Things can change so fast sometimes. My daughter is in taking her test for a permit. She’s going to learn to drive! That means she’s a step closer to moving out.
I how she passes. I hope she moves out. And I wish she was still my little girl sitting beside me on the sofa while we watch Digimon together.
They grow so fast, and it’s amazing to watch. They take the life you helped them start and make it their own. Sometimes I don’t agree with her choices, sometimes I want to chain her down and make her quit growing up so fast. Other days I can’t wait for her to move out and be her own person.
Teenagers are nature’s way of encouraging parents to let go of their children, or so they say, and I can totally see that now.
BTW, she just passed her test. I’m afraid Dave, and totally excited at the same time.
Author Crissy Moss 
We’re going through exactly the same thing at the moment. Our twin sons are 17 and quite surly at times. I read that about evolution making teenagers unpleasant so both sides would be happy to separate. While I love them dearly, it will be nice to have our own space.
Still, another two years before they graduate high school, so quite a while to wait.
Yep, she has one last class to graduate high school. Hopefully done soon. Already working, and just starting with the car. She’s on her way.
It will be nice to have my space to myself again… well… almost myself. I do have Gregg, and my son has a few years before he’ll be moving out too.
A mechanism to weaken the social bond would makes some sense.
However, the theory that one side effect of the shift from fast-learning brain to adult brain is inability to feel empathy also makes sense; and explains why everything seems to be so extremely relevant and serious at that age.
Not sure how you would set up an experiment that had a good enough data set, but it would be interesting to see if the modal timing/strength of teenage egocentricity changes between dangerous and safe societies, and between societies with different ages of adulthood. If it is a side effect of puberty then it will correlate with that rather than social aspects, whereas if it is a separate mechanism, it might (with a broad enough set) have evolved enough to appear at a different point in different cultures.