Welcome to planet teenager!

The landscape is unfamiliar and the territory sometimes hostile.

Any parent knows that when your darling Mark or Mary turns that scary corner into the blurry depths of adolescence, that you will suddenly yourself undergo a dramatic change. All lines of communication now start to go down hill. You’ve probably noticed your sweet-pea suddenly turn into a mute caveman, ‘whatever!’ being the most used phrase in our household. So in response I find myself becoming that screaming neurotic banshee that my own dear mamma was, when I myself became the alien.

Now like many others I’ve watched my share of Oprah, so I wasn’t going to do it this way. Not me! I was going to sit down with my precious angel and discuss (openly and honestly) all issues.

I became a single mom when I was seventeen and didn’t do a very good job. Luckily for my daughter (when she was a wee bairn) her Nan stepped in and took over. Since then I’ve had only weekend visits and holidays - a bit like an estranged father. Suddenly (on fathers day last year) my daughter decided she would like to return home. Of course I was chuffed! But was I prepared? Yes of course – but for the wrong child! What I hadn’t realised was that as soon as the spots, braces, periods and boyfriends emerged, so had this other being that I had long forgotten I had once been.

It was than I realised that I’d been thrown into the deep-end. Hurled head-first into non-domestic bliss. Of course my own dear mammy gave me all the hammer-subtle warnings ‘well she’s your daughter - just like you… what did you expect?’ and… ‘Now you know how it feels, maybe you understand now!’ As well as all the disapproving clucking that went on when she recalled endless stories of me treating the house like Butlins (at the time I thought it was more like Auschwitz). And of how I would refuse (and still do) to do anything vaguely domestic. But then why should I? My mother was a domestic-goddess herself and even when I tried to do anything it was never up to her perfectionist standards. These days I give in and have my cleaning and ironing done for my family, it’s much easier! And no mammy I never did find a fresh pile of laundered clothes a rewarding sight!

Bathrooms are always a bone of contention. Not for me though! I saw this one coming and although we don’t live in Buckingham palace, we are privileged enough to have two bathrooms - unlike many other families who constantly spend hours hammering on the bathroom door and loudly offering the usual stream of verbal abuse and threats.

When I was the estranged mother, (who use to appear occasionally and dramatically full of smiles and gifts), my daughter thought I was wonderful! Quite literally she must thought the sun shone out of my ever-increasing backside. I was so proud when I heard that at school she had referred to my mum as ‘the one who gives me love and security’ and myself as ‘her best friend who I can tell anything to!’ Now of course the battle lines are drawn and we are on permanent chaos alert.

Of course with a girl there are other worries. I’m not saying there aren’t worries with a boy mind, just different ones. So when my girl started to take more interest in boys then beanie-babies, I suddenly found myself very anxious indeed. Now I have to tell you that I myself was no angel. I use to wear more make-up than Barbara Cartland and a skirt that was illegal in its lack of length. Because of the fact I felt awkward and geeky, I was always more than flattered when any man showed me attention. For the first few years of my womanhood I had shit-magnet tattooed on my forehead and attracted all manner of stray dogs and nutmegs. So you see its very difficult for me to know how to handle it all. Wrap them in cotton wool and they want to wriggle away into the furnace. Restrict them and you’re asking for a young person who constantly lies and lives a whole other life outside of the home.

There are different things to worry about today. When I was in her highnesses shoes, we went to youth clubs and parents knew where kids were. There was no chance of hanging around smashing up bus shelters and phone boxes like some of today’s bored youths. The worst we’d get up to was cider swigging and a little elicit cigarette puffing. Today we’re told that kids have nothing to do – hence the accepted vandalism and recreational drug taking but we never had mobiles or computers!

Talking of which we never had the Internet either. And thank-god for that as at least my mother didn’t have to discover elicit sex-chat going on between my 14 yr old and a grown man who pretended to be 16. (Poor mammy would have died from the shock). I found out by accident and thank god I did, because her royal highness was about to meet the dastardly critter and she’d spun a web of deceit to me in order to do so. Not because she knew how dangerous it was ‘Oh o mam it’s only a bit ‘o fun!’ No, she lied because she is a teenager and I am her mum and that’s how it always goes.

Kids today want to be all grown up before their time and really have no idea about responsibility, even cleaning up after themselves, seems to evoke a cry against human rights.

So in all it’s glory that Youthdom has to offer, there are many pitfalls the parent of a teenager needs to be aware of and now I come to the end - you’re waiting for all the solutions. The truth is – I don’t have any! Answers on a postcard please!

© Charlie Daniels 8/9/03

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