Parenting a Teenager

I have some time to write today. But no clue about what to write about.

When this was primarily a mommy blog, there was always some incident like coming home to find the PC screen upside down or some conversations like these that I had to share. I am still the mommy but with two teenagers, there has been a slow and steady erosion of my job description.

The kids are not only on their own wings, they keep trying to take me under their wing too. Maybe they are looking for some payback.

You need to exercise. No mom, you don’t have fever and you can’t bunk office. How can you read this crap; I’ll find you a book to read. Show me the ticket, I need to confirm the time. Give me the ID cards. Did you pack your charger? Why didn’t you finish lunch? Phone-Wallet-Keys why can’t you not lose just these three things?

For some time, I would keep reminding them that I was still the mom, but then I stopped bothering. I listen to the instructions. I make worse excuses than they ever made. When they get really mad over some random (unfortunately quite common) incident like misplacing a wallet, I use the zooming-out trick I learnt from them.

When I almost delayed a flight, requesting that they let me ‘un-board’ and search for my phone, I thought my daughter would start a blog of her own! ‘Teenaging a parent’ or something like that. We found the phone in the seat pocket after sending the crew on a treasure hunt. She just gave that ‘Don’t say a word’ look, I refused to meet her eyes. I acted ‘normal’, read a book for ten minutes and then silently offered to share a bag of chips.

It is good fun being a parent of a teen. 

It’s also payback!

Best laid plans

I hated planning; thinking ahead, organizing….the works

Life being what it is, tried to teach me all about it, giving me no option but to buckle up and change gears.

Now I work on a calendar on which most work appointments are (thankfully) maintained to some degree by Microsoft Outlook.

I keep adding other meetings, personal reminders (to book gas cylinders, doctor’s appointments, picking up stuff for school projects, getting laundry done, filling petrol, submitting bills, buying gifts for birthdays the kids have to attend etc) to that.

And yes, once the school calendars are out, I superimpose those to my existing one so that I also get the reminders for school competitions and holidays, unit tests, parents’ days, sports days etc.

Since this calendar doesn’t work when I am offline-I add all the important ones to my phone too-so that every driving, shopping, talking, walking, moment is organized to the bar of the T.

I’ve also organized my grocery shopping through a master list, from which I need to strike out the items I don’t need, and generate the list for any month.

Enough to win me a nomination for Ms. Efficiency? Probably.

Had it not been for the times, I left the phone in the car and missed the reminder for calling my college room-mate on her birthday or picking up stuff from the dry cleaners (or the umpteen times I leave my phone charger at office and leave the battery to whimper out) .

Or the times I’ve pulled up at a petrol pumps and realized that I’d left my credit card at home.

Or, the times when I’ve received emergency calls from school/daycare and raced out of meetings, training sessions, client calls….whatever.

Even the times when I’ve got hold of an interesting read and let go off everything else.

And the last few times when I forgot to print the programmed grocery lists and ended up with four bottles of toilet cleaner, three packets of turmeric and an empty sugar canister.

Well, there is only so much planning can do!