Category: Teenagers
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Pity The Parents Whose Boomerang Children Have Been Forced Back Home By COVID-19
One aspect of COVID-19 that is rarely mentioned on the news is the impact on families who – due to recent job losses – have had grown children return back home. Some of you, I imagine, view the bounce back home of our Boomerang Generation as an opportunity to rebuild relationships, fatten them up and…
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Mothers: Admit It, We Never Stop Worrying About Our Kids
Mothers, be careful with those little comments you drop into the conversation each time you see your adult kids (who have left home) and look like they haven’t eaten a square meal that month. Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash You know the type – How much fruit are you eating? ARE YOU EATING? You’re…
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Why I Cried In A Star Is Born
For those of you who know me and my need to spew verbal rubbish at least twice a week as a means of therapy, you might have guessed that my past few weeks of silence has nothing to do with laziness or writers’ block. However, this time, it is not my story to overshare. Instead,…
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9 Reasons Why Empty-Nesting Is So Much Better Than I Expected
Since Kurt left home – the last of our young adults to leave the nest – friends keep asking us how we are coping with our loss, how much we miss him, and whether we’ll get another dog? Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash And my diplomatic answer is a resounding YES – of course,…
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Empty-Nesting: You Know When It Is Time…
Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash The old man and I became empty-nesters this week. Kurt has left the building. I swear he wasn’t pushed. We view our negotiations as closer to a manipulation that made sense – primarily, for him. Not once did we bring up the subject of our sanity in the conversation.…
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I Must Thank My Son For His Mental Illness
The boy turned twenty-one last week, and while part of me wants to scream and holler with excitement, pride, and relief, the other part wants to sit in a corner, rocking and licking my wounds. Many of you will be familiar with our journey with Kurt, our son. It was one of the reasons I…
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Kids’ Birthday Cakes: Or As I Like To Call It, The Public Shaming Of Mothers That Can’t
Yep, there it is – new evidence of my failure at motherhood in one of its major disciplines – Kurt’s twenty-first birthday cake. Kids’ birthday cakes have always felt to me like one of the ultimate tests of motherhood; rather like keeping your kids alive when as toddlers they seem hellbent on killing themselves. In…
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Car Insurance, Teens, And Just How Far Parental Responsibility Extends
Insurance is one of those dirty words that you only have to deal with once you grow up – kind of like calories and tax – and as a serial procrastinator, I always found that it was best left well alone until I needed it. But from my perspective as a parent, it is an…
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The Awkward-Scale For Teenage Boys When Shopping With Mom
I went shopping with my teenage son yesterday, whereupon he bestowed upon me one of the greatest honors of my parenting life when he told me that I was (and I quote) ‘a nightmare to be seen in public with.’ ‘Oh, and these ten packs of condoms and tube of lube for my son over…
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The Sins Of The Mothers
In view of Mothers Day in the UK yesterday, I thought I’d tell you about a funny little conversation I had with my son last week. For those of you with younger kids, be warned that like me you will reach a point with your almost-adult kids – usually at the end of seven years…
Louisa Simmonds 