The other day, A discovered that he has grown so much in the last year that he actually has horizontal stretch marks across the bottom of his back. Alternately intrigued and horrified, the source of about 88% of my own stretch marks and I sat down to have a conversation about stretch marks. This was not one of those conversations I ever imagined having with my teenage son, let me tell you, but it led to some pretty interesting places.

Of course, he didn’t see the similarities at all. “You chose to have kids, knowing that you would get them! I didn’t choose to grow taller!” Ahhhh, the perfect time to discuss how we can’t always control the things around us, but we can control how we react to them! OK, maybe it wasn’t. He clearly wasn’t in the mood for life lessons from mom. So, instead he got a trip down memory lane as I recalled how about halfway through my pregnancy, all the little tips and tricks that the internet swears by to keep stretch marks from forming didn’t matter anymore as we only focused on what it would take to save his life after he was born.

When I got the “oh not this trope again eyeroll” I knew we were back on better ground. Recently, I’ve noticed him mimicking some of the same behaviors that I used to do in high school: rounding my shoulders, slouching, leaning against things. All of these were efforts to disguise the fact that I was taller than most of the other girls, and even some of the boys. Although I wasn’t gargantuan, when you’re 15, anything other than average feels as obvious as two noses on one face.

I frequently find myself reminding him to stand up straight or to pull his shoulders back, all while remembering how awkward it can be to be “the tall kid.” But in the pantheon of insults that teenagers can hurl at each other, “tall” seems to be one of the least offensive. Since I knew from previous interactions that “everything is different now, and you couldn’t possibly understand, Mom,” I decided to leave my own anecdotal evidence at the door, and instead turned to Dr. Google for great things about being tall.

Luckily, my first hit came from nothing less than the New England Journal of Medicine, which showed that taller people are less likely to have or die from cardiovascular disease than shorter people. Of course, it didn’t factor in congenital heart disease, but anything that is a plus in the heart column is a win I will take.

This kind of information is not as greatly appreciated by the teenage mind as it should be, so I moved on to studies that show that tall people are more likely to be successful and more likely to make more money and see more promotions. I even found one that said tall people tend to be happier people. And, when both of us laughed at that one, I said, “See, look at that! Two happy tall people!”

One of A’s biggest pet peeves is people assuming that he loves basketball. “Why is basketball automatically what everyone thinks tall people should play?” I feel that pain acutely. Somehow, swimming is never a sport that anyone assumes that you do, at least not around here. A’s lankiness and broad hands make him ideally suited for quickness in the water, not to mention that it’s been great for his heart condition. I keep forgetting, though, that there are no right answers coming from parents when you’re a teenager.

G, who does play basketball, quickly chimed in that A would be a great basketball player if he wanted to be, as he could just hold the ball over his head, and hardly anyone else could reach it. G used this strategy quite a bit when he was younger, much to the dismay of the rest of his team, who wanted the ball in motion and heading toward the net.

A was also quick to point out that if you Google “reasons to be happy you’re short” you can also come up with a whole other list of reasons why it’s better not to be tall. I tried to combine the powers of Mr. Miyagi and Yoda and bring everything full circle.

“Maybe it’s just about being happy that you’re you,” I dared to suggest.

“And maybe you shouldn’t try to channel short characters that are full of actual wisdom, Mom.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re tall or short, or any other descriptive adjective, being a teenager’s parent is no walk in the park. I think that what frustrates me the most is that I’ve clearly survived the teenage years, and yet, A and G, and I’m going to assume eventually E, want no part of listening to the sage advice that I have to pass on to them. The second most frustrating part is seeing them get hung up on things that I know won’t matter one hill of beans for the rest of their lives, no matter how much it seems to them that it might.

As aggravated as I feel most of the time, occasionally though, there is a moment of gratification when they actually figure something out for themselves, and they make the right choice. Right now, I’m just glad that my emotions can’t show their stretch marks because they’re pretty serious, and they go in every direction.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.