Hi,

Ooh, good question.
Is this about caring, or is it about respect?
Sounds like you have some needs left waiting on the runway, and would like to start caring for those needs in the circle of your family. Nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I'd welcome more details about what your experience is like.

Sometimes if teenagers look like they don't care, it can be totally innocent and well-meaning, but they haven't learned how to show caring in a way that resonates with you. Or they have some life issue going on that takes all their attention and concern, and they don't know how to verbalize it. Or something. My first guess is that they care a TON. They can care about you DEEPLY the whole time they are trailing cracker crumbs all over the house and playing obnoxious music and spraying their hair blue. But they might not know how to show that in the specific ways that matter to you.

So you're welcome to talk it over, if that seems productive.

Autumn

48148,

I was the same exact way when I was a teenager-- even up into my 20's. I still loved my mother, and I felt this love. However, a teenager is so distracted with thier personal life and all the changes , friends, lifestyle, etc., that they are pre-occupied with discovering that life and push the important things they take for granted in the backburner. Right now your teenagers are secure with you enough to branch out into discovering their own lives. They also feel that this is as it should be. they arent thinking that one day they will lose you. Right now they express their annoyance with you over petty things because they are secure that you will be there. If some tragedy struck, and you died suddenly, that would actually rock their World as they know it- and wake them up quickly.

Otherwise, this reality that they will one day lose you will come as they continue to mature.




By the time I hit 30, I had already found myself and was no longer as distracted from the valuable things in my life that held TRUE value.

Now I am 42, and my mother is my best friend. I now see the cycle of life with all my friend's parents- I see the parents ending up in the hospital, and dying.

I know that time is coming ever closer and that my mother will not ALWAYS be there for me to enjoy and this brings a greater appeciation for the time I can share with her now.

Teenagers-- unless they go through personal tragedies early-- need time before they gain this wisdom and appreciation. The love is still there though. I know I did feel love for my Mom when I was a teenager, but I pushed that back in my conscience while I went exploring for my own identity.

Tell them how you behaved when you were their age
and explain that just because their father behaves like Homer Simpson they must grow up..

Give them room (space), respect and responsibilty, take an interest in what they are doig and explain the game plan, that is they are now being groomed for the outside world and this is the plan. For instance explain that you are not locking the door after they get in late at night as this would draw you into a control/dependency relationship one in which they would never learn to grow up without finding a partner who plays the same games (and rhe same cycle of dependency/need relationships start once more).

Explain that this was probably lacking in your life and that this why their father is there, to control you.

Inject honesty (of where things have gone wrong) and you ll be surprised by the results