Middle School Is When It All Goes To Hell

Consider me the Ghost of Parenthood Future. I’m here to tell you that, while it’s lovely that you’re trying so hard and you’ve read so many articles and watched so many Instagram Reels and formed a really intentional childrearing strategy, most of your thoughtful, well-researched parenting practices will mean nothing once your kid enters middle school.

When our children are young, it feels like we have absolute dominion over their tiny lives. We choose what they eat, what media they’re exposed to, when they sleep — all of it. But at some point, your control (to the degree you ever had any!) begins to slip. Who knows what they’re being exposed to at school, in summer camp, and on the sports field?

Language you find offensive, political views that make you sweat and shake, unfortunate fashion choices, weird ideas about religion; your kids are going to come into contact with the outside world. It might seem like your influence is holding strong, but the tween years will arrive and all your careful curation will fall by the wayside.

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve fed your kids an organic vegan diet or inundated them with Big Macs; when they are 12 they will eat what their friends eat. If Taquis are the go-to snack at school, that’s what your little sweetie will beg for. Maybe the cool kids won’t fill their knock-off Stanley water bottles with anything but blue Gatorade, or wildly expensive coconut water. Whatever it is, that’s what your kid will want. Years of thoughtful food prep will fly out the window.

Hate to break it to you, but food is the least of it. You may find that the kid who would only watch anime and nature specials is now clamoring to stay up to watch The Bachelor and asking for a ride to the Cineplex to catch the latest horror flick. And while, sure, those aren’t horrible things on their own, it’s *how* they came to choose these activities. It all boils down to this: For a few years your formerly sweet kid will pay very little attention to anything you say or do, and instead will gamely pursue whatever fashions or pursuits their peers are into.

You’ll likely wonder what you did wrong, and the answer is: nothing. You did everything right. Your only mistake was believing that your influence would stand firm against the juggernaut of teenage locution, fashion, and behavior. Don’t despair. Adolescence doesn’t last forever, it just feels like it does. One day your child will become recognizable to you again. They’ll probably even stop rolling their eyes at every word that comes out of your mouth. After all, you probably inspired some hair-tearing in your own parents when you were a tween.

In this modern world we’ve made parenting an Olympic sport, replete with training manuals and daily check-ins to see who is at the top of the leaderboard. We seem to have come to the erroneous conclusion that micromanagement will ensure the results we crave. But that’s just our collective anxiety talking. It turns out that all the guidance and supervision in the world is not an antidote to the bad stuff our kids will experience and possibly even instigate.

So let’s all try to relax a little. Neither letting your kid eat brownies for dinner nor banning sugar from the house will lead to years of disordered eating. If your child wants to dye their hair purple, follow your gut and recognize that whatever answer you give is unlikely to impact their ability to become a successful adult. (Side note: Purple hair is cool.)

If you’ve raised your kids to be thoughtful, exercise healthy boundaries and question the things they’re being told, your influence and that of their peers will even out eventually. But know that for several years your kids may look and behave like strangers.

Julia Williamson is mother to two mostly adult daughters. She’s a freelance writer, a decluttering wizard, and an inveterate optimist, regardless of reality. Read more in her weekly newsletter, Families and Other Freaks.