One day, he will hate me

So I'm talking to a co-worker friend of mine yesterday, and she proceeds to scare the crap out of me by going into great detail about how very bad her teenage daughter is.

We're talking so bad that she's tempted to give her away to the first passing stranger. We're talking ready-to-disown-her kind of bad.

At first I'm thinking, "Gee, that really sucks," you know, in the manner of someone who feels sympathy but no real empathy because it's somebody else's problem? But then I realize, one day, Drew will be a teenager.

As someone who works in the social services field, I see a lot of teenagers. 

Teenagers are like an alien life form. They speak an alien language and their brains don't seem to work like normal human brains.

You tell a teenager, "Stop smoking crack or you're going to prison" and he hears, "Blah blah blah blah, crack, blah blah blah." Kind of like that Far Side cartoon with the dog.

OK, so then there's the fact that Drew contains my genes, which presumably means that some of my teenager genes are floating around in his DNA somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to spring into action.

This is not a good thing.

I was not a good teenager. I wasn't completely rotten, but I was definitely not good. So, if my parents' best dream comes true and I end up with a teenager exactly like myself, then I can expect Drew to:

• Skip curfew every night and not call
• Wreck his car
• More than once
• Smoke cigarettes
• Tell me he's going to a teen club and actually be going to a kegger at a house next door to the club
• Threaten to kill himself when he doesn't get his way
• Throw things at my head
• Ruin a family vacation to Disney World by making up various illnesses and pretending to be about to die from one of them
• and several other things I won't mention because my mom reads this blog and I don't want to disturb her any more than I did as a teenager

Now, even worse, Drew also contains some of Charles' teenager genes. Which ALSO means we can expect him to:

• Try to kill any siblings with a .22 and a claw hammer
• Get drunk, fall down and cut his head and explain it away to us by telling us some random guy tried to kill him
• Wreck his car
• More than once
• Taunt a drunk (and armed) redneck by showing him a pocket knife and saying, "I bet mine is bigger than yours!"

I'm afraid.

Comments

[1gloriousconundrum]

What a dreadful curse has been placed upon parents that their mistakes are bound to be visited in the next generation! My mother frequently laughs that while the clothes change, the teenagers remain the same.

[Carol]

WOW!!!! You do remember doing all those things and more but WE STILL LOVE YOU!!!!It will give you a better perspective so Drew and also what your PARENTS went through> Love, Mom

[Charles]

Oh, my god. I knew when you said you started a blog it would be all about praising Drew and slandering my good name.

First, it wasn't a .22, it was A BB GUN! Second, HE SHOT ME...for locking him in the barn but that is a moot point. Third, HE THREW THE DAD GUM HAMMER AT ME FIRST! He just didn't duck when I retaliated.

Finally, I never wrecked any cars...in my life. I have been a passenger in cars that have wrecked but I wasn't driving...okay so there was that one time in Greenville with you but that guy hit us.

[ebeth]

hey i lived through a lot of your teen years with you and i think i did FAR worse things than you. not that i'm going to admit any of it EVER. i think i've freaked my parents out now that i've admitted a lot of what we used to get up to... i said a lot. not ALL. :) :) :)

[Nan]

I didn't live through the teen years with you but I did live through the college years, and I'm not as honest as either you or ebeth. :) I'm not telling ANYTHING...well, not without proper payment anyway... ;)