Teenage tantrums and innocent lies

I am wondering if, as parents, we are biologically designed to argue with our teenage children.  Every day I vow that today will be the day that I stay calm and reasonable while my children rant and rave and are completely unreasonable.
 But somehow, it gets to the end of the day and the reverse seems to have been true.
 It begins with an unnecessary comment,  a " whatever," shrug, irritation with the constant teenage debris that seems to cover our living room floor.
And then it moves onto complaints about the the lack of favourite food in our house, the fact that breakfast/lunch/dinner isn't ready at precisely the moment they are hungry, how unfair it is that their brother or sister hasn't got into trouble for something that they " always," get into trouble for,  the injustice of having so much homework and so little money........
And suddenly, often unexpectedly for me too, I find myself exploding.
 I bring up things they have done wrong months ago or how tiring it is for me working and being their slave or how lucky they actually are.
And I am ranting, not listening, proving that I an undoubtedly right and they are definitely wrong and whatever happens, making sure that I have the last word.
And when I look round, I see my son and daughter standing there, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, united for once.
"You chose to be a parent," they say,  " that's what mum's do."
And dropping a few more possessions on the living room floor, they flounce up the stairs.
And I am left wondering who is really the teenager.
 Perhaps the truth is, that we never stop being teenagers.
 Or maybe it is just that when your children are teenagers, you all regress so that everyone in the house spends part of every day railing against injustice and eating ice cream and chocolate instead of vegetables.
 The trouble is, that, as parents, the transformation is only temporary.
 As soon as we resume the cloak or responsibility and  bite into a raw carrot, we realise how foolish and wrong we have been.
Whereas our teenage children, they just never stop being right!

Was out with some friends on Friday night and we began to discuss how mean we had all been to our younger siblings when we were children, too young and innocent to know any better.
" Oh yes," said one of my friends, " I told my younger sister she was adopted."
" Really," I said, " How did she take the news?"
" Well," said my friend, " she was a bit shocked at first but when I explained that she was actually a member of the Osmond family, she felt better.
I explained that they had only put her up for adoption because her teeth weren't big enough and her hair was blonde instead of black so they thought she would never feel like she fitted in."