My friend Bonnie in San Diego, one of the most compassionate people I know, expresses her struggles in parenting an almost-teen: “Not knowing what is hormone-induced and what is just being a butt.”
Likewise, Corina, also in San Diego and a mother of an adolescent girl, expresses her challenges as, “navigating the sass (highly independent, articulate child), not taking it personally, and trying to let it go and come back to it later with hindsight when I just want to scream into a pillow.”
“Pre-teen and teen attitude in general is an interesting and sometimes very frustrating journey,” says Shali, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has a 24-year-old son and a 12-year-old son.
She also just sometimes wishes her younger kid would take a shower. “If I can smell you from over here, why can’t you?” she asks, adding a laughing-crying emoji.