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First, a few facts: I am pushing 40. My son is pushing 15. When I was pushing 15, I thought my parents were nuts. I swore I'd never be like them when I had kids of my own. Today, my son thinks I'm nuts. He swears he'll never be like me when he has kids of his own.

It appears that the universal life cycle is repeating itself only this time with me in the starring role of nutsy-weirdedout-totallyuncool-mother. Just what I needed. As if laundry and mopping weren't enough to drag down my day.

Even though I work with lots of teenagers who seem to like me just fine, the one in my house isn't so sure. That's why I set out on a mission to find out what is it about teenagers that makes them think we're out to get them. I wanted to know what goes on inside their heads and how to navigate their ever-changing moods. I wanted to know what teenagers need from us as parents so I went straight to the source.

Tim, Lisa, Zach, Brette, Andrew, and Emily are all pushing 15. Since none of these teenagers is mine, the odds are good that we can have an actual conversation made up of complete sentences. Between the six of them, the one of me, a super-sized bucket of deep-fried chicken parts, eight king-size orders of fries, and seven 44 oz. bottles of pop, we have only two goals in sight: to eat the bountiful feast set before us, and to clarify what they wish parents (nutsy-weirdedout-totallyuncool and otherwise) knew about junior highers.

Do you know how hard it is to be myself? Just because I might be feeling okay about who I am doesn't mean life is easy. I still feel like I need to always watch what I say, how I dress, and who I talk to. If I do something wrong, everyone might laugh at me, or think I'm an idiot, or make fun of me.

If you could see how bad some of the kids get teased, you wouldn't believe it. Sometimes I actually feel sick to my stomach when I hear what people get called. With the guys, there's this whole "tough" routine. With the girls, there's this whole who-are-my-friends-going-to-be-today gossip thing. One day, things are great. The next day, you're just a nobody. Was it like that for you? It's like that for me. Some days, it's all I think about.

You've got to believe me on this—my teachers are not always the same at school as they are at parent-teacher conferences. They're not always friendly and smiley and chatty and encouraging to me, like they are to you. Some of my teachers are cool. They seem to really love teaching, and they seem to care about students. But some of the others, well, I don't even know why they're there. They obviously hate it. Do you know what it's like to spend half of my day with adults who treat me like a number instead of a person?

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