An Open Apology To My Parents For Being A Teen

Dear Mom & Dad,

It is me, your son.  Yes, your older son.  The one who is now 37 years old and knows a lot less about life than he did when he was 13,14,15,16,17,18, and 19 years of age.  Yes, those years are the years when I was omniscient.  I knew it all back then, and I am not sure what happened since.  The older I get, the more I realize how little I know about life and the world around me.

Those were the times when if anyone presented me with a problem, I had a straight answer for them.  There was no having to think about any process.  The answers just came to me, and they were golden.  Those were the years when I was able to drive my car at 130 MPH without consequence.  Those were the years when I got into heavy drinking and light drug use.  Somehow, I avoided encounters with the law every time.  I was after all, a know it all teen.

Well, I now have a teen of my own.  She has just turned 15 years old, and wouldn't you know it, by golly gee.  She knows it all!!!!  I feel so stupid around her.  I mean, with my measly 37 years that I have spent on this planet, I should know more than she does right?  Wrong.  She's a teen, and she knows it all.  She is defiant, careless, selfish, self absorbed and she is OMNISCIENT, just as I was at her age.

She could care less about her family at this moment, but it's okay, she knows exactly what she's doing.

Or does she?  Or did I? Or does anyone at that tender age?

For a period of time in our lives, we become (excuse the term, please) retarded.  Yes, we become mentally incapable of understanding logic or reason in its many forms.  We become unable to fully analyze a situation and realize that it is extremely idiotic, dangerous or both.  We have a sense of empowerment that overwhelms our thoughts and our parents, well, they're shit.  They are nothing.  They do not understand.  How could they? They're old and their "time has passed".  They were in their prime once and now they are like an expired carton of milk, just sitting there, rotting and spoiling away.

Teens, with all due respect, are a bunch of idiots.  If you are a teen and you think you're not an idiot, then just go ahead and punch your monitor, spit at my blog, or go cry yourself in a little corner, because yes, girl, yes boy, you, yes you, are a complete idiot.  I don't care how intelligent you are.  You are an idiot and you will be so until your frontal lobes are fully connected.

It's not the fault of the teen.  It's not, really.  It's just nature, and the way we have evolved.  We go from sweet loving kids, into hormone raging, idiotic teens, then into logical thinking adults.  Well, many of us do.

So, getting back to the point of this post.  My original intent is to publicly apologize to my parents for having been a teenager.   Mom, Dad, please know that I love you with all my heart.  Please know that I would never do anything to hurt you.  I am past my idiotic stage, and now that I have a teen of my own, I understand a fraction of what you felt when I was a teen.  This of course being that I was 20 times worse than my lovely daughter.

I apologize for all the drunken nights, all the unprotected sex, all the unfinished projects, all the drugs and all the malice, pain, and suffering that I caused.  I now get to go through this, and hopefully not as strongly as you two did.  I appreciate you more than ever before.  Thank you for putting up with my idiotic, stupid teen age ass of a person that I was.  I love you.