Replies

a 16 year old son whose brain hasn’t started functioning yet

We've been through that a couple of times. Previous 16-year-old daughters didn't do as many dumb things as the current one, though.

My daughter is 40 now and raising near teens herself. We laugh because one of our fondest memories is me saying to her one morning when she was about 13, “I don't know what you think happened last week, but I assure you nobody came and sucked daddy's and my brains out. We are not stupid, nor have we ever been. So whatever you think happened, that made us so dumb, it didn't! And I suggest you now look at yourself, because maybe it was your brains that have been sucked out!” She said she went to school that day saying over and over... “maybe it was your brains that were sucked out!” She dreads the day she needs to use that line with one or all of her kids but she has it fully prepared in her upcoming repertoire. We made it through those years, just as our parents did with us; with a lot of love and effort. I remember it being exhausting raising a teen aged girl but couldn't tell you why now :)