Teenagers in the Family

This is a critical time when family can make all the difference. I remember the time my fourteen-year-old nephew came to me and said, ‘I want a ring in my navel.’ Being by then an experienced uncle of teenagers, I said, ‘Hey, I also want one. Let’s go to a hospital and get it done.’ My nephew was shocked. ‘Do you really want it too?’ he asked. When I nodded in the affirmative, he said he’d get his done later! The fact that an old man (at twenty-eight I was ‘old’ to him) wanted it, made it far less attractive to him.

This is a time of acne, broken hearts, a newfound interest in the opposite sex, in looks and clothes. ‘Only a mother could love him,’ a friend of mine said of her teenage son.

Many times as a parent, one just remains patient and hangs in there. And suddenly one day they are grown up.