Disgruntled Teens in The Age of Ultron #Humor #Teens #Tweens

I adore the word disgruntled... in print if not in action. When it applies to life with tweens and teens, meh, not so muchly. Last Saturday, my husband was gone on a shoot and it was our first warm, post frost danger day in Chicago, and perfect for getting the yard planted and spring ready. So I told the kids who are now 12 & 14, that their paid "helpful works" for the day would be a trip to Home Depot  and yard work.

In our home, chores have always been called helpful works and allowance is "helpful works money". At this age, 3 hours a week are mandatory and they can elect to do more for extra pay. When the kids were toddlers and kids they loved to plant, help out, and were even good sports about errands more often than not. Now we're into the dreaded tween/teenage angst years, and helpful works are often done begrudgingly, amid much moaning and groaning.

When we arrived at Home Depot, a parade of littles were leaving the free craft workshop in their tiny orange aprons. One dad with two tots and two crafts in each hand was herding the kids out of parking lot traffic by using his raised knee to angle them toward the car. "Awwww. I remember those days. You guys made tons of cool projects like trivets and bird houses. We still have your pin collection and aprons somewhere. Aren't those kiddos cute?" Stone cold silence from the back seat. A glance in the rear view showed my disgruntled duo slouched down in the seat with glares on their faces and headphones on.

The place was PACKED and the kids whined about parking in the farthest reaches, and griped when I sent them searching for a flatbed dolly cart. At least they were united in their belly aching instead of fighting each other. At the cedar mulch pile, a HD worker who was a tall, muscular African American woman offered to help load up our cart. As I thanked her profusely she began to laugh and said with a big grin, "Here's you, all excited about bein' here and here's your kids!" She morphed her smile into a hostile glare. That got a smile out of the offspring for a moment. "Too true," I sighed and laughed. "But what are ya gonna do?!"

From there my charming children complained their way through the solar globes, dramatically declared they wouldn't eat any of the veggies I was planting, and showed a short lived glimmer of interest in the grapes, blackberry and raspberry bushes, and watermelon they picked when I told them to pick out something they WOULD eat. The angst filled glares hit a peak when I asked them to pick up 4 concrete patio squares so our new umbrella table wouldn't sink into the yard. Finally fed up, and with the planting, landscaping, watering, tree trimming, and poop scooping yet to happen at home, I resorted to bribery. 

"OK, kids. Here's the deal. I will take you to see The Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the reclining seats AND popcorn if we can get through the rest of today with a minimum of complaining." I found myself blurting out in desperation. Suddenly, my pleasant pre tweens were back, all smiles and uber helpful. They pushed the cart to the car themselves and cheerfully unloaded multiple bags of cedar mulch, more yard fencing, concrete blocks, and loads of fruit and veggie plants. I thanked them and told them they were doing a great job as they hopped in the car without a grump or moan.

Their attitude adjustment was so convincing that a solo mom who had just pulled in next to us did a double take then came over to chat. "I'm all about that positive thing you're doing with them, but I've got a 15 year old boy who flat out refused to come with me. I'm guessing your son is about that age too? My kid used to be super sweet and helpful but not anymore. Just sayin".

It was my turn to laugh again. "Yeah, you should have seen them 10 minutes ago. They were being awful even though they're getting paid allowance to be here! I seriously just resorted to bribing them with The Avengers: Age of Ultron. She let out an audible sigh and began to laugh. "Let me hug you." she said. "That's great. I was trying to figure out why I got stuck with the rotten teen and yours are still helpful and pleasant. I'm relieved to know you're in the same boat. I bribed my son, too, maybe my bribe just wasn't big enough." 

We hugged and laughed and commiserated in the bustling parking lot, while my hopeful, helpful kids waited patiently and pleasantly in the car with dreams of impending Avengers in the heads. "Supposedly most of them grow out of it in a few years and turn back into decent human beings who don't hate us." I said. "One can only hope." she replied, and grabbed a cart for some angst free errands, solo.

Why I Wanted To Throttle My Tweenage Daughter #ParentingHumor

     "But, the zeros aren't important. You can just leave them out." she sniffled between bouts of loud self pity and hostile silence.
     "Whaaaaaat?!" I quizzically answered from the driver's seat, calm but honestly confused. We'd already been driving for a half hour... in rush hour traffic... and my daughter was having some kind of emotional breakdown in the back seat while my disgruntled teen sat in the passenger seat with a ginormous pile of homework on his lap.

     "I'm a horrible person and a bad friend and you're mad at me even though you're saying it's OK and I'm so stupid and now Dugan hates me and we're gonna be late and miss The Grinch and it's all my fault." A shaky, tear filled gasp followed.
     "I'm trying to understand." 
     "Shhhhhhh!!!! I'm trying to DO honors algebra here!" The teen interjected. 
     "I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid." The sad incantation rose from the rear.

Our normally cheerful, music filled car was on homework silence, which was stressing me out and making the ride less pleasant to begin with, and the minutes were ticking away. We had 4 press tickets for the elaborate production of The Grinch at The Chicago Theatre and I'd left two hours to pick up my daughter's friend (to use my husband's ticket since he was stuck on a shoot) and get there, a trek that should have been a 45 minute to an hour undertaking. 

Kids are so easy to love when they're being adorable and sweet and funny. But THIS. Sometimes they work your last nerve and you wonder just what you signed on for as you simultaneously do emotional triage, deal with urban traffic, and swallow your own anger.

"Ok. Dugan, relax. You should be happy. You have an extra hour in the car to do your homework. I'm sorry. I have to talk to your sister, so just deal. Sage, you are NOT stupid. Everyone makes mistakes. You learn more from them than from the stuff you get right. We may be cutting it close or a little late even, but we WILL pick up your friend and have a fun night. Yeah, I am annoyed. Parents are human. Who, in their right mind, really wants to spend an extra hour and a half in the car during rush hour backtracking across the city?! But in the scope of things it's not that big of a deal. I'm not mad at you. It was a mistake and we WILL get there. It's not life and death, it's just life. Did your friend not know her address or did you write it down incorrectly? What exactly do you mean by you didn't think zeros mattered?"

     "She told me 3340, but I left it off on purpose. You know, in our address it goes twenty seven oh nine and we leave out the zero, so I thought zeros don't matter."
     "The oh is the zero, buddy."
     "No! Not THAT one, mom. The first one. 20... 7...  0...  9. We leave off that first zero in twenty so I figured they weren't important in addresses and I could leave it off."
     "OK, I get it. I see where you're going with that, but um... no. Zeros in addresses are actually VERY important. But better to learn it here where there aren't huge consequences than getting lost alone or something later. Now ya know."

Oh the whiggy logic of kids. Sometimes tweens are so smart, savvy and mature they blow me away. Sometimes they're still such children. It was partly my fault and I told her as much. I should have called myself to double check her friend's address, but she'd just written it down the night before and she was adamant it was right and huffy when I questioned her. Yes, what 11 year old doesn't know her own address, right? Choose your battles. So we drove... across town. And the house at 334 West Burrwood wasn't her friend's house. So we called them and drove BACK across town, beyond where we'd started, to 3340 West!

     "But I feel so stupid and we're all gonna be late."
     "Believe me I've made more than plenty of mistakes. I got lost as a 4 year old, because I'd seen Lassie and thought my schnauzer knew the way home. So I wandered off with the dog and had to be found by the police. I got lost at the zoo as a toddler, following my dad, who went back to the car for our lunches, but he didn't know I went with him. As a teen I left all my luggage from a week at camp halfway across the country in upstate New York because we were told to pile it all in a tent and the busses would load from there, and I didn't realize WE had to load the busses. As an adult I spaced out once on a familiar 6 hour drive to Cincinnati and missed the turn off to Indianapolis. And it was such a long road trip through farm land I didn't notice till I hit Michigan! And there are more than plenty more stupid things I've done over the past 4 decades."

     Finally I heard laughter from the back seat. And at long last we arrived at the right address with that all important zero at the end. Even little nothing zero has big value. And what's an extra hour and a half in rush hour in the scheme of things. Believe it or not we raced to the show, got our tickets with literally a minute to spare, and made it to our seats just as the lights were dimming.