Emo As A Way of Life.

Last evening, my parents and I observed a little girl at another table while we were having dinner.

The girl had the blackest face ever and was giving her grandmother a dirty look.

I swear, if anyone thought parenting was tough when the kids were babies.. speak again when they are older and when they are teenagers.

Did you know that in this generation, the young people have created a word called “emo“? It’s practically a RIGHT to have an attitude or to sulk or to give us adults a black face. They ALL do it. It’s a matter of degree. It doesn’t matter if you are the most loving parent in the world, or you give them everything they want. Being emo is their way of life now.

Even ours. I have a stack of photos of our kids looking like this -

If your kid totally ignores you and thinks you’re dumb, that’s normal. If your kid is polite to you and answers when spoken to, you’re lucky. If your kid readily comes to you and tell you stuff (ours do!), thank the Gods. If your kids would come kiss you every day and tell you they love you, begin to suspect they aren’t yours. Haha.. just kidding.

After careful observation and lots of reading of self-help books for managing teenagers, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no one single formula to manage kids to transform them into the sweet angels that we all want them to be.

Being emo is an unfortunate phase of growing up. If you’re lucky, they start at 13 and pretty much ends by 20. If you’re unlucky, then it starts at 6 and continues way into adulthood.

Kids will always take their parents for granted. I know I did. And I know I still do sometimes. It doesn’t mean our kids don’t love us. They just don’t know how to love us the way we would like them to.

Thankfully, for us, most of the time, our kids are like THIS.

And just for fun, check out this very popular video. Kids LOVE it.