Everything is awful, so here's a nice thing:

I'm a parent of teens now. Everyone who knows me knows that I deeply miss babies, and toddlers, and 6yos, and ... all the stages really. But one of the great compensations of parenting teens is that they've gotten really *funny*.

And not in a "kids say the darnedest things" way -- legitimate, real humor. They make me guffaw several times a day these days.

It's so wild to watch the transition from child you love to actual, freestanding human being who you also *like*. They're just fun to hang with.

I think a lot about US cultural mythology - teens rebel & break rules, behave awfully, & fight with their parents - & how far it is from my parenting experience. And I wonder how much of it was culturally contingent on the shitty parenting of the "greatest" & Boomer generations.