Never lend your car to anyone
to whom you have given birth.

ERMA BOMBECK

A long about the time we took on boarders, Ramona and I awakened to the fact that our children had become teenagers. Not that they were always easy to have around before, but they were now showing more of a penchant for the irrational, which was summed up well years ago in a book title: Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall?

It seemed hardly a week ago that they were in the springtime of life. Now it was more like summer—too much heat and late nights, too much energy and growth. I said to my wife one morning, “Isn’t God wise and good? He gave us twelve years to develop a love for our dear little children so we wouldn’t lock them in the trunk and swallow the keys when they became teenagers.”

My first introduction to teens—apart from being one myself—was when a teenage girl began baby-sitting our kids. We paid her to act like an adult so we could go out and act like teenagers. We also paid her five bucks an hour to eat twenty bucks’ worth of our food and watch our movies while she did her homework.

From the day they are born, children have one thing in mind: becoming teenagers and taking over the planet. They want us grownups out of the way. They make fun of our hairstyle (if we are lucky enough to have one), spend our money, crash our car, and eat our lunch. They even stop laughing at our jokes.

Someone asked me the other day what I do. “I’ll tell you what I do,” I said. “I follow teenagers around the house. I shut lights off. I close fridge doors.” It’s a full-time job.

Here are a few things I am waiting to hear my teenagers say. I believe I would die of heart failure if they made any two of these statements in the same evening:

   Who needs to eat out? Let me make something.

   Dad, I sure could use a little advice.

   We won’t need the car—we’re walking.

   There’s nothing to eat around here. I’ll go buy something.

   We don’t do anything as a family anymore.

   You relax, I’ll do the dishes.

   New movies aren’t cool. Let’s watch something old.

   Hey, I’ve been on the phone a lot. Why don’t I pay the phone 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 teenage boys. Not a single one of the boys minded. Nor did she.

When our children were small, we used to pray, “Lord, please help them sleep through the night.” Now that they’re teenagers, we can’t get them to wake up. They are in their prime sleeping years. Jeff recently returned from a week at Bible camp, and he slept a full twenty-three hours in a row, weary from memorizing Scripture. “That’s not sleeping,” I told Ramona. “That’s a coma.”

Girls began e-mailing. I told him to give out his new e-mail address: jeff@mysonisnothere.com.

The other day he came through the door and said, “Dad, I’m thinking of getting an earring. Maybe some tattoos.”

“That’s quite a coincidence,” I said, slowly hiking the cuffs of my pants. “I was thinking of having all my pants hemmed just below the knees. And getting a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m Jeff Callaway’s dad.’“

He laughed so hard he forgot about the earring.

Somewhere within this illustration lies the key to retaining your sanity during the Middle Ages. Five keys, actually. But before we get to them, let me explain that I suffer from ADD and have always written short chapters. So feel free to set the book down and put on a pot of coffee before you turn the page.

Or you may want to find a teenager to read the list at the beginning of this chapter aloud to you. Just remember to take your heart medication first.