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Suddenly, Mom and Dad are no longer the masters of the universe. They were the two people standing between you and your game controller. Your gaze shifted from admiration to eye-rolling. Olympic-level eye-rolling.

But a 10-17-year-old eye roll is nothing compared to the version perfected by a quasi-adult child. One who no longer rolls their eyes but instead looks directly at you with attitude. The eye roll grows up. It gets a driver’s license. It develops opinions.

Unlike Regina George’s mom, I was never going to be the cool mom. I was, and still am, completely fine with that. What I didn’t realize at the time was that “cool mom� was really just code for your house having the best snacks. That’s it. Capri Suns and no rules.

Then your kids turn 15, and Mom and Dad officially become the villains. Our apparent life mission? Inventing cruel and unusual punishments for things like not doing homework, sneaking out, or my personal favorite … looking us straight in the eye and lying.

I remember when I truly believed my parents had all the answers. And if they didn’t, my dad would say, “Look it up.� Not Google it. LOOK IT UP. Like, In a book.

If Ralph didn’t know the answer, it was definitely hiding somewhere in the gilt-edged pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica, volumes 1-22. I hated it at the time, but there was something powerful about turning actual pages to solve a problem. Google is efficient, sure. But it doesn’t smell like dust and authority.

The takeaway? Somewhere between the ages of 10 and 20, your kids will not think you’re cool. A 10 year-old thinks loud farts and not bathing are cool. A 26-year-old will watch an entire season of Succession on their phone while sitting less than five feet from a perfectly good television. To them, that makes sense. You cannot compete with that.

You aren’t cool.

You never were.

Because you’re Mom and Dad.

Cool is an adjective reserved for sneakers, musicians, and people who don’t ask follow-up questions.

But here’s the quiet win no one tells you about: even when you stop being admired, even when you become “annoying� and “out of touch,� you still become something else. You become familiar. Reliable. The person they roll their eyes at, but still text when they don’t know what to do next.

They may question your opinions, your rules, and occasionally your sanity. But somehow, when something feels heavy or confusing, your name still comes up. Not because you’re cool, but because you’re safe. Because you’ve been there before. Because you stayed.

And one day, without announcing it, they’ll ask a question the same way you once did. And you’ll realize: they weren’t watching you to be cool.

They were watching you to learn where to land.