Teen...

Hello. A version of this post also appears on the blogzine Selfish Mother.

This teenage parenting business, it really sorts the wheat from the chaff. Weary after a particularly challenging weekend, I sent an 'SOS' emoji-laden text to a good friend and she, in response, met me for lunch to deliver a pep talk. Thank goodness. I thought parenting toddlers was as hard as it was going to get (it's circa 2003, 8.54am, zero sleep, crushed rice cakes on the floor and the thirteenth play of the 'Nemo' DVD, a whole (rainy) day stretching ahead). But now: I laugh in the face of that! I am not saying it's not challenging; it absolutely is, but just that the teenage stage, presently, is winning hands down.

It's mentally exhausting. Trying to work it all out. Teenagers behave with such abandon - I read an article that suggested it's how their brains are wired. The mood swings. The love/hate. The outfit choices. The sheer, unadulterated unreasonableness. Self with a capital 'S'. To be honest I can laugh about it much of the time, but occasionally (this weekend) I wanted to cry. The kind of parent I thought I was, the kind I want to be, gets obliterates. And we get a crazy lady in return. One who says strange (sometimes shameful) stuff. 'She drove me to it!'. And after all my teenager daughter is, on the whole, a good girl; I can hardly complain.

I do wonder whether it is exacerbated by the timing of my life? I maintained it was a good thing to be a young mum; she's 13, I am 40. Many of my peers are still in the toddler/rice cake stage. I look back on that like a distant, somewhat scary memory. But my own teenage years don't seem all that long ago and I feel like I hurtled into adulthood like a missile; met my husband at 18, married at 25, baby by 27, career, dream house in our thirties. Here I am splat bang at 40 and the missile course has come to an abrupt stop!

Meanwhile I try to console myself with the knowledge that maybe boy teenagers aren't quite so hard?!

I keep reverting to what seems basic and sensible. Consistency, especially between my husband and I, in setting boundaries. Thinking ahead to what really matters and what doesn't. Picking my battles - wait, isn't that advice for the parent of the toddler? Flash back: 'No, you can't go outside without a coat, wearing only a synthetic Disney princess outfit'. Knowing deep down that if I just keep my cool it will all be fine. The quick-fire 'can do this/go here/have that person over/get collected at 11pm' questions that litter every conversation. The realisation that if I say no, sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's Armageddon. The somewhat frightening transformation that make-up can create. Boys. Boys who come round and smell of teen aftershave. Well - not even aftershave, more like liberal use of body spray. There's no shaving - yet.

Being balanced and measured about all matters. Bolstering self confidence. Providing safety. Providing money (endlessly - I should have shares in Costa Coffee and their ham and cheese panini sales). Being the grown up.

It's something else, I can tell you.

And always - the spectre of danger, catastrophe, a wrong turn, a poorly judged acquaintance, a lie, the time she goes to a party and finds there is no adult in charge, just marauding teenagers, fuelled by alcohol, a million little things that could go wrong. And then conversely the million things that can go right; the aced test, the charm, the mature opinion that you know you've shaped, the smiles and the beauty and the sheer hopefulness of a whole life ahead. It's enough to make me burst with pride. Look what we did.

Take a deep breath... :-)