Dysfunctional? Look at your car...

'I don't ever want to go out with you again... so don't ask me.' - serious teenage rant after day trip to Barcelona'.

When do you stop forcing your teenage children to go on family excursions with you?

They would say 'now.'

We want them to come, but more than that, we want them to enjoy being together. Part of me knows that the reality of a family trip will not live up to my aspirations of being like the Waltons but without the gingham.
I blame the car.
Things really are stacked against us from the off regarding a happy day out. Having a moody teenage son who is built like Hagrid doesn't help, combine that fact with our car, which is probably the smallest family car you can get without going to a car dealer in Oompa Loompa land and which is only a 3-door hatchback. The main reason for buying a tiny car with no access for the passengers at the back was to discourage them from opening the doors at high speed and throwing themselves out, shouting 'Nooooooo! We're not with them...'.

Normally the kids have to endure their parents' singing as we drive along. We make sure it's loud and raucous so they can't drown us out with their MP3s.
After half an hour of precision packing to get them in the back of the car, (A tricky procedure as we have to strategically position our car-sickness prone teenage daughter and our anxiety ridden 9 yr-old, who really does not want to be vomited on, which results in our clinically depressed Hagrid having to sit in the middle with his feet propped up and his knees up by his ears, bemoaning the fact that he doesn't suffer from an ailment which would ensure his place in a 'window seat'.) and 2 minutes of being 'on the road', they are forced to endure our latest rendition of a Lady Gaga song but with made-up words - normally about happy families or sulky teenagers. It's at this point, 'Hagrid' is made aware of the advantage of having your knees either side of your ears - muffling quality.

What a happy sight we make on the highways of Spain - in the front - parents oblivious, singing and swaying, happy and carefree. Pan to the back, where the squashed, deformed faces and desperate, open hands of bemused children are pressed against the windows with only enough room for them to write in the condensation from their breath on the glass - 'PLEASE ADOPT ME'...

Pebbles and Ripples

"Can we all just calm down here a minute please....?"

These were the fateful words uttered, with full patronising accompaniment of palms outstretched, patting the air in front of her as if guiding in a Hawker Harrier on an aircraft carrier, by my 15 year old daughter, in response to me raising my voice, at the third time of asking her to look for her mobile phone charger as she had no alarm and the cockerel we'd hired to wake her at the crack of dawn, was slowly losing the ability to crow as it was being intoxicated by her brother's trainer whiff.

I almost choked on my Prozac.

These words did something to me. I found it hilarious, infuriating, saddening, shaming and condescending - all at the same time, in a micro-second. I looked at her, unable to speak. The old chestnut; 'I would never have spoken to my mom in that way...' rang through my head. Although that kind of confidence to express herself is great, I'm beginning to feel like living with teenagers who are not afraid to speak their mind is not good for a parent's self-esteem. Their free expression can come at the expense of feeling good as a parent especially when the children are acting like 'critical parents' and are questioning how you are and what you do. In fact, sometimes it's like being a kid again.

My son is prone to hurling insults freely and the usual howls of 'you don't understand me...', 'You're bad parents...', 'Leave me alone...' and 'I'm ringing Social Services if you don't give me my Playstation' have slowly, mainly due to their repetition and therefore induced compassion fatigue, lost their impact on me. I suppose in the same way as my 'nagging' him to 'cut his nails' has less impact than donning an Edward Scissorhands outfit and, while he rem sleeps at 3 a.m in the morning, sticking a pointed finger up his nostril and bellowing menacingly 'CUT YOUR NAILS'....

However, when I am on the receiving end of my adolescent daughter's wrath and/or condescencion (the latter being worse), it's like a blow below the belt.
'Calm down'??
'Calm down'????
This from the girl who could wind up The Dalai Lama - in fact I'd pay good money to see them in a 'head to head', with my darling daughter jumping up and down, flapping her arms and screaming hysterically while his holiness calmly reassures her that when her brother 'does the finger' at her, it is merely a reflection of his 'inner turmoil' and not a 'let's wind up my sister 'cos it's fun watching her whirl like a Dervish' move. It's like throwing a pebble in a pond - his 'finger', in this case, is the pebble, her reactions are the ripples. As his holiness asks her sagely if she really wants to be a 'ripple', I can see her now - scrunching up her face, shrugging her shoulders, raising her hands questioningly and glaring at me; 'Ripple?? What is he on about??' Buddhist metaphor is lost on the disaffected...
The trouble is teenagers don't know what it's like to live with them... It's probably similar to living with parents when you're a teenager. Pebbles and ripples. Pebbles and ripples.

"Calm down"?
I'd love to.

Is My Son Turning into Lou Reed??

Sibling rivalry. It can manifest itself in many ways, but typically results in non-understandable mumblings where words have no beginning or end and the pitch is so low, that random dogs respond to him as he, without end, laments his life and curses his sisters. Head down, shoulders hunched, walking 10 metres ahead of me as a physical protest to my callousness in letting his twin sister go on a trip with her guitar class.
Anyone would think the poor boy was deprived - I, on the other hand am obviously living the life of Riley behind his back: Mojitos by the pool, endless hours of Playstation and limitless donuts, laughing raucously with lots of beautiful people, while he, miserable and self-pitying, sits in a darkened room, covered in straw wearing a hair shirt and self-flagellating with the recharger lead from his MP3....
His granma keeps telling him she had her first job when she was a year older than him, but to no avail - he thinks there'll be an opening for him at 'Ben and Jerry's' as a taste tester, so is gearing his academic skill towards achieving this goal... which involves eating marshmallow, nougat and cappuccino at the same time and seriously assessing it's enjoyability...
I wish I could motivate him more, I've already promised him a Ferrarri if he just PASSES school (I'm hoping he'll be so flushed with self-importance that he'll forget I said that...).
Oh well, he tidied his bedroom this morning - that'll keep 'Greenpeace' off our backs for a bit longer... as it does normally have a moderate to high 'disaster rating', two men in dark suits came round and mentioned hiding 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', but my son and heir managed to confound them with his teenage slurring, mumbling and grunting and they left saying something about 'care in the community'.... Must check under his bed.....

Kids - you gotta love 'em

‘No’ is a word I never used much in my youth;
- ‘Fancy another gin Sarah?’ – ‘Don’t mind if I do…’,
- ‘Wanna lock the woodwork teacher in the cupboard? – ‘Sounds like a plan…’ .
So, why oh why, nowadays do I seem to spend my whole life saying it???? Especially to my son and heir who seems to spend most of his life, when not on his Playstation, demonically devising questions to which the answers have to be ‘no’ so he can then strop about being a deprived child in a suffocating and dictatorial environment…
‘Mom, can I use dad’s old watch as a timer for a bomb???’ or ‘Mom….. can I just test that if the hamster eats bicarbonate of soda, he will explode???’ or ‘Mom, can I take the toaster apart to see how it works????’
Sigh… I never wanted to be the kind of parent who says ‘no’ when your offspring have just finished pronouncing the word ‘mo-o-om??’ But what can I do? Children just seem to have this knack of setting parents up to fail – he begins to ask me a question (I know by the intonation of ‘mo-o-om…’ that it’s going to be a question I have to say ‘no’ to) and I have to deny him. Then as he mumbles his hatred for belonging to our family and kicks the fridge at the unjustness of life, I begin to feel rubbish as a mom and even begin to question whether there is some educational value in ’constructing phallic objects out of Lego and uploading them to ‘Facebook’’….