On Parenting Teens

It's nearly midday, and you have to wake your teenager up. You are irritated, because there are promises they've made and broken and you are going to have to start their day off by telling them. Also, you are a teeny bit jealous. You want to sleep the day away, too. Well, a very small part of you does. Your parents never would have stood for this.

You open their bedroom door and stumble over piles of clothes, books, toiletries, cups and towels. You resist the urge to yank open the curtains and open the window to release the hormonal fug, because that's what your parent would have done. You step carefully over the detritus, not knowing what's precious and what's not. You reach the tangled bed.

And there – there with crazy limbs in twisted sheets, mussed up hair and soft, sleep-puffed lips – there is your baby.

That face curled and pressed into you right after birth, nudging you for love and sustenance.

That mouth smiled at you for the first time one crazy morning long ago, and your heart beat faster.

That nose bled out of the blue one day and the scarlet trickle shocked you for a second.

Those lips told their first joke one quiet afternoon, and it was so terrible you laughed.

That chin was grazed more times than you can count, falling off walls and trees and things with wheels.

Those eyelids closed on a secret shared, a bedtime story, a favourite song, a game of hide and seek.

You've kissed those cheeks a hundred times. A thousand. A million.

That's your baby lying there, in essence. Your own lips smile and sigh, but you wake the sleeper anyway, to begin the push and pull of parenting a teenager that you think might be the death of you before you're through.

I sometimes think that teenagers are exactly like toddlers, only bigger, and a helluva lot more knowledgeable. More knowledgeable than me, that's for sure.

They have the same exuberance as toddlers. They experience emotions in extremes, rocket-like excitement and searingly painful frustration. Their emotions overwhelm them and spill out at inappropriate times, frightening teachers and conservative party voters. Those supermarket tantrums have become street brawls and classroom riots.

Their bodies are learning new things, like toddlers' are. They learn how to dance and fight and have sex, a step up on how to walk, run, jump and push. They learn how to push, too though – just push in a slightly different way.

They have a desperate need to push you away. It's the equivalent of the toddler's 'No!' - the 'I can do this by myself, and even if I can't, I'm going to try and try until I can.' You remember? It's the drive that children have to learn to walk, get dressed, feed themselves, only grown up. It's an 'I can do this life thing on my own' urge, 'and even if I can't, I'm going to try and try until I can.' They push you away because they have to, not because they want to.

It's not a rejection. It's growing up.

And because it is nature that creates the push, it's nature that creates the pull, as well. We apparently live in a universe governed by rules, one of which is that where there is a push, there must be a pull.

You feel the pull on your heartstrings, don't you? Every time your teenager pushes you away to take a risk, learn something new, experience a new emotional extreme, your heart is pulled back towards them, snapping on the elastic of the familial dynamic.

That shit hurts.

You can physically restrain your toddler from running out into oncoming traffic, but the best you can do for your teenager is teach them about the perils of alcohol poisoning and buy them a pack of condoms.

It doesn't matter how much pain you are in as you watch them risk their hearts and souls in the maelstrom of society, you don't have a choice – you have to sit back and let them do it. Even if it nearly kills you. Or them.

Just because they push you away, though, doesn't mean they don't need you. All the time.

All the time.

They need to know you love them. That they are loveable. That when inexplicable words are pouring out of their mouths in torrents, you love them. That when their bodies crave things they don't understand and can barely control, you love them. That when they run out into the street in the face of oncoming traffic knowing it is an extraordinarily stupid thing to be doing, you love them.

They need to know that when you are at your wits end and you want them to go and live with a different parent for a while, it is because you feel as though you are failing them, not the other way around.

They need to know that when you say no (and sometimes you must say no), it's because you want them alive and safe and well, not because you want them to experience social death by embarrassment.

When you are hesitant about how they look, it's because you are wondering how other people will perceive the beautiful child in front of you, not because you judge them and find them wanting.

When they mess up an opportunity that you were desperate for them to take, your disappointment is for them, not in them.

When you punish them for not fulfilling a promise or an obligation, it's because you want them to learn from their mistakes, not because you don't believe in them.

You always believe in them.

All the time.

How could you not? That's your baby over there, learning to walk and talk and have a good time. Finding out what hurts, what burns and what feels really, really good. Discovering consequences and the cost of living dangerously.

While they are doing it, because they are doing it and as a result of them doing it, they must know that they are loveable – and loved.

All. The. Time.