Last weekend I commented to another mom friend that I am in the “Muber” stage of parenting. I’m not necessarily to the go-to person in my kids lives unless they need a ride, also known as the teenage years. It’s not all terrible, sure the pay still sucks and they trash my car but sometimes I gain some insight.

It’s hard to know what your kids are up to all the time unless you are tracking them like the CIA.  We have limits on their phone use, protocols to prevent 24hr access. The goal is to protect them from predators and make sure they don’t stay up all night on Snapchat, freedom with boundaries. They need the space to make decisions, room for mistakes, it’s how we learn.

So when my kids want a ride somewhere, especially if they want me to drive their friends, I give an enthusiastic “YES!” It’s my only chance to observe how they interact in the “wild”. The bits and pieces of conversations I hear between friends in the car gives me some insight into their teen world that I might otherwise miss. So for now, we are in the Muber phase which, will soon transition into Holy-shit-teen-driving-car-insurance-is-expensiveAF phase. Be careful out there.