When someone announces a pregnancy, it is a time honored tradition to throw them a baby shower, gifting them with everything they may need for the new baby’s arrival.
We eat tiny sandwiches, make comments about the pretty cupcakes, and the parents-to-be open gifts that will be useful to them as parents of a newborn. But, we all know what happens next. You are dumped, forgotten, and pretty much on your own for the rest of your days as a parent.
The toddler years can be dicey, but there are sympathetic ears on every playground bench, and at every daycare pick up, and there are many people (like older family members) we can reach out to who have been there. Little do we know, we have not even touched the tip of the troubling times that lie ahead.
There is nothing like being smacked with the tween/teen years.
Whether you are trying to raise one or a few at the same time (Lord, have mercy), you literally don’t know what it happening to your kids (or yourself) at any given moment. And, suddenly everyone zips their face shut and you are looking around at the mom next to you on the bleachers as you watch your kids play baseball, and you wonder if she’s felt like flailing on the bathroom floor as many times as you have.
It’s okay to ask, “Did your Jimmy still wet the bed when he was six?” but casually asking a fellow parent if they know how old their child was when they smoked their first joint, isn’t an appropriate conversation starter.
The teens years are when parents really need items and advice books to help get them through until things smooth out a bit. Yeah, What To Expecting When You Are Expecting was a great read, but shouldn’t it have been a series? And the fattest book of all should have been the based on the teen years; a book full of words telling us exactly what to do at every twist and turn, so we don’t have to think so hard. We need advice on how to coexist with a teenager without hurting so much.
Make no mistake; a teen shower isn’t a party you are throwing for your teen—they have enough. It’d be a party other people are throwing for YOU because you have a teen. Forget the newborn stage, now is when parents really need help, but there is not much available. When our kids slept all day, there was lots of help, and now that they are doing some really weird stuff, there is hardly any, which makes zero sense.
What I Want to Receive at My Teen Shower
Extra utensils and glasses
Where the heck do all of those items go after your child turns twelve?
Extra USB chargers, and cases of extra strength deodorant
Just when you think you are stocked on these items after spending all your money, you take them to soccer practice, return home and everything is gone. Having a backup supply of these items is good for our mom brain, and wear and tear on the family vehicle.
Other popular suggestions that are sure to be on every parent registry?
Alcohol and aspirin
For those really tough days, their first semi-formal dance, teaching them how to drive, when they stop talking to you, tell you they hate you, when they are late for their curfew and you don’t know where they are. Even when things are going smoothly, keep this stuff handy because things are likely to fall apart again really soon.
All the services
We want laundry, maid, and cooking service. Sure, you can make a teen clean up after themselves but we all know their idea of clean and ours don’t match, at all. Unless you are skilled at standing over them and doling out very specific instructions about what actual cleaning looks like, you’ve probably given up because you need your energy to fight other battles.
Gift certificates
We need massage gift certificates, grocery store gift certificates, fast food gift certificates, a grant to pay for all the things they need their first year of college, and most importantly, a gift certificate to a really good therapist.
Throw in a manual on how to deal with every teen problem that will arise and I think we’ve got it covered. I’m really hoping teen showers become a thing.
Who’s with me?
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