Nine Differences Between Parenting Children and Teenagers

My kids are almost all grown. In fact, by the end of the summer, I’ll only have one who’s still a teenager, so I thought I’d share the differences and similarities between parenting little ones and teenagers.

1. You still say, “It’s bedtime.” And you still do the happy dance when you say it. But now it means “Dad and I are going to sleep, don’t burn down the house,” instead of “Let’s get the little ones to bed and have a glass of wine.”

2. Instead of saying, “Eat your dinner,” you say, “You ate all the (fill in the blank)? We were going to eat that for dinner.”

3. You still say, “Enough with the computer games.” Actually, there’s no difference with this one.

4. Instead of you saying, “You’re not wearing that.” Your teenagers say, “Mom, you’re not wearing that." (BTW, there’s nothing wrong with mom jeans, just saying.)

5. Instead of your kids waking you at 5am, you shake them and say, “I don’t care if it’s Saturday—it’s noon, get up and eat breakfast.” (And they seem to miss the correlation between number one and number five.)

6. “Be careful” used to mean “don’t fall off the swing.” Now it means, “you will be hurtling in a 4000 lbs metal conveyance along the highway at 65 mph per hour with all your siblings in the car—BE CAREFUL!”

7. You used to carefully consider whether a particular movie would be too scary for the kids. Now when your son asks you to watch the latest sci-fi flick, you say, “Will this give me nightmares?”

8. “Let me help you tie your shoe” becomes “Uh, can you help me synch my Kindle with my phone?”

  

    9.  And I love you still means I love you, only more.