Adolescence - Already Arrived?

New book...same topic...teenagers. But this one is a really really good book. Get Out of My Life, but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall? (Anthony E. Wolf, Ph.D.), is a must read for any parent, aunt, uncle, teacher, grandparent, neighbor, or anyone else who may happen to come across a teenager in the near or distant future.

I'm almost finished reading it (for the first time...they'll be more readings to follow) and one part in particular has stuck with me. I can't decide how much of it I agree with so I thought I'd run it by you.

Mr. Wolf writes about Letting Go in ways I had never thought of - he lets parents off the hook in a way. He writes:

As parents, we have a sense that our children are in a changing state, like wet and still moldable clay...Yet by the time of adolescence there are places where the clay has already hardened, where our children have become the final product, the adult they will be forever...In some respects they have already arrived at their destination - the permanent adult form.

THAT was a very humbling moment of reading for me. He seems to go on to say that at this point in teenagerhood, when we see that this is the case - they are only who they are - it's time for Mom and/or Dad to deal with it. We've done the job of parenting as we view it to be, but what happens next (or should happen next) is equally if not more important. Dealing with the individual our "baby" has become and how we feel about it is an ultimate test of letting go. And letting go is a parent's job as kids become teenagers. It doesn't mean we drop the rules and stop parenting. But it does mean we stop trying to shape or, even worse, live through our teenage child.

What do you think? Were you pretty much the person you are today when you were a teenager - minus the impulsive, stupid mistakes? Do you think many parents would agree with this?

It's been on my mind so much since I read it that I thought I'd get some input from my wise readers.

:-)