Motherhood: Dealing with Teenage “Attitude”

When you hear, a woman give the grandeur speech about the splendor of motherhood, I promise she has not reached the heart of the parenting summit yet, which is dealing with “attitude” from her teenager. I assure you, though, it is a temporary stage and it will pass.

I am sure since time began, teenagers have tested the fortitude of mothers the world over. I envision cave women gathering tinder for the fire, sharing grunts with each other, pointing to their respective cave kids and shaking their heads in disgust.

Verbal exchanges between cave mothers, concerning teenage attitude, were not necessary then and do not need to be spoken by mothers today in the 21st Century. A grunt, a finger pointed at the teen and mothers instantaneously get the message. There is no need to elaborate using language.

When my two daughters were teenagers, one was an angel and the other…well; she was honestly just dreadful. At one point, her attitude was so confrontational, I was convinced a mother out there had my real daughter and I was doomed to a life of conflict and defiance from this teenage combatant.

You see, when you are living day to day with teenagers and their newfound “attitude,” it is natural to assume it is a mother’s lifetime sentence for some bad Karma dished out in another carnation. It is hard to grasp the idea of this attitude being a normal stage of the teen growing process. From the mom’s standpoint, there is nothing normal about a teenager.

While the older of my teenage daughters was all about frills and lace, played the flute in the school band and loved country music…the younger one sported Army boots, a Mohegan haircut streaked with blue dye and she worshipped the now deceased Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.

Every single lesson I learned up to that point in life, every ounce of intelligence I gained from life experience, suddenly became obsolete in the eyes of my teenage daughter. Unbelievably between the age of fourteen and eighteen, she pleaded with me to see things her way only, because wisdom and knowledge now mysteriously infused my daughter’s being.

I took a mother demotion to idiot, in the intellect department, because it is a proven fact, teenagers have bigger brains…just ask them. It was quite shocking to wake up one morning believing I was the grownup, the smart one, the wise woman…only to discover I was fooling myself, as my teen callously reminded me otherwise.

I struggled not to fall prey to this immature expression of youth, but any mother with teenagers knows how destructive this behavior is to the parent and child relationship. In my heart, though, I knew this pompous conduct would pass and eventually, hopefully, be replaced with the considerate actions of a mature young woman.

I had to hang on to an optimistic outlook that somewhere down the line, the blue hair dye would fade and my daughter would once again have the beautiful chestnut color hair she was born with. I pictured her once gorgeous hair, tied up with ribbon in a long pony tale again; gone was the Mohegan hairstyle in my secret mother dream.

I had high hope she would replace her Army boots with a feminine pair of pumps. I imagined her pretty in pink instead of jet black. I wanted to believe my daughter had not forgotten all the precious love and magic we shared before she slipped into the teenage coma. Waiting for these changes was sheer agony for me, but the change did come eventually.

One day when I was not looking, my daughter timidly shed her cocoon and the most beautiful young woman emerged in all her glory. Gone were the teenage “attitude,” the blue hair, combat boots and dark music.

She reminded me about the time, when she was little, she crowned me “Mommy of the Year,” and made me promise to wear, all day, the paper tiara and sash she lovingly constructed to honor me, which I faithfully did. I survived dealing with my teen’s “attitude” and my beautiful daughter was back!

Reference:

• Thirty two years of motherhood