PARENTING TEENS, the untold story.

I spent the last couple of days perusing the vast www for parenting blogs.  I have come to this conclusion.  The commercial spotlight on parenting dims way before puberty.  There are literally hundreds, nay, thousands of baby blogs, of Mommy and Daddy blogs with not only a massive public following but impressive commercial endorsements as well.  What I didn't see were highly acclaimed parenting for teen blogs.

Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

There are help and support sites for parents with troubled teens.  There are sites and foundations for parents with talented teens and teens with special needs.

Where are the blog rolls for parents of the average acne ravaged, 2.5 grade point average adolescent trying and failing drivers ed for the 3rd time in a row?  Where are all the Internet support groups for pre-pms because I could use one right now.  A Beginners Guide to Testosterone  would have been nice to pop up on my search bar at any time during my 3 sons' rite of passage into manhood. Blogs about clever ways to cope with the terrible twos are a dime a dozen.  What about the terrible teens?  Is society too gentile to stomach whimsical musing about training bras and shopping for athletic support cups?

I feel that mothers with older children have dropped off the scale in terms of needing advice and support.  Perhaps society feels that after raising ababy and infant that a parent already has several years of experience and has developed all of the parenting skills required to raise the child into young adulthood when the child can then leave the proverbial nest.

I beg to differ.  After raising 5 children, two of which are now in their early 20's, I am still baffled by secret society of teens, with their hot and cold mood swings that dulls the mood swings of menopause by 10 fold, their strange language that changes almost daily to prevent parental interpretation, and their logic that as a toddler was cute but is now almost oxy-moronic.

I think if society is going to blame its woes on the youth of today then perhaps there should be a little more emphasis on positive parenting for these average under aged citizens who will one day take inherit our world and blame everything on us.

In the mean time I shall continue my lonely, somewhat fruitless search for other parents of teen sites in the great abyss crowded with nursery rhyme e-cards, Hannah Montana theme party ideas, rainy day play dates and methods of training your toddler to recite Shakespeare. 

I want to raise my children right.  I want to instill a sense of responsibility, a strong sense of family values.  I want to feel at ease when I relinquish my reins on their lives and allow them to spread their wings, knowing that I have prepared them for the realities of life.  I want them to inherit my world... our world. 

I want to enjoy the thought that one day there will be a reversal of roles and that I can count on my children to change my diapers just as I did theirs. 

Tags: teenagers, parenting teens