Teenagers - you can't live with them, you can't live with them.
We've had Chris's eldest son with us from Australia for the last month. It's the first time he's been back in seven months and I'd forgotten just what forces of nature teenagers are.
I'd forgotten also how set in my ways and used to my own space I'd become when, within half an hour of Jack arriving from Heathrow, a swarm of youths had descended on our once peaceful home.
I have now returned him safely to Heathrow and am once again mistress of all I survey - bliss. But spending a month in a house littered with teenage detritus (you know - electronic cables, empty glasses, stray friends, strangely bleeping machinery, random items of clothing) made me more tolerant. Far more tolerant than I would be if we were talking years of course, a month's enough!
My own son is now twenty three - a fact that bemuses me as much as it does those who have never met him & remark on my youthful appearance. Well I can tell you, I'd look a lot more youthful if I'd never had a teenager!
One of my favourite authors, Steven Covey's, 7 secrets of success is: "Seek first to understand". It's an eminently sensible aim in any situation. But with parents and teenagers it often feels as though "there are no files" as my dear sister would say. Really, for both sides it frequently feels like we're speaking Chinese.
Which reminds me - too funny - my dear friend Dorothy is mother to 4 sons ranging from late twenties to pre teen. (She is also one of the most glamorous and gorgeous women I've ever known.) Her older boys used to say to her when she started to berate them over something, "Mum there's no point talking to us because all we hear is 'ning, ning, ning, ning'". See what I mean?
When my son was first a teenager, and we were living in our rather cramped flat in Scotland, I can remember one night lying in bed and thinking: "Being the mother of a teenager is like being forced to live with an ex lover". It's that exquisitely agonising pitch of emotions that seems to be sustained beyond all conceivable endurance...all the time!
Of course we all know how fearless they are about going for our weak spots. I admire the way our children can stab us right through the heart by using all of our demons against us with no qualms whatsoever. I think it shows a good survival instinct.
Did you know: It's not a teenager's fault that they're rude. Turns out that every time they lose it and disown you or seem oblivious to your wisdom, they're not just being obtuse. The part of the brain responsible for empathy is still developing.
Yeah, so what's our excuse?!
And don't forget, it's a teenager's job to reject their parents - they're programmed to do it. So next time they tell you to p**s off remember that they're only growing into adulthood!
It turns out that even our teenager's inability to get out of bed isn't a deliberate ploy to raise our blood pressure. No, it appears that a teenager's body clock runs slower than an adult's - so 8am feels like 6am to them. Now it all makes sense. Oh how I wish I'd known all this when I was a young mum.
But I'll tell you what's changed since Jack was last living with us. I did what Steven Covey suggested and I sought first to understand. I admit that it's taken me 23 years and a lot of mistakes to get here, but better late than never.
Or maybe I just took the time to remember: To be a teenager - to not have done enough yet in life to feel guilt; to not have the weight of experience to carry around; to have your entire future ahead of you; to feel immortal.
It seems to me that teenagers, if they're having a good time, are doing just what they're supposed to be doing - living in their own world, involved in their own passions. Surely this is the one time in most of our lives that we can? And all the while that they're driving us parents demented, their brains are growing and developing, preparing them for adulthood. Neat, huh?
Last week a fabulously mesmerising friend of ours had three of us in fits describing her boarding school escapades. These ranged from breaking into Chapel and drinking the Communion wine to exploding out of a cupboard onto an unsuspecting teacher and emptying a fire extinguisher over her. I know it's shocking but I have to confess to being envious of her exploits. Okay so I worked hard and have a degree to show for it, but oh how I wish at 45 that I'd been a little bit more of a teenager.
Well you know what they say, youth is wasted on the young. Which is why I'm practising being a Forty-Something Teenager: I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I am finally able to put myself first. I can indulge my passions once more, happy in the sure knowledge that other people's business is none of mine.
As Kalil Gibran so beautifully put it in his gem of a book The Prophet, in the chapter On Children:
"You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."
x
