Have you ever read something that was just what you needed to read?
I finished reading Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck. There is an essay/chapter within it titled “Parenting in Three Stages.”
“Adolescence comes as a gigantic shock to the modern parent, in large part because it seems so much like the adolescence you yourself went through. Your adolescent is sullen. Your adolescent is angry. Your adolescent is mean. In fact, your adolescent is mean to you.”
Back when they looked like this,
I could ask them to make their beds and they’d respond with sweet laughter (even if they didn’t make their beds).
But now, they look more like this:
and if I ask them to do the smallest thing, fire comes out of their ears. They whine. They sigh heavily. They’re angry.
Thank you, Nora, for letting me know their behavior is normal. I can laugh it off now. Kinda.
Kismet 
Hehe. Exactly what it feels like. My sentiments? “Where is my sweet baby? And what did you do with them?”
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?
I’ll be freaking Conan by the end… 😐
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Haha. Your Conan comment made me lol. I spoke with a lovely lady today. She told me she was positively horrible with her mother when she was in high school. But, after going to college, she learned a lot about herself and life. She came to appreciate her mom. I realized I went through the same thing. So…3 years to go. Unless my daughter reaches enlightenment early. 😉
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I think, just off the cuff, that they aren’t as angry as they like two year olds, and four year olds and all the other phases. They’re just trying to individuate and gain a little control back they think parents were born to usurp, when in truth they never had it to begin with. Unless it goes off the rails into something self or otherwise destructive, “I have to be perfect for everything and you make it WORSE.” Is pretty normal, even if you didn’t put perfection on their to-do list that day. The one good thing? Sullen reclusiveness under headphones keeps the car a LOT quieter.
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Phil,
Thank you for your response. I know they are not actually “angry” and I know that this is supposedly “normal,” but it’s still irritating/frustrating/annoying/disappointing. These days, kids are on a device that is very solitude in nature. Growing up, I definitely watched too much TV, but everyone in the house could see what I was doing. And I wasn’t watching TV for 4 hours in a row. It’s challenging to parent teens and I don’t want to be part of the statistic where the kids come back and live with mom and dad!
How old are your kid(s)?
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Mine went through the CD player headphone thing forever it seemed. She excelled in AP and in her senior year got senioritis and started driving by the bumper car method and we had to get her off our insurance and on her own policy. I could have killed her. She is now 35, a solid citizen and general counsel for an energy company in Dallas with two kids of her own who will be driving her crazy in about 8 years. Unless they end up over here more than one night a week. A friend of mine makes her grandkids leave their ASDs (anti social devices) on the kitchen table and find something to do for two hours. Write short stories, draw, play music or write songs without the lesson or practice structure. I don’t their parents could get away with it.
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ASDs. I love it.
Thank you for telling me your story. It is inspirational. I hope my eldest grows out of this “be mean and sullen” phase quickly. She used to be so nice and bubbly. She is still that way with others, so when I voice my concern, people don’t see what I’m talking about it. It’s too late to have my teenagers “put their ASDs away,” for hours, but I had them do it for 30 minutes yesterday. So they played around with makeup, together. It was nice to hear them laugh together again.
Thank you for your responses, Phil! Have a great day!
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