12:30 Am Lightbulb Moment

Parenting teenagers is almost like living your teenage years all over again. It's just as painful and awkward and tear-filled and fun and life-changing, but in a different way.

Yes/No?

Also, what difference does it make (if any) that I am a fairly young-ish (buy modern, western-culture standards) mother of teens? My teenage years still seem just like yesterday (even as I celebrated my 15 wedding anniversary today, hard as it is to believe that it's been 15 years). Does that make me more sympathetic to the teenage plight or more naive and inexperienced because I personally have experienced less of life?

Someone I admire once told me that the best you could hope for when it comes to your children is that they grow into adults that you yourself would want to be close friends with even if they weren't related to you. I think that's a pretty good philosophy. So far my teens are people I'd want to hang around with even if they weren't related to me. It's a start.

On the other hand, things still have time to go arse-over-kettle, my DNA may win out over my more logical self and I may driven to an unhealthy relationship with the bottle. And probably not a bottle of Dr. Pepper, if-you-know-what-I-mean-and-I-think-you-do!

But, as I explained to Jaws today, I am not a naturally negative person. (I'm an anxious person, and yes there is a difference.) So I am confident that my teens and I will make it through the next few years just fine, just as we did the first decade or so of their lives.