So you have a teenager or two? Welcome to Planet Teen!
No time to gripe about the rough landing here on Planet Teen, focus now on what’s coming before you get blindsided by the natives. We’ve been here about 25 minutes longer than you have, but due to the constant turnover that is Planet Teen, we’re qualified to share some of what we have learned here. We can provide newbies with some guidance, veterans with some commiseration, and decorated war heroes of multiple tours with high fives and the massive amounts of chocolate they deserve. Here are some things that will help you and your kids survive and thrive during the teen years.
1. The Smell
The atmosphere here is different: you can feel it in the air and probably smell it, too. Planet Teen pulses with electric, frantic energy and smells an awful lot like the inside of an Abercrombie and Fitch store. Except when the wind changes. Then it just smells like B.O.
This is especially pleasant on long car rides together.
2. The Shifting Terra Firma
The ground is a-shakin’ and a-shiftin’ here, people, and no expert in the world can predict when the quakes will hit.
Exhibit A: “D” on a test? Wuteva. Missing headband? Total building-dropping, house-leveling, bridge-buckling quake. Some people may say that the teen year are hostile. We prefer to think of them more like a shifting, puzzling, exasperating landscape. The key to happiness here is to remember the rules to keep you and your kids moving in the right direction.
3. The Landscape
Not just “Hey there’s a shirt or six on the floor” messy, we’re talking stinky, nasty, smelly armpit of a place littered with dirty socks, muddy cleats, damp towels, skeletons of projects past, and snack wrappers. Even for the most roll-with-the-punches Mommas, Planet Teen’s littered landscape will threaten to break you. We have tips to help tame it, but be ready or be buried.
4. The Towels
Teendom is a cold, damp place for adults because the natives of Planet Teen line their lairs, formerly known as their rooms, with damp towels. Maybe the humidity is good for their skin. We have been here awhile and have no solution to this one. Sorry.
5. The Language Barrier
Teenagers compose fiction they dispense as fact as effortlessly as breathing. You would think only major events would warrant this level of creativity, but it starts slinging without rhyme or reason. Think of it as the mire to slog through every day to get to the real stories, no matter how boring. It might make you tired until you realize that the really wonderful whipped cream and cherry on top is their indignation when you suggest that their story might be two degrees south of complete BS. Best to bookmark some ways to communicate effectively with your kids about everything from sex to dating to alcohol. Channel you inner Dory and just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
It’s not all terrifying. There are positive things that come from big kid situations.
6. The Code.
On top of shifting landscapes, cold derrieres, and the language barrier, you are going to want to learn their secret codes and cryptic handshakes if you want even a remote handle on what they are thinking. This means you need to learn every last text acronym, read every last Tweet, check out every last Facebook update, and make a habit of scanning Instagram. We kid you not: the tribe is a-rumbling even when the natives look all tucked in and cherubic. That’s one reason that it’s pretty good idea to meet them where they are, like on Snapchat. It’s all about connecting with your kid.
7. The Disappearing Stuff
Hide your valuables, or at least your eyeliner and straightening iron. The natives here are like magpies. Oooh! Shiny pretty thing over here! Aaahh! Sparkly, fun thing over there. These things get whisked away, never to be seen again. More than a little infuriating, it also makes you feel like dementia is setting in early. But Thou shalt not flip out when your eyeliner disappears. It goes with the scarf she already “borrowed.”
8. The Stakes
At times, it feels like between the milestones like prom and graduation, the big adult stuff like driving, and the hazards like drinking that Planet teen wants to take you down.
Well, buck up, and remember that for all the crazy, rocky, smelly, damp, silly and scary things rocking Planet Teen, you and your child are not adversaries, but fellow travelers trying to make it to the next stage with your sanity intact. This is temporary visa status, not a permanent residence, so bring a plucky attitude, a sense of humor, and don’t forget the chocolate. We’re all going to figure this out together, but we are going to need the fortification. And we’re off. . .
Best of luck and fist bumps as fellow travelers!
Erin and Ellen
The Sisterhood Secret: Cultivate a passive, non-judgmental face. One great piece of advice that works like a charm is the non-committal “huh” or ”um” as they relay the story.
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This simple and unassuming story is a powerhouse of story-telling. Lucy is recovering in a hospital bed when her estranged mom comes to visit. However, Lucy is no ordinary protagonist and Strout is now ordinary writer, so the results are literary fireworks. Small but mighty, this slim novel packs a lot of extraordinary into a tight, narrative thread. The perfectly rendered imperfect relationship between Lucy and her mother is a reader’s dream: nuanced, fully realized, and ringing with truth. This one is a keeper.
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There are other stories like this one about eating locally, about families trying to live on their land, about treating the environment well, but Kingsolver’s gifted narrative skills elevate this book to the next level. Not just a memoir of her family’s year of eating locally, this book is a deeply entertaining and obsessively readable gem full of delectable recipes and equally delicious sidebars. Our science-loving hearts appreciate the sound and deep research that anchors the book, but even more precious and appreciated is the very tone and tenor of this book. Never once does it devolve into smugness or snobbery, a pitfall of the genre.
This one will get your pulse racing and the thermostat moving in the right direction.Three interwoven love stories fill out the deeply moving and wildly beating heart at the center of this novel. As always, Kingsolver draws you into the natural world framing the events taking place during this hot, hot summer. As you might expect, the result is less natural history course and more, well, prodigal. Bring a tall glass of cool tea to sip while reading just to bring the temperature down.
This book about two women on opposite sides of the marital timeline but facing similar issues within them is no exception. Miller can craft a conversation like nobody’s business, but its her adept pacing and characterization that make her novels little living, breathing things. In this case, she has breathed life into the very concept of marriage itself and in turn created a fascinating, fun read. No small feat, but one we will gladly take.
Sue Miller is so good at creating characters that you forget you’re reading and feel yourself looking around for your new friends. Anyway, this is a story in a story too, and this approach gives you just the distance you need to see these characters clearly. Billy, the playwright, is grieving the loss of her lover who was killed in the attacks of 9/11, and she works out her feelings in her play about a man waiting to hear if his wife has been killed in a terrorist attack on the famed train, The Lake Shore Limited. These characters will drag you into their world no matter where you may be sipping your drink.
, 
—liked ’em all, but this is an author that you love or hate, so read these recommendations with that in mind.
Erin is blessed to have married into a family nearly as boisterous and fun as her own. Every summer Dymowskis harken from hills and dales far and wide to meet and eat and reconnect. The date on the calendar is sacred and everybody tries to make it. Yes, these gatherings are effort, but they are so worth it.
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5. Share the big moments.
6. Try something new together.
Growing up, Erin’s friend Mary taught her the delightful term “frousins” to describe the beautiful gift of cousins who are more than just family, but true friends as well. Here’s hoping we should all be so lucky!
by Leah Remini (
by Gabrielle Zevin (
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