Coping with teenagers

I'll admit my teens are wonderful and I'm proud of them. They are smart, creative, funny, insightful, ethical.

But they are also teen-agers given to laziness, self-absorption and occasional bouts of obnoxiousness.

And often I don't handle myself too well when confronted with the downside of teenage behavior.

So this morning I lost my temper big time with H because I wanted everyone to be at the breakfast table by 10 a.m. Imagine, having the nerve to want a 17 year old to be at the breakfast table that early in the morning! What kind of cruel, unreasonable mother am I? Of course she has gotten into the habit of talking into the wee hours of the night with her friends on her cell phone which makes her not want to wake up until noon or 2 or so. She thinks of it as a God-given right for a teenager to be able to sleep in however late she might choose.

It is that sense of entitlement and all the arrogance and selfishness it engenders that really, really gets my goat.

But I didn't behave well. I called names, I ranted, I got vicious. And then I felt so rankled at her for making things so. Why can't she just be nice???? Why can't she make an effort once in a while to do something that doesn't have some ulterior benefit to her. Why is she so disdainful and impatient with everybody else. To tell you the truth I have had to deal with various levels of this attitude from her since she was about 2 or so. You'd think I'd be used to it by now.

But now I'm just getting myself worked up again. Forgiveness is very important. Gotta work on that.