An age where they are all raging hormones and shitty attitudes and mortified by my very existence. They tell me this with slamming doors and rolling eyeballs, because otherwise they would have to actually talk to me, their mother, who is too loud, too silly and weird and embarrassing—mostly the last one. There’s nothing quite as savage as a preteen’s ridicule. It leaves a mark, one that lingers for a very long time.
