What you wish your mother had told you before you had children?

my mother told me that if i think the kids ( 5) were a hand ful when they were little then wait until they become teenagers .I never knew until that happened just what she meant but boy do i now mind you they are all good kids but typical teenagers they eat you out of house and home ,you never have money in your purse, they drop everything where they have it, they are all too busy to give you a hand when you need it the most,and when they say mummm you know they stuffed something

I really wish that my mother had told me about single parenting. It would have helped me understand just how diffacult it actually is. There really needs to be family members around to help out and another role model besides myself. I hope that I can encourage my daughter to stay close enough to family and get married before having any children of her own.