Remember your college and post-college years, when you were inevitably stuck with bad roommates?  They didn’t pay the rent, they made noise at all hours, and their mess was out of control.

 Guess what? They’re baaaaaaaack! They’re called your children.

They look grown up and they do grown up things such as driving a car and (hopefully) earning money, but as soon as they cross the threshold of your home, teens and young adults turn into roommates from hell.

Let me make clear that, by now, my children have moved beyond this stage. They have sufficiently matured to the point that they are no longer petulant five-year-olds trapped in the bodies of young women.

But, oh, how I remember the days – not so long ago- when they were the epitome of bad roommates.

It goes something like this: Your kids don’t contribute monetarily to the household in any way, which is fine. No surprise there. But they also don’t pitch in or help out unless coerced, and even then it’s a crap shoot. Never mind that they don’t sweep a floor, wash a dish, or launder a towel, they don’t even have the decency to confine their mess to their own rooms. They also don’t have the common courtesy to inform you of their whereabouts, yet expect privileges such as having a car at their disposal. Even with their incessant demands and slovenly ways, it might not be so bad, except for one thing: They speak to you as if you were an idiot.

Lest you feel as if there is a sign on your back that says “Kick me,” rest assured, it’s not you, it’s them.  Your very presence will irritate your kids, yet will not deter them from living in your house, eating your food, or expecting you to do things for them.

The truth is, the demands of a toddler pale in comparison to the demands of some teens and young adults. The only difference is, you can put a toddler in time out. With roommates from hell, you have to put yourself in a time out…which will give you plenty of time to think about how much you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

By now we’ve established that teens and young adults do a lot of stuff that that they shouldn’t be doing and that we (hopefully) know nothing about. All kids of a certain age test the boundaries, as did we when we were their age. Most parents understand and accept this. But there’s always one among us who swears that his or her precious little angel is perfectly behaved at all times.

To these outliers, I say: Come on! Who are you kidding? What makes you think that your child isn’t drinking, cutting class, lying to you about his or her whereabouts, or engaging in some other meaningless act of rebellion?

Do these parents seriously believe that their children are going to skate through the teenage years unscathed and untainted, to be held out as shining examples of obedience and good judgment 100 percent of the time?

News flash: It is a biological impossibility for this to be the case, because our brains aren’t fully developed until the age of about 25! Even if our teens and young adults wanted to always make wise decisions and follow the straight and narrow, the fact is, they’re not equipped to do so.

Think about your own teenage years. Aren’t there things you did that you don’t want your parents to know about even 40 years later?  Trust me, the same holds true for your kids.

If your kids are savvy, they will successfully navigate their teenage years by hiding their misdeeds from you. In other words, they won’t get caught. But don’t get cocky; just because you haven’t caught them doing something, doesn’t mean they’re not doing it.

Not only is it normal and inevitable for kids to test the waters, I will even go so far as to say that it can be a good thing. Show me a kid who doesn’t step out of line during high school and I’ll show you a kid who goes wild in college, outdoing by far the antics of his or her peers.

So if you’re one of those parents who professes that your children don’t do what every other teenager does – at least sometimes – it’s time for a reality check. Get off your high horse, pull your head out of the sand, and join the rest of us in praying that our kids don’t do anything irrevocably stupid before their brains have a chance to put on the brakes.

It occurs to me that everyone has secrets, or at least portions of their lives that only some people know about. This starts during the teenage years, when kids begin to stake out their independence by doing things and going places that they think their parents know nothing about. They laugh at us behind our backs as they head to a party while we think they’re studying or engaging in some other saintly activity. They think we’re clueless, and we probably are. But so are they.

What they fail to realize is this: Just as they have secret lives we know nothing about, so do we. And not just now. We’ve had these secret lives since we were their age!

In the time-honored tradition of teenagers everywhere and for all eternity, we too were less than candid with our parents about our whereabouts and behavior. Our kids know this – and often use this knowledge to manipulate us – but they also think that they can gradually whittle away at our past lives to the point that there is nothing about our misspent youth that they’re not aware of.

Au contraire, my little ones. There is plenty about us that they don’t know, and will never know. What’s more, there is plenty about our lives right now that is off limits to them.

Of course, they think this is not and should not be the case. They expect us to answer their questions candidly, omitting nothing along the way. They routinely shut us down but think that our lives are an open – and exceedingly boring – book.

The truth is, teens and young adults do a lot of stupid things and I have no desire to know about all of them. Part of growing up is testing your wings, making mistakes, falling flat on your face, and covering your tracks. And part of being a grown up is the privilege of privacy and not having to share details of your life that you wish to keep to yourself.

So kids, remember that lack of full disclosure is a two-way street. And don’t be too self-congratulatory when you pull the wool over your parents’ eyes. We know it’s happening and we’re not afraid of the dark.

Not long ago, I was riding in the car when “The Loco Motion” (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) came on the radio. I immediately began to feel uncomfortable.  In fact, just listening to that song made me feel embarrassed. I was instantly transported to my friend’s Bat Mitzvah where newly formed adolescents –  including me – attempted to interact both socially and on the dance floor.

That memory led to another one that I thought I had pushed into the farthest reaches of my subconscious: my first slow dance.  If Eskimos have 50 words for “snow,” teenagers should have at least 100 words for “awkward.”

I don’t remember what song was playing – I must have blocked the memory because I was so ill at ease. All I can recall are flashes of sweaty palms, ungainly swaying, and the sensation that I was about to fall off a cliff.

Clumsy, bungling, and graceless barely scratch the surface of how I could describe this encounter. This was not the fault of the boy who so kindly asked me to dance. He was probably trapped in his own private hell of teenage angst. No, the problem was me. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin I felt desperate to escape.

While I may complain about getting older, the truth is, if I were given the chance to turn the clock back 40 years, I would pass.  I have no desire to return to those bungling years when the opposite sex seemed like an alien species and my inner voice was so insistent and full of doubt,  I wanted to tell it to shut the fuck up.

For all my ranting, I must admit that aging has its advantages. I don’t miss that deer-in-the-headlights feeling I had whenever boys were around.  I’m long past the fear of being asked to dance. So come on baby, do the Loco Motion with me!

A few years ago, a relative told me she moved her 15-year-old son’s bedroom to the basement.  That’s a bit harsh, I thought. The kid will be out of the house soon enough. Does he really have to be kicked downstairs?

And then my kids became teenagers.

While everyone always laments the demise of their sex lives when their children are young – they’re too exhausted, the kids interrupt them and other assorted excuses – no one ever mentions this dirty little secret:  it’s impossible to have sex with teenagers at home.

Just when you finally catch up on your sleep and are able to think about getting your life back, the privacy vanishes. Once they hit a certain age, they’re awake long after you are and they’re hyperaware of what you’re doing. The thought of them hearing or knowing what you’re up to is mortifying to everyone.

It’s true that teens tend to go out a lot. But if you have more than one child, their social lives may not be in sync. Or you may think the coast is clear, only to be interrupted by a phone call to go pick someone up or deal with a crisis.

The bottom line is that even though your teenage or adult kids don’t need constant attention, you still can’t do as you please.  They may want to have nothing to do with you, but they’re still in your face.  And just for the record, if you show up at breakfast and they can’t look you in the eye, it’s time to remodel that basement.