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Mom Blogging When You Have Teenage Children

This is what a good mother says about her teenage children in a public forum

Teenage Children Blogging

You can’t even paint a pretty picture of your teenage kids. I mean you can, but it’s kind of an asshole move. What are you going to talk about? How gracefully they navigated puberty? Their grades? Their friends and that one mother who you think is going to make things difficult for all of them? Do you talk about boyfriends and girlfriends and cliques and sex?

No.

You don’t blog about teenagers because it’s hard enough to be 13 or 17 without your Mom dissecting everything in a public forum. You can’t even take a selfie with a teenager because they don’t want it and you have to respect their boundaries.

no selfies.

Oh…. errr…. ummmm

Well you’re supposed to respect their boundaries anyhow.

Mothers of teenagers have just run out of universal stories to tell. It’s easy when they’re two or even eight. There are milestones that every parent hits right along with their kids: feeling like you’re going to die from sleeplessness followed by the first night of six consecutive hours of sleep, diapers, potty training, babbling, first words, first foods, first teeth, first days of school, first sleepovers, first friends and first time on an airplane. There are too many milestones to name for kids under 10 and they’re easy to share because none of them are particularly novel, embarrassing or likely to be unearthed by a frenemy.

None of that holds true as kids enter middle school. It’s no one’s business if your kid is struggling academically and conversely if you’re constantly talking about your gifted Straight A little royal they (and you) might not be liked much. We do not talk about puberty in public places unless it’s our own – and no one wants to hear about a 45 year old’s experience with puberty. It’s enough to know that you’ve come out the other end. Not every kid plays sports or an instrument so blogging about that can turn niche quickly.

Should mom bloggers talk about teenage parties? I’m going to go with a no on that one. Concerts? Obviously not. I mean the fact that half of LA private school kids will miss school the days before and after Coachella is because they all caught the same nasty cold.

Oops again.

I guess you can talk about learning to drive, taking standardized test and maybe college admissions (with permission of course). But really? For parents of teenagers we’re probably looking at a good ten years of shutting up. Assuming we’re doing it right. Which I am not.

 

6 thoughts on “Mom Blogging When You Have Teenage Children”

  1. Haha! You are so right, Jessica. I struggle to find stories I can tell. Not stories TO tell (I have so many – some heartbreaking, some hilarious, and others WTF – teenagers!!!), but stories I CAN tell without mortifying my children and invading their privacy. I think Sharon Greenthal is right, the stories (the really juicy ones anyway) must be held onto for the future. Then they won’t mind so much. (Hopefully.)

  2. Glad to hear your opinion. I’ve had a blog for a while now about juggling raising kids and caregiving for my gram. Since she died I’ve had to slightly adjust and bring my blog along with my family changes. I have two tweens and a teen. So far my daughter doesn’t mind the puberty posts, but it’ll get old fast I’m sure. I’ll have to throw marriage stuff in the mix.

  3. My daughter is now a tween (12) and I think that parents need help now that they have tweens and teens more if not more so than when they were little! There are tons of blogs out there for first time moms with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, but us moms of older kids need help too! I think this can be done anonymously somehow to protect their privacy (but then again, you won’t get the limelight anymore). I would love to hear about how parents navigate issues such as puberty, buying that first bra, relationships with friends and frenemies, exposure to Internet porn, the oversexualization of girls, the constant pressures to succeed and be everything to everyone….these are all things that us moms of older kids face and we would love to know we are not alone. Don’t further isolate us by just stopping to write about it. Maybe I should write my own blog about this stuff but then again, nah I don’t have time.

    1. Astrogal, you are so correct. The stakes are much higher now but the problem is that things are less universal. We all had to potty train our kids. We all had to teach them to tie shoes and eat vegetables. But I assure you that no one on a farm in Iowa wants to hear about the challenges of picking out a non-designer backpack in middle school or giving in to YSL in high school. Nor does a devout Catholic want to read about me saying, “Your child’s virginity is none of your business.” And certainly, my kids don’t want that written about, because unlike shoe tying and carpooling it’s deeply personal. And it’s unfair to do that to my kids.

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