Reverberations: My Little Rascals

“Parents dread the ominous “teenagers years” but what they fail to comprehend is that the feeling is almost always mutual, because let’s be honest, between the ages of 13 and 18 (11 and 19 if your parents have particularly bad karma), parents are by far THE MOST frustrating beings to roam this ever so “annoying” planet.”

Really???

When does actual teenage start? At 13 or at 11? I believe it starts at a very young age nowadays or rather, as soon as the child is born.

“Don’t you feel sad?” I asked my younger son.

“Should I?” I was countered with a question and a mischievous smile.

Well...should he? I started thinking. What has been done is done.

I was confronting him; an attempt to make him feel a little guilty and more responsible. I had his math question paper in hand. A question which I had made him practice the previous day appeared in his question paper with the same numbers and signs but he, to my disgust, had done it wrong.

A five years younger I would definitely have shouted and screamed at the child. Now I have mellowed down. I have started to accept things as they are. That way, I find it is easier to stay happy as a mother of two teenage boys.

The pressure of a change of place, a change of house and environment looming over my mind’s horizon, I hear this next, “Amma, are you planning to work at the next place?”

I shudder at the thought of settling myself to another surrounding, which is inevitable, but all the more trying, if I take up a job.

"I have not decided. Why do you ask?"

I get a more impish smile as reply and I know the answer. He is waiting for an iPad which I promised to buy for him if I start working again.

To my silent stare he responded thus, “You can leave the job after you buy me an iPad.”