. But, I’m not one of the gang now and I definitely cannot compete in the same playing field as my teens’ friends for their attention.
I think that is how it is supposed to be. I know that I will be the mom forever and we will have an ever-evolving relationship–but their friends are their comrades. Looking at some of my own oldest and dearest friends, I realize that we found each other during those tumultuous teenage years and have grown up and older together–connected by the bond of adolescence. I love my mom and I still talk to her on the phone several times a month, but she and my old time friends are in completely different ball parks. We may have to admit that the peer group is pretty important to teenagers (and we are kidding ourselves if we think otherwise), but that doesn’t mean we’ve abdicated our influence all together. We don’t have to compete with our teen’s friends–we’re the parent!
Also: “Mom,I’m Bored! Wanna Do Something?”
Getting the Teens to Talk to Me–It’s Feast or Famine