You Know You're a Mother of Teenagers When...

1. You know you own a car, but you haven’t actually driven it in months because someone else really, really needs it.

2. When you do get your car back and turn the key, you nearly have a heart attack because the radio is set to some station that plays noise really loudly. Of course, there is the teenage rebel who listens only to Rachmaninoff, which is not bad. But also too loud.

3. There are several people in the house way more hormonal than you are. And they aren’t necessarily daughters.

4. Your child only has two pairs of jeans—one to wear and one in the laundry. And you’re not going to buy more because he’s going to outgrow them next month anyway.

5. Someone tries to convince you that earbuds are a study necessity. 

6. You went grocery shopping in the morning and the food is all gone by the evening. This is closely associated with finding a teenager gnawing on a stick of butter because he/she couldn’t find anything else to eat.

7. There are three food groups for boys. Protein, protein, and more protein.

8. You discover that pure, unadulterated terror is waving good-bye to your licensed teenage driver who is taking all of his/her siblings somewhere and traveling on the interstate.

9. As a corollary, you think you learned to pray when your children were little. When they’re teenagers, you really learn what prayer is all about.

10. The good news is that as they approach the end of the teens, they’ll actually say stuff like “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me.” Or, “I’ll pay for that.” Or my favorite, “I love you.”