Wonder Years

 

“Huang Kids” the blog is as old as the kids themselves. And as the kids have gotten older, I’ve chronicled less and less out of respect for their privacy. But just because Asher gets most of the air time doesn’t mean I love Aaron and Jada less or that there isn’t plenty that could be chronicled.

Nevertheless, out of respect for our teens’ privacy, I say less and what I say tends to be blurred. Which is fine. But I will say that the teen years are something else. Navigating the world as an adolescent is such a journey. Brain development, hormones, literal growing pains. Finding your tribe, your identity, your core values. Evolving your relationships with your parents as you seek out and are given more independence, and bridging the generational gaps that invariably form between your contemporary lived experience and the very distant world that informed the lived experience of your parents a whole generation ago.

For Aaron and Jada, they have to contend with so many things that Amy and I have little to no mooring on to be able to provide any guidance. Growing up under an inter-racial marriage. Having a little brother who is Black. Navigating what it means to grow up in a big city. Figuring out what it means to have been adopted. Absorbing the devastating effects of COVID. How precious are these lives, how difficult the road, how much we hold our breath at every step.

Aaron and Jada are good kids, and we are privileged to live a stable and comfortable existence. Nevertheless, the teen years cannot help but be a tumultuous phase, and we are no different. Good choices and bad, happy times and dark seasons, we love them to death and yet sometimes want to wring their necks. Such are the teen years for us parents. And then they’ll go off to and then graduate from college, and then we’ll have one more teen to contend with. Buckle up…