The Game Fondly Known As "You Can't Win."

There's nothing quite as satisfying as unexpectedly finding a confidante who is sharing the same problem that you are facing. Whether it's an illness, a difficult boss or a bad teacher, when you run into someone that feels the way you do, it's like the weight of the world lifts for a brief moment.

Today, this is exactly what happened to me. I was talking with a friend who also has a 13-year old daughter and we were trading tales of vacation plans, school projects, sports schedules and suddenly we touched on the subject of 13-year old attitudes. I'm here to tell you other mothers of 13-year olds that there are more of us out there and we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. (At least this is the conclusion that the two of us arrived at.)

Maybe there's something in the water or, worse yet, a major dip in a generational gene pool, but our kids are disrespecting us and it's got us down. They're defying every command we give, they're rolling their eyes at us till we're dizzy and they are just making every little thing incredibly difficult. Throughout the day, I'm picking and choosing more battles than Napolean, and now I understand why he had such a stomach ache!

Apparently, everything I say is dumb, annoying, rude, mean, redundant and crabby. (I completely agree on that last one. I can go from zero to bitch in two seconds or less when confronted with teen angst.) It doesn't matter what I do or don't do, it's all just wrong. And if I do nothing, I'm accused of being moody and obviously mad at someone.

You wouldn't believe it if you spoke to the teenage one, but I'm really trying to avoid all of this. I keep my opinions to myself, which only elicits reminders of my past opinions, which again, were WRONG. If I leave the room, it's somehow worse than standing there arguing.

Honestly, this is a dramatic reenactment of what most people would call insanity. It's like walking through a minefield of hormones and anger without any battle gear whatsoever. The only reason why I keep plowing ahead is because I'm apparently an eternal optimist (or stupid) thinking that this can't last forever. Can it?

If your kids are still too young for you to relate, don't let me scare you. It is possible to survive this. I personally recommend a nice Pinot Noir. And the most amazing part is just when you're ready to throw in the towel, the incredibly raging hormonal one will do something....nice, at which point you'll totally forget why you were mad in the first place. Now, doesn't this sound like a fun game to play?