Having teenagers is hard. This isn’t one of those experiences you look back on in later life and think, “You know, those were sure some fun times! I’d sure like to relive those years in slow motion!”

Not to say they’re all bad and you dread every minute of every day, but mostly?

It’s devastating and exhausting. It’s a constant struggle, day after day, just to keep some sanity. Yours and theirs. Know what it feels like? I’ll tell you, in case you’re not there yet or have never been there or have no intentions of ever going there or whatever. It feels like an epic struggle between good and evil. Seriously. I’m not even exaggerating a little bit.

Look, you’re there with this kid, right? You’ve raised him since he was what? Oh yeah, born. Because he’s yours. From your loins he did spring, etc, etc. Now he’s a teen. He’s at a critical time in his life. Yes, I know. It’s all critical. Cradle to the grave and all that rot. Play Beethoven when they’re in the womb. Baby Einstein videos in the crib. Never too early to start programming teaching those precious jewels! But this is value time. This is the last hurrah. This is when they start stretching those legs, branching out, discovering there’s a whole big world out there with a lot to say and not all of it is in full agreement with what you have said — so, who do you want them to believe? It’s a crucial time. So, so important for so, so many reasons.

Will he heed the lessons you’ve tried to instill in him about the importance of a good education now that he’s too old for you to check his backpack every day when he comes home from school?

Will he have taken anything away from your lessons on the importance of personal cleanliness, organization and responsibility, now that he’s too old for you to bathe, clean his room and pack his lunches, backpack, school supplies?

Will he be a bully? Will he have friends? Will he have girlfriends? This is the boy you’ve been raising all these years, coming to pass. What will you do with him now?

It feels epic.

Better think carefully before you act. If you have the wrong reaction to any of the behaviors of your teen, you risk sending him to the darkside. This could result in a long and arduous path down a grim road to an even darker adult hood.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

What we do NOW impacts what happens later. Of course, yes, what we do always impacts what happens later. In all things. It’s true of parenting from birth on and hell, it’s true for all things. But nowhere is it more evident than when you’re the parent of a teenager. You can feel it in your bones. In every word you say to him there’s an unspoken …what? What is it? Vibe? You could call it a vibe, I guess. There’s this vibe in the air that whispers, ominously, “Life or Death. Success or Failure. His Soul or Mine.”

I can’t help but feel that, in addition to the pressure of whatever drama of the week we’re going through currently, there’s also a battle for his soul happening under the surface that hinges on the outcome of this week’s drama as well as last week’s, next week’s, every week that came before and every week that will ever come again. It’s exhausting!

Ultimately, at the end of the day, all you can do is the best you can do and hope that what you did, what you said, was the right thing to do and say. You do it, you say it and you hope with every part of you that you picked the right door. Still, you might have to endure the shouts and hard stares. Hearing, “I hate you” and “You’re a horrible mother” are no picnic. There’s no guarantee that you won’t have to live through the heart shattering rendition of those songs, even if you do make the right choice, say and do all the right things. Sometimes, making the right and best choice is often met with the most resistance; even from those we love the most. Especially from those we love the most. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t still the right choice.

I wish I could say I met those words with the right reaction. I wish I could say that I didn’t let them hurt me. I didn’t retaliate with guilt or pain. I wish I could say that, but I can’t. Instead I put him to bed, out of my sight and reminded him before bed that he had a bed to sleep in because of his horrible mother. That one’s on me. I’m human, too. My heart bleeds blue.

I should have told him he’s allowed to be angry. I should have made him understand that I understand how it feels to be so pissed off that you want to tell the whole world to fuck off and never fucking look back but life and the whole wide world is still out there regardless and it’s not always nice or fair so you just got to deal and roll with the punches sometimes so that’s what we’re doing. But tomorrow will be better. We always get another chance to start all over tomorrow. And I still love you and it’s all good so goodnight, you demon child from hell.

That’s what I should have said. If I weren’t a horrible mother that he has every right to hate.

Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda. That’s pretty much the mantra of every mother raising a teenager. There are no do-overs. You don’t get to go back and try that one again, coming at it from another angle. There’s only one take. Every time. You better get it right the first time because if you don’t, you’re going to be paying for a long time to come and the really, really unfortunate thing is, you’re not the only one. Not to put any added pressure on you or anything.