Family Squeeze Read Online Free Page A

bill this month?
       Is my music bothering you?
       This is my room, but it’s your house.
       Well, lookie there! It’s 10 p.m.! I’d better go to bed!
    If you are the parent of a teenager, here is something you need to tell yourself each and every day. Apart from selling mittens to South Africans, parenting teenagers is the world’s toughest job, so go easy on yourself. Do not compare yourself with other parents who sit in church looking happy and well organized. Chances are they are heavily medicated and may be hours from being institutionalized.
    Someone mailed me a plaque recently. It says:
    TEENAGERS! Tired of being harassed by your parents?
Act now. Move out. Get a job and pay your own
bills while you still know everything.
    I hung it up in my study.
    It went missing the very next day.
    Teenagers want to be in charge. I say we let them…just not quite yet. First, we let the air out of their tires and put sugar cubes in their gas tanks. Wait—I guess that would be
our
gas tanks. Scratch that idea.
Squinty-Eyed Prophets
    It’s time to be honest. Contrary to everything I’ve just written, the strangest thing happened when our children turned into adolescents: I discovered that—stay with me here—I absolutely
loved
the teenage years. You may think I’m crazy (and you may have a point), but I will not apologize for a second.
    Yes, these almost-adults are moody, sometimes obnoxious, and relationally challenged. Yes, they listen to music that sounds like someone is throwing lawn darts through a jet engine. True, the teenage years are like a game of golf: terrible and fabulous and heartbreaking and wonderful, all in the space of a few hours. But I wouldn’t trade these days for anything, not even a peaceful night’s sleep.
    When our children were young, I squeezed them into a grocery cart and pushed them around supermarkets seeing if I could find products that would line up with the coupons I’d clipped. Sometimes I’d try to swap my cart with other people, but they never accepted my offer.
    Older folks would trundle over to us wearing foreboding frowns. Squinty-eyed, they would peer over their bifocals and offer advice that went something like this: “You think things are bad
now
. You just wait.Soon they’re gonna wanna date and drive your car.” Then they’d shuffle off to the Prune/Bran Flake aisle.
    Well, I’d like to tell you that they were wrong. Contrary to the fears and paranoia programmed into us by television and the squinty-eyed prophets of doom, my favorite parenting years so far have been the teenage years. Lest you think I am delusional right now, allow me first to agree with you.
    Yes, teenagers are crazy.
The Trouble with Teens
    I remember a particularly wild-eyed and frantic woman who said to me, “My teenagers remind me why certain animals eat their young.” In Old Testament times they used to stone the odd teenager, which helped keep the others alert and home by 10 p.m. I wonder sometimes if the parents weren’t the ones down front with the biggest rocks.
    When our children were small we begged them to finish their broccoli. “Come on,” we’d cajole, “just one more bite.
Puh-leeze?”
    Now that they are teens, they finish their plate. They finish our plate. They clean out the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry (but not the dishwasher). Then they look at the dog dish and think,
Hey how bad can that be?
    When our children were small, we used to send them off on their bikes, praying they wouldn’t hit a tree. We’re still praying, because now they’re driving our cars.
    My daughter loves to drive. She jangles the keys in front of me like a hypnotist. “Come on, Dad, you are feeling generous. And there are stores open somewhere.” If she loves anything more than driving, it’s shopping. In fact, Rachael loves shopping so much that she signed up for shop class last year. I kid you not. And when she arrived, she discovered she was the only girl there, surrounded by