Ahh, Teenage Parenting...
Is It Happy Hour Yet?

The Parenting Portfolio
Written by our Fave Shana McLean Moore

My friends and I have finally entered the thankless years of parenting, where we hand over our whole heart, calendar, and wallet to our children, but no longer see much in the way of cooing, cuddles or even the color of their eyes – from all that eye rolling – in return.

And with all the talk about our dire world economy, I can’t help but look at my teenage parenting skills, these children I have cherished and nurtured for the better part of my adult life, and see them now in investment terms.

Instead of some sexy seeming Ponzi scheme that would leave me stinking rich in the rewards of parental appreciation and affection, I’m afraid the best I can hope for is a nice, solid treasury-bond approach to my emotional investment in them.

This allows me to dream only of a modest T-bond payoff some 20-30 years from now, when my girls have little sass makers of their own and can finally understand how it feels to love a person so deeply that you want to protect them from all of life’s dangers. Only then will they understand that the risk comes just as readily from academic apathy and friends who don’t have your best interests at heart as it can from the scary statistics they are taught about sex, drugs and the effects of rock-n-roll played louder than geezer-approved volumes.

To have to wait 20 years to hear I was right – that my efforts were appreciated – just seems too stinking long. I want to hear today the same words I recently told my own mother: “I was so lucky,” “You were right not to let me do that,” “Thank you for being the kind of parent who never thought to legislate for the legal right to abandon teens”.

For the record, hypocrites can still be good mothers.

My impatience over the slow rate of maturation of my investment makes me wish I could be a day trader of emotional investing. When this concept applies to the financial world, it’s a high-risk operation in which a day can bring a huge percentage of returns, or a huge percentage of losses. When it comes to trading emotions, the risk isn’t so daunting because our teens give us so little to lose. It’s really nothing more than the emotional equivalent of gambling your latte money.

To that end, I have researched some actual techniques employed by day traders in search of dollars that can be applied to us parents in search of some validation:

Trend following

This approach is more commonly referred to as the “Duh, Gee” technique because it assumes that financial instruments that have been rising steadily will continue to rise, and vice versa. In parenting, this means that if your teen usually goes ballistic when you say “no” to her request, it isn’t a bad idea to put your earplugs in preventively, as soon as she wakes up. At noon.

Contrarian Investing

Contrarian investing, or Eeyore’s principle, is a market timing strategy that assumes financial instruments that have been rising steadily will reverse and start to fall. With teenagers, this concept is best demonstrated by making plans for yourself when your child doesn’t have time for you. As soon as you are booked, their very survival will depend upon your company.

Range Trading

Range trading is a trading style in which stocks that tend to fall back to the low every time they hit a high are watched. The range trader, then, buys the stock at or near the low price, and sells at the high. The parenting corollary to this suggests that you ought to brace yourself every time you hear “This is the best day of my life,” for surely drama dawns tomorrow. Alas, it is frowned upon in our culture to sell our teens when we anticipate a crash.

Scalping

Scalping is a trading style in which small price gaps are exploited. It normally involves establishing and liquidating a position quickly, usually within minutes or even seconds. Scalping’s basic application to parenting, however, is in its Old World meaning-- as in when a parent is tempted to apply tomahawk-to-teen when faced with rudeness and disrespect.

While we must wait the full 20-30 years for these emotional investments to mature, the day-trading tips for us parents will remind us that we’re not alone in our thankless existence. And now that all of these Ponzi schemes have come to light, 20-30 years looks a lot better than a life behind bars.

Yes... Teenage Parenting... I guess it's what get's us ready for the empty nest?

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