My parenting obsession continues...I think back to the years my children were simple souls, whose toddler group or playground antics could be easily soothed. Now parenting seems like a self-conscious, ramped up version of its former self. I notice, at post-yoga coffee (decaf; naturally), that the most comfortable conversation is with other mothers with children the same age.
It was always thus. Women relate to women who relate.
We collectively lament our teenagers. We find them exasperating but we retell their antics with a curious pride. Each milestone and rite of passage is important and shared. But when my child has stepped off the heavily trodden path, I wonder whether to share details with friends I have known and trusted for years. As if it's my failing. And in a way it is. It's not that my children are on a bad path at all, they are just not always on the commonly accepted, normal path. Let's say they sometimes take the side road. 'And I, I took the one less travelled by'. Normally this individuality would incite awe in me but I have to say, at the moment, I am weary of being the parent with the child who forges ahead, who is a pioneer. But that's the thing with parenting - you don't get to choose!
There is a lot in the press about miserable teenagers. The spectre of depression and anxiety looms large. Unlike my own teenage years, when everyone seemed to muddle along OK (or am I looking back with rose-coloured spectacles?) it seems now that they are against each other. Competitiveness has run amok. Kindness gone. Misery reigns. Or so we are told. I read article after article about social media and its negative effect. But can I just say, no one ever says what to DO about it!!
People point out the obvious; that teenagers are confused, pressured and anxious because their every waking move is documented on line. They stalk their friends and their enemies, every photo invites judgement (like! unlike! follow! unfollow!), they solicit each other to share intimacies then spread them around. Trust no one. They look at imagery that belongs in a horror film. They look at porn that should be reserved for very hard-core, utterly consenting adults. They think things are normal and acceptable when they are not. They lack social confidence. They fret about their appearance to a level of detail I never knew possible. Their screen time is mind-blowing. Every parent I know says their home life is adversely affected by technology, but very, very few understand, let alone police it. Many say they confiscate phones overnight but then I witness their kid's messages pinging through at 2am. The teens, stupefied with tiredness, turn up for school each morning.
If we are to believe the press, it is a mind-bending, up-in-the-night, frightening maelstrom that we may not all survive! And it can feel that way.
It's like my generation has made an enormous mess in the corner of the room and now we are all pointing at it as if we had nothing to do with its creation. We did this. We created the technology and now it's causing problems. I long for someone somewhere to come up with a solution or some regulation or some guidance. I search my own instincts for ways to handle the daily events that arise in the life of a modern teen. Living with it is hard. It does feel (to me at least) like there is a very dangerous rip tide just under the surface. That some unseen current is at play and we might get caught in it.
And what is it really like living with a teenage daughter? Well, it's lovely. It's tumultuous and challenging. And funny and enlightening. She makes me laugh and smile more than she will make me cry. I just have to keep my nerve and go with the flow.
