“Bruh.” If you’ve got a teenage boy, you’ve probably been called this on more than one occasion.

It might even be your new appellation, as “mom” or “dad” are no longer “cool.”

It comes with a variety of inflections that can denote everything from disbelief to frustration to affection. While it’s mildly annoying, I try to put it in the context that G still thinks I’m cool enough to speak to me like I’m one of his pals.

“G, take out the garbage.” “Bruh.” Translation: Do I have to do that right now, and why didn’t you ask my siblings to do it instead of me? “G, put your glass in the dishwasher.” “Bruh.” Translation: I’m going to use it again later so it’s perfectly fine to leave it on the counter. I buy emergency chickens to keep the accidental chicken he hatched company. “Bruh.” Translation: Thanks for doing that and for managing to find a special breed of chick that I always wanted but hadn’t been able to get yet.

Given the recent downsizing of his vocabulary, I was mildly nervous about his upcoming Eagle Scout Board of Review. Having gone through it once already with A, I tried to throw some sample questions in his direction and have him prepare a few answers for some of the more standard questions.

Obviously, his response was … you guessed it … “bruh.”

I wasn’t terribly worried. His father and I have managed to imbue him with basic communication skills, even if they’re not used regularly, but given the time and effort that people made on his behalf, I was hoping that he would execute to a slightly higher standard. I was not prepared, however, to witness the thoughtful, articulate and at times, mildly humorous responses that he gave to his inquisitors.

On the ride home, I asked him if he could possibly keep up his streak of full sentences. You know what the response was, complete with an eye roll.

At the same time all of this was going down, I had reason to dust off the old resume. After I updated it with the relevant information, I sent it over to A for a proofread. Also, in the 10 or 15 years since I’ve needed one, they’ve apparently changed the acceptable formats, and I wanted to get the young person approval that I’d made it relevant.

In addition to fixing a few typos and cluing me in on a few buzzwords, A was mildly impressed that “I’d done some stuff.” I’m not entirely sure what he thought “being employed” meant, or what I was doing in the hours that I was “at work,” but it was interesting to see it dawn on him that I was a real person with skills other than making dinner and magically making clean clothes appear in his closet.

Thanks to social media, and accounts for every team, club and organization that my kids are in, I also get to see them tagged in group posts, as well as read the comments made by their friends and coaches. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that social media and teenagers go together like peanut butter and mud. My kids are only allowed to have accounts if I am “friends” with them and always have access to their accounts. This arrangement has been working so far, but that, of course, could change at any moment.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve gotten to see my kids in their “natural” environment. I see them laughing with friends, supporting each other with positive comments and “likes.” I also see them use words like “happy” when they’re writing posts, which, as the unwritten rule of being a teenager goes, is not something they allow parents to think they are.

As a parent, your goal is to get them to function without you. I’m not so sure that every kid has the realization that A did, that their parents also function without them, but having these two things happen simultaneously gave me a lot of food for thought.

I’m trying to remember if I ever had a lightning bolt moment like that about my own parents, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t. We get caught up in our roles as parents and kids and sometimes forget that we are all of these other things.

If you’ve used up all your other words shouting encouragement on the field to your teammates during the big game, maybe it’s perfectly OK to only have a “bruh” left by the time you get home.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News