That's just the business I'm in

Eamon and I shouldn't have let our children live with us past the age of thirteen. It's not that we don't want to be with them, or haven't taken good care in their health and welfare, it's just that the amalgamation of our issues put into three other human beings was probably not a very good idea, and the end result is double the fun in terms of what ever each of us brought to the picnic.
Jake said to me right after he left for California, that "We just don't know how to be parents to a teenager." And, he's right, neither of us have any desire to tell an almost grown person how to act or what to do all of the time. We are not people who take any joy in controlling the lives of others, so we are both inept and splendidly capable at the same time, which is where the confusion takes hold like a vice, and leaves us spiraling in confusion and misgiving.
We are both far too empathetic to be successful in this arena, we play all of the roles, both adult and child in order to be reasonably fair; and that's where the trouble begins, you can't be on two sides in this realm, you have to be the parent, which neither of us have any sort of frame of reference of whatsoever.