Stages of Development Part Three - The Senior Years

Gangly Lions (age 13 - 18)

These latter tutorials are akin to shining a torch up the Teenage Tunnel. They should show you the rough direction, outline the walls and can be used to illuminate specific issues, but you’ll still need to be careful how you tread because some of the things you come across will leave a nasty smell and some of it could even mark you for life. Of all the zones of Dadhood, this is the most difficult - for you and them. All things in life are in balance: where you have experienced the zenith as the Daddy Deity, so too are you now to experience the nadir of Perceived Paternal Plankton. In the short duration of a 13th birthday party you and Mum will have become THE most embarrassing people in the world. Your dress sense is pitiful, your music is lamentable, your style is medieval, you are a reactionary fascist and your rules are authoritarian.

In short, you know nothing and understand even less, which is mathematically impossible but entirely credible to the adolescent brain, and the fact that you sleep with their mother is both personally offensive and absolutely disgusting. Any thought or mention of sex is utterly horrifying and you can clear a room of teenagers faster than a flatulent labrador by having a good snog with your wife in front of them – really gross them out by saying “shall we use tongues as well darling?” You are acceptable only in your roles as sometime Computer technician, Taxi-driver or Paymaster General. It is amazing to them that geriatric euthanasia for the over 30 year olds wasn’t put on the statute books in the mid-1960s and, if you try dancing or any form of PDA (public display of affection) then they will probably run a campaign to institute it forthwith. Grit your teeth, if you have any left, and see a good dentist regularly because there will be much gnashing and wailing over the next few years.

REBELLION

For those of you who already feel depressed, angry, frustrated, ill at ease in the company of others, uncertain about your own sexuality and utterly bewildered by the enigma of the other sex, imagine how your children feel now that they have become Gangly Lions ? They have transmogrified into omniscient Masters of the Mobile. Their lives now centre around a small lump of stylish, trilling plastic that rules their universe. It is their lifeline to a social life, acceptability and potential fame - albeit within the limited galaxy of their peer group, the credit on their Pay as You Go card and their ability to get through to the Radio One phone-in desk. Their bodies have out-grown their brain’s ability to control them, they feel awkward and unwieldy and their sleep patterns have changed totally so that they will never go to bed in the evening and never get up in the morning; this latter sign of adolescence will be interpreted by you in particular as rebellious laziness, but is actually a result of a hormonal change in cortisol, and life will get much easier for you both when you, as the Dad, understand it, accept it and ignore it. (Look up Stress and the interesting relationship between cortisol and serotonin. It might help explain why they and you feel like you do during this period). Equally, the descent of their language skills from articulate, fluent, little Tweenies, who never stopped chattering or asking questions, into monosyllabic, grunting apes whose only venture into conversation is to tell you that you don’t understand them personally as people and the evils of the world are all your fault, will be an absolute mystery that you will find utterly galling. Whilst abhorrent to you, their choice in music, clothes, hair and new-found beliefs are an unconscious initiative to define their own sense of individuality – anything that is different from YOU, and, if it is likely to infuriate YOU, then all the better.

So what do you do about them? In short, nothing different to what you have done to date. Keep your temper, stick to your principles and protect your wife and the other domestic Little People. Just reinforce the doorframes and password the telephone. For all their newfound bumptiousness they are still your children, wearing your genes as well as your patience and, if you are honest, they are only re-running a classic film of your youth, although it feels more like the Addams Family than Little House on the Prairie. What they are doing is not new or different: Aristotle wrote about teenagers as: “changeable and fickle in their desires, which are violent while they last, but quickly over: their impulses are keen but not deep-rooted… They cannot bear being slighted and are indignant if they imagine themselves to be unfairly treated.” They do not understand the surge of hormones that is coursing through them anymore than you do. But hey, how would you feel if you suddenly woke up and found that you’d gained another solid 6 inches on your favourite playmate or a pair of pert rounded boobs and curvy hips – you’d be pretty pleased with yourself as well, wouldn’t you? They feel as though they are running on high octane aviation fuel, strapped into the cockpit, hand on joystick, revved and ready to go; you and Mum are the chocks and control tower stopping them from taking off until your sure that the aircraft is serviceable and the wind direction is right. But they are going to take off one day – even if you have to give them a catapult launch, so give them all the flying lessons over the next 5 years because they are going to need them one day.

Treat them like potential Aces and, hopefully, they’ll turn into aerobats who can elegantly master their flight whilst not losing control of their undercarriage. Your job is to be there at the aerodrome, with a cup of tea or the fire tender when they land.