Teenage Girls

I was once a teenage girl. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back now, I was really, really annoying. Like, so very self-centered and wrapped in my world with my problems and my needs and desires.

Yes, I was one of them.

And now…I’m scared. Very, very scared that I’ve got two coming my way. Sure, we have another two-plus years before Alyssa is official a teenager but I can see it already. It’s there, on the horizon…Teenage-hood.

Alyssa wants an ipod. Or an iphone. She’s desperate for a phone of any kind. She’s ten. We don’t think she needs a phone yet.

But I get the lure. A lot of her friends have phones and thus enters peer pressure and peer envy and wanting to be like everyone else.

The teen years are hard. I know that. But I’m coming to a conclusion that eluded me during my own teen years.

The teen years may be hard for the teenager but they’re infinitely harder for the parents going through it with them.

We can’t stop our kids from making mistakes. We can’t protect them from broken hearts and we shouldn’t even if we could.

Maybe the teen years are hard so they prepare us for our twenties and later, when we realize the angst we suffered as teenagers was so minor compared to the stresses of being an adult.

Whatever the case, I kind of wish I could stop time for just a little while, to enjoy my ten year old and her six year old sister. I kind of like these ages right now. We’re in a good groove and I know a bump is coming that is going to knock out right out of the groove.

I’m dreading it even as I anticipate it. I hope I'm able to handle it with patience, with love. It's so hard to be a teenage girl and yes it's hard to be around teenage girls. I know this. But we will work to get through the coming years togther. We hope to survive them relatively unscathed.