I am a teenage boy.

Fucking mom.  Cleaning my room is conformist.
I hate everything.

"I am a teenage boy.


I am sensitive and volatile, and will turn on you at the slightest opportunity.


I will deliberately show up late for dinner, simply because I know it annoys you, and because I wish to show you how much control I have over my own environment.


I will refuse to wash myself for days on end, and resent you violently when you suggest a shower.  I'll take one, but I will do so with great hesitation, and with an obvious display of my disgust for you.


I will use everything you say against you.  If you ask me to pay attention to you while you're speaking, I will stare at you angrily, as you talk, and I will refuse to look away.  If you comment on this behavior, I will treat you like a crazy person, and remind you that "YOU TOLD ME TO PAY ATTENTION!  I AM PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU, LIKE YOU WANTED!"


If you punish me for rudeness, I will make you feel like an asshole, by pointing out that I was "just joking!"


I will sigh, roll my eyes, and stomp my feet as I walk away from you during a lecture.  I will then deny all three when you punish me.


I will lie thru my teeth.  About everything.  Especially about schoolwork, the cleanliness of my room, and the last time I brushed my teeth.  You are not allowed to be angry with me, or to punish me, when you find out I've been lying.  If you try, I will sigh, roll my eyes, and stomp my feet as I walk away, and of course, I will deny all three.


I will work diligently at keeping an odd smell permeating from my bedroom.  This is both from lack of personal hygiene, and my refusal to wash my clothes.  I also will not wear deodorant.  Ever.  Your requests for a remedy to these things will lead to my refusal to speak to you, audible sighing, and eye rolling.  Again.
I will deny all three.  Again.


I will insist, regardless of the truth, that I did "nothing" all day at school.  If there is a bomb threat and three fires, I will still answer "nothing" when asked what I did at school on that particular day.  This will also be my answer when I am visibly sad, angry, or "emo", and you ask me what is wrong.  I will also appear to become more sad, angry, or "emo" after I am asked.  Your insistence that I can confide in you will lead to eye rolling.
Which of course, I will deny.


If you ask me to put on a coat, I will insist that it's not cold out.  Hypothermia be damned, I will not let you think you told me what to do.  This also applies to summertime, when you suggest I take off my black hoodie and put on some shorts.


I will deliberately disagree with you.  If you say something is black, I will say that it's gray.  Or very dark blue.  I will continue to look for an opportunity for disagreement in every single statement you make.  I am smarter than you.  You are stupid, everything you say is wrong, and I will prove it, regardless of the ludicrous statements I might have to make.


My life, and the things happening in it, are the greatest crises in human history.  No one has ever felt as sad as me.  No one has ever had problems as big as mine.  No one can relate, in any way, to anything I might be going thru.  I am the first.  I will be the last.  I am important in my suffering.


If forced to do chores, I will do so half-heartedly, in an effort to show you how bad I am at each particular task, hoping that you will stop asking me.  If you point out my half-hearted efforts, you are a jerk.  Eye rolling and sighing.


If I show interest in speaking with you, this is a trap.  Don't talk.  Do not offer input.  Just smile, and act like everything I say is the most ingenious bit of conversation you've ever heard.  Say nothing.  Or eyes will roll.  Again.


I am a teenage boy.  Your input is useless and resented.  Please just buy me food, clothes, and don't acknowledge me unless I speak directly to you, and maybe not even then.   Probably not even then."


*******


I am the mother of a teenage boy.


I am the most uncool person on the planet.


My grasp of the weather, namely "hot" vs. "cold", is entirely skewed, and I do not know the difference between "coat weather" and "shorts weather."


I am moderately paranoid, and I hallucinate signs of aggression, such as eye rolling, loud sighs, and being ignored.  I also hallucinate smells, such as armpit odor, dirty laundry, and general grossness.


My idea of  "clean" is warped, and I maintain unreasonable demands upon the tidiness of the rooms in my home.  Also note that I employ slave labor, and force my children to load the dishwasher, wash their own laundry, and clean their own rooms.  I am an unreasonable tyrant.  


Everything I say is drastically, and embarrassingly wrong.  I must be corrected on even the slightest infraction, such as, mispronunciation of a word, whether or not a movie is good, and what day of the week we last ate turkey.  I am a crazy person.  Or maybe I am just a moron."

"Crazy person."  See also "moron.  See also, "mother of a teenage boy."
Stupid, stupid woman.   

*******


Welcome to being the parent of a teenager.  Abandon all hope...


...for a little while.  Because sometimes, there are moments of absolute awesome.  When the kid you're sure is the biggest dickhead on earth suddenly reminds you that there's still a little bit left of your sweet baby boy, and that there's a little bit of him that's growing into a sweet man.
Sometimes.
It makes all the "I am a teenage boy" moments absolutely worth it.  Body odor and all.


I'll let you know when the next one of those moments arrives.