An argument with a teenager

Having a teenager is a pain in the ass. The snarkiness I can handle, but the snarkiness while being ignorant just makes me want to tear my hair out because it makes me feel like I've failed as a parent in more ways than one, like I've failed to teach him manners and I raised a stupid kid.

Me, my wife and my son were flying back from Singapore yesterday, and we looked up at the big board to check which gate we were boarding at. My son says, "G1!" and starts rushing off. I said, "Wait!" and I took a few more seconds to look at the board. He was exasperated.

Then I said, "It's not G1, it's G10." Our flight, AK712 was flying out of gate G10 to Kuala Lumpur. Gate G1 also had a flight to Kuala Lumpur but it was flight AK710. I looked on our boarding pass and our flight was AK712. But my brain had just absorbed all this information and I hadn't yet found the words to explain all this to a rushing teenager, so we went back and forth like this for a few seconds - G1, G10, G1, G10 - until I finally figured out to explain about checking flight numbers but by this time, he was committed to winning the argument, so he said one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard, "So? That flight still ends up in Kuala Lumpur what!"

So I said, "No, they won't let you on that flight and then you'll be at the wrong gate and you'll miss your flight." and by this time, even he realized I was right, so he said, "You don't have to yell at me."

In my defense, I really didn't feel like I was yelling at him, but I did use the same tone of voice as him. If anything, I felt like I was being quite restrained with my choice of words. If I wanted to be snarky back, I would have just said, "You go to G1. Board that flight. See if they let you on, you little shit!"

I didn't say that. Why? Because I'm not a snarky teenager. I'm a parent. We are good people.

And I know it's not his fault he doesn't know about checking the flight number. He's just a kid. But if every once in awhile, he'd just throw me a little, "You're right, dad," or "Thanks, dad" or, "Wow, I can't believe you're right!" which would be a little sarcastic and condescending but I'd take it. His first reaction is always dad's not smart, so he's wrong about this too.

Fucking teenagers. They're lucky we have memories of the sweet innocent children they used to be, or they'd be all out on the streets.

Note to myself: 

For future reference, I think these lines are actually pretty good, and I can use them while remaining calmish. 

"I'm not yelling. I'm just using the same tone of voice as you."

"I'm not smart, but once in awhile, I'm right about things."

God give me the mental-clarity and the dad-strength to remember them.