14 years

Sometime during the teen years my child would learn how to use a phone. When they discovered that the ringing of the phone meant someone was on the other end that is when I no longer was allowed to use it. I was still commanded to pay the bill and have it in my name but I was not allowed to use it. It didn’t matter how much I begged or pleaded to use the phone; it just fell on deaf ears. "Mom, be quiet. Can’t you see I am on the phone? Go next door and call for an ambulance from there." If I was lucky enough to use the phone I’d get told not to stay on it for too long as someone was supposed to call. I don’t think it was anyone in particular it was just that someone was going to call. My husband and I became an answering service for our daughter who so thoughtfully bought us a memo pad with explicit instructions to write down who called, the day and time and a short message. We were also told to tell whomever it was that she’d call them as soon as she was available.
Another phase at this time is eating. My kids can put away a mountain of junkfood but no meat! "I am a vegetarian, don’t you know?" I tried to explain that french-fries that she loved was cooked in animal fat. I would get this look like I was trying to undermine their social awareness. I’d wait and pray that this was would soon pass.
Their clothes would become a big deal at this time. My kids would build shrines around a favorite shirt and pants. They’d wear something because some athlete said they should. "Don’t worry about the cost, let your parents buy it." A few weeks later their clothes would fall apart and they'd be screaming that they'd have nothing to wear. I’d suggest that I take them to K-Mart and it was like I said some awful swear word. "Mom, I can’t go there. My friends will see me there and they will know I wear K-Mart clothes." I kind of wished that neck tourniquets were in style. I’d hear that they had to wear what everyone else is wearing. I would ask why and they would respond that they had to be an individual and their own person. Make sense? NO! I’d look at other teens and realize that have all coned each other in the name of individualism.
My kids in their early teens had perfected the fine art of teasing their younger siblings to the point of tears………MINE! I’d come to the younger ones defense I would get told that I never loved him, I really favored everyone else and if the truth be known I didn’t really want him anyway. I had just wanted the fighting to stop and I felt the older one could be mature enough to stop.