I Wish My Teens Had a Little More of My '90s Freedom

Hi, friends! Lisa is usually our resident teen years expert, but my kids are almost 15 and almost 12, so we're in the thick of it or about to be. That's why you're getting another post from me today.

So far, there haven't been any big teenage battles with our oldest. Drinking, smoking, and crushes aren't on the radar yet, and even the whole “going out” thing is still pretty manageable. Honestly, I'd describe our relationship as really close, and I'm happy that she shares so many of her thoughts and feelings with me.

Over the last few weeks, though, I've noticed that she's starting to spread her wings more and more. She organized her first school internship completely on her own, and now she's working at a pastry shop with a café attached. She decided to do a training course to become a youth group leader (so that later she can work as a counselor with kids' and teen groups), and she just headed off for five days of training with a bunch of new faces. And she signed up for the exchange trip to Spain this spring. Wow, I thought, here we go. Now she wants to see the world.

What were my own teen years like?

Since all of this is new to us, I always try to think back to what I was like at that age. And every time, I realize (with a bit of horror) that I moved out just a year later and lived at a boarding school until I graduated high school. (In Germany, that means passing the Abitur, the university-entrance exam.)

Those were different times, of course, and I didn't have a cell phone, which meant I had really little contact with my parents. Most of the time I called home once a week, always from a pay phone, because cell phones didn't exist yet. I only went home every four to six weeks. I didn't think that was a big deal back then, but today it strikes me as REALLY intense…

It's not that I wasn't close with my parents. Above all, I knew I could get help from them with any problem, and to this day I have a deep, basic trust in them. But all the everyday stuff, I worked out on my own and with my girlfriends at school. My parents didn't know when I had which test or whether I'd studied. They didn't know who I was fighting with, and later on, they didn't know that every now and then I had one drink too many and had to spend the night in the bathroom.

I learned early on to budget my money, do my own laundry, keep my room clean, and somehow organize myself at school well enough to earn a pretty good diploma without much effort. I got to try things out without anyone watching. Sometimes I went overboard, but I also learned very quickly from the messes I made. Without any parental interference, I could figure out for myself what was good for me and what wasn't, and how much effort to put into what.

The biggest difference was definitely that there was no nonstop contact between my parents and me, because without cell phones it simply wasn't possible. These days, how often do I get a photo from my kids when I send them to the store, because they're not sure it's the right product? How often do they call real quick to ask me something? “The phone is an extended umbilical cord, and it takes away our kids' chance to find solutions on their own,” a friend of mine once said, and she nailed it. I had to have a really big problem before I'd make my way to the pay phone to call my parents…

This is definitely not meant to be a “everything was better back in the day” post. Because of course, not everything was better back then. But sometimes I do wish my kids had a little more of my '90s and 2000s feeling. Messing up without somebody posting it on social media. More independence from us parents, more trying things out for themselves. Less comparing on Instagram and TikTok, less being reachable all the time, more of a sense that they can handle things on their own.

And I wish for myself, too, a little more of the ability my parents obviously had: letting go. Trusting that everything is fine, even if I don't check in once a day. Because there, and I'll admit it, I still have plenty of room to grow!