There are few things as depressing as realizing you're just like your parents in some ways. It's not always that you don't want to be like them, because some of us grew up with awesome parents. It's more the fact that you realize how far removed you are from the days you told yourself you'd never do 'that' to your own kids. You know what 'that' I'm referring to, it's whatever they told you you couldn't do or something they punished you for that you felt at the time was a complete miscarriage of justice (I actually used those words once when I got grounded for something). When I was a junior in high school my mom began having panic attacks and suddenly started denying us stuff that we'd been able to do before. Our curfew was moved up and we had to check in more, which we all thought was lame because we were almost 'adults' and should've been trusted. Now I completely understand her reasons, of course, but everything seems like it's unfair when you're a teenager.
My teenager is no longer a teenager, she turned 20 in August, yet she still tests my patience on an almost weekly basis. I know that having to deal with her prepared me for having one of my own and I never would have imagined I'd be dealing with a teen and a toddler at the same time but that's life. I was very aware of how I dealt with disciplining my teenager because I was still so close to my own teen years that I understood a lot of what she was going through. But now at the ripe old age of 29, I have finally spouted my first 'parental' sentence and I have to admit that it set me back a little. My teen was whining about something she didn't think was fair last night and it escalated to the point of me saying, 'You know, when I was your age...'. As soon as the words left my mouth it was like all time stopped and we just sat in silence for a few seconds like we were both thinking, 'Dude...did you really just say that?!'. Yes. Yes I did. And now I'm thinking it's allllll downhill from here. I may not like it but I'm probably gonna whip out more parent-isms in the future, especially as my toddler becomes a teen (why God, why?!). The even sadder thing is that I'll probably become comfortable with it all at some point and then wonder why my own daughter is freaking out about becoming her parents. Then when I have my mid-life crisis I'll look back on my life and wonder where it all went so horribly wrong. The moment I uttered those words was the beginning of the end, folks.
