So, I have a thousand teenage boys at my house. Okay, really it’s only three but it feels like a thousand sometimes. Especially this week – Raise your hand if you got the super exciting and super scary ‘academic warning’ e-mail from the guidance counselor Monday! True story, when we got it I had to e-mail the counselor back and say ‘uh, which kid is this for because none of them are exactly lighting the academic world on fire.‘ Teenagers man.
And adding to the academic drama, the one teenager I have that actually usually acts like he likes me HUNG UP ON ME this week. Like, got mad and hung up the phone!
Here’s the deal with teenagers – emotionally, they can be kinda dumb and sometimes, they make really bad decisions. So he hung up on me – that was a bad decision but it is not something that should effect my emotional well being. He’s a teenager. Maturity isn’t his strong suit yet so I don’t want to overreact. Barrett Sallee said it best in this tweet. He was talking about college football but I think it applies quite well to raising teenagers too.
It went down like this. A couple days ago he got an infraction in class for having his phone out. Instead of coming down hard on him I gave him grace and was really kinder to him than I should have been. I say ‘than I should have been’ because the very next day he got another infraction for the same dang thing. This time I was not so gracious. When I called his hand on it he hung up on me.
And when that kind of thing happens all the resentment you feel about other stuff comes out. And you start thinking of all the things you’ve let go lately and in the past. And it becomes not about the dumb phone call but about junk that happened eons ago.
And suddenly, you’re looking at this picture you took and not thinking ‘oh, look at these sweet boys’ instead you’re thinking:
Oh, look at these clowns. The ones that said they’d drop out of school if I applied for the junior high girl’s basketball coaching position.
Oh, it’s these bozos who said I’m never going to hike the Appalachian Trail.
Oh, look. It’s these miscreants who said they’d rather just stay home if I chaperoned the Spring Break trip to Spain.
Hanging up on his mother – who does that?! And it’s not just that he hung up on me but it’s that he hung up on anyone at all. You can’t just go hanging up on people when you feel like it. That’s not the mark of an emotionally healthy relationship. I mean, have I hung up on Billy before? Yes, yes I have – but man did he deserve it.
Meh, hanging up on people isn’t as fun as it used to be anyway. Now that you just gently tap a screen instead of slamming it down on the receiver it’s lost some of it’s efficacy. Kinda like my parenting. The good news is Fall Break is here and all the teenagers are going off on trips without me so I’ll have a nice little break. Well, a break from the boys. Not a break from these two.
At least these two are too young to pull shenanigans like missed curfews and ill timed exits from phone calls. Well, too young yet.