It's just a phase

By Jenn

This year my oldest son started junior high school. It was a big change for him. Apparently, it was a big change for me as well. With the beginning of his new life as a middle school student, his brain must have grown three sizes larger this year. (An academic Grinch, if you will.) Suddenly, he knows it all. Everything. Sadly, this coincided with the fact that I have become a complete idiot.

Whereas once I was Super Mom Who Knew Everything, now I am Mooo-oom, Who Just Doesn’t Get It. I don’t actually feel like my IQ has dropped that significantly, but to hear him tell it, I am lucky to be able to dress myself in the morning. (Although my son has pondered aloud more than once how lacking my sense of today’s fashion actually has become.)

If you must know, I think it is completely unfair that I am the one who is now being seen as the idiot. It is his vocabulary that has been reduced to just a few simple words and phrases: fine, whatever, Mooo-oooom (now stretched to three completely independent syllables),You just don’t get it, and the ever popular Can I borrow some money?

I was actually very excited to start this new chapter in our lives. Junior high!  Personally, I hated junior high, but it was my hope that he would enjoy it. I wanted it to be a year that he came into his own. A time when he became his own person. Which brings to mind the phrase "Be careful what you wish for." 

He certainly has become his own person this year. He loves being a big man on campus. Independence is his new obsession. He is officially a middle school student. Shortly after the school year began, I remembered why I hated junior high school. The eyerolling. The foot stomping. The bad attitude and whining. And that's just me! He's much worse.

I have found over the years that every stage in motherhood comes with the inevitable advice that is meant to make us mothers feel better: It’s just a phase. It will pass.

What these well-meaning advice-givers don’t add is that as soon as this phase passes, another one is fresh on its heels waiting to pounce on you. From not sleeping through the night to the terrible two’s. From the terrible two’s to the newly-found independence your little one discovers in elementary school. It is never ending and will always keep you guessing as to what "phase" will take over your life next.

I once asked my Mom at what point a parent finally stops worrying about her children. She replied, “I’ll let you know.”

It’s a good thing that I have become an idiot this year or an answer like that would really scare me.

Jenn is a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom who lives in Texas with her husband and three children.

Comments

[Sarah]

I am twelve years old and i understand being a parent is hard these days but here is my point of view: these days school is a little different than it was back in the day. but middle school is terrifying to a sixth grader these days. trust me i should know.
one thing is that normally middle schools are three times the size of elementary schools.

Also there are always the bully eight graders that rule the school.
One thing you learn in middle school is that to fend off people like that is to act more tuff,adultish, and you have to try to fend yourself emotionally also.
Now i came across this site by accident on GOOGLE but im trying to give you a kids view of things today.
I hope this helps!

[michael]

lol, you guy should have put a code on this web site, so that teenage sons can't find your blogs, from reading all this information you have so kindly displayed on the world wide web i have gained very useful information on how you all work. well after reviewing i realized you were at a major loss, i have a plethora of information while you have no way of getting into the mind of a teen...well let me explain, teenage (well bays anyway)are all convinced of their superiority. we have imaged to keep and we only think about girls half of the time, the other half is dedicated to any three of the following; sports, cars, drugs, video games, school, violence, muscles, or independance. but if we are very brainy we will put a a good deal of energy into controling you...that is we try to get into your mind, find your weakness, dominate you, and finally leave you with your only left dream retirement. and if you can't believe this then good because its B.S. life is a pointless waste of a fleshy sack of water, are only contribution back to earth is the CO2 that we put back into the atmosphere. but back to the subject of motherhood...let me imagine everyhting from your stand point, your single life isn't what you want, obviously, so you get married and can't wait to be a srong ambitous woman in a free world, but your emotional hormones want you to reproduce...AND QUICK!!! so pop you have a boy, and suddenly you ambitions fall between the couch cushions never to be found agian, and you are content with your life. so the boy gets older and can talk, and lucky for you he still has an emotional attachment to you, well thats great, he'll have little conversation with you and he will go to lunch and dinner and the movies with you, he is momma's little boy. then he gets older and suddenly he realizes that mom operates the same way without little emotional conversations, and he will even avoid them, and when you have THE TALK, he will know everything already. and in time when he is in 8th grade he won't seem to need you for anything except for free neccesities. well to you this is wrong ,your little anbilical bond is broken, he one his own, well not really he's under your roof, but if he is smart enough he'll realize that too and try to steer around the obvious truth that in real life he would owe you an awful lot in rent...but later, far down the road hopefully he will realize your momma always...NOT!! just give up enjoy life he is young and has alot of purpose, you will be underground before he lets you win...sorry.

[susan pospisil]

hi...i'm susan. i am a nervous wreck, my family seems to hate me and my oldest son; who is in high school argues with me about everything. I've always told him he was a ery smart boy but he has taken it seriously. He is merely a high schooler and he thinks he is a genius, well he is very smart but i'm covinced that i have more life expirence and know whats right, he hasn't even finished a year of high school.
all i want to do is matbe for once put him in his place, i want to beat him at his mind games, he can't assume that he has supreme power in the family when my husband is gone.

[Robin P]

What a funny post. It may not be so funny when it happens to me one day,though.

In preparation for Lillianna's rebellion some time in the future,(she just turned 8)I have been telling her this for years,
"You know,many kids at your age think their parents are wonderful and that they know everything.Well,we may not know everything but we try.
Then,these kids get to be 11 or 12 and think their parents are morons and the kids think they know everything.
Here's the deal: No matter how much you think you know,I have lived on this planet for 34 longer than you have and I know stuff....lots of stuff. Don't ever forget that."

I like her to know where I stand.......now and forever. If I get a "Whatever" or a "Duh!" I will surely go insane!! I'm just trying to prevent as much damage as I can :)

[Mary]

Oh, I fear Fear FEAR the days when my kids will be smarter than me. Because it will definitely happen and probably much sooner than I think.

You've really hit the nail on the head: with each passing of a phase, another phase takes its place. It's just one thing after another, as my mom used to say.

And ten years from now, these sleepless nights and potty-training nightmares may seem like heaven compared to living with a tween!