Before Julie, our exchange student, arrived I was quite confident I'd be the cool mom. I mean, the math alone is in my favor. With my own children, I'm 23, 24 and 27 years older than them which likely destines me to uncoolness in their eyes...eventually. But with Julie, being that she's not really mine, I get to be 14 years older, making the generation gap just small enough to keep me cool, right?
Wrong. Turns out, the age difference doesn't matter, when you're a mom, you're a mom. And to add to it...when you're me, you're me. :)
It doesn't matter that she is technically not mine.
It doesn't matter that she is smart, and seventeen years old.
It doesn't matter that she is brave enough to leave her family and country to live with strangers...
I still...
- ask a million questions.
- ask around to find out the reputations of her new friends.
- feel the need to protect her from making any choices she might regret.
- feel the need to dislike and question the intentions of any and all teenage boys, except for the ones where I personally know their mothers, because for some reason that makes a difference.
- ask what happened during the day...with the who, what, when, where, why, and how following.
- tell her not to stay up too late.
One day, I even asked her to change clothes. Yeah...way, way uncool. The benefit to her not being my "real" daughter is that A - she wasn't purposely trying to push the limit and B - she didn't baulk or complain, but simply changed clothes. It may have been harder on me than her, because it sealed the deal: I'm officially THAT mom ;)