Stupid shit we did as teens which might suggest powerful drugs and surgery are not the choices to be made at that time

I get that Errol ... This thread just makes me uncomfortable because I think that it stereotypes young people.

We have Gillick competence and that's all we need.

I think, YAS, it's not just that some teenagers do foolish, immature things. It's more that some of our absolutely firm convictions (be it Wicca or Christianity or some political persuasion) at that age don't carry forwards and many aren't a good basis for life-changing decisions.
And of course it doesn't apply to all teens. My DD was the most level headed youngster imaginable. The sort who'd look before she leaped, neither rash nor too timorous. Hopefully that's the majority.

Getting into 5 seater cars with 8 other people all sitting on each others knees and in the boot etc then driving round country roads. We were lucky, a generation earlier people were drunk while doing this.

As a teen, I made careful and rational choices about my own future that involved rebelling against parental wishes to see my future solely as a mother and homemaker.

There are lots of MNetters who are into Wicca and who fuck up hair colouring.

Isn't this what Gillick competency is all about?

I'm not really up for stereotyping young people or seeing involvement in Wicca as being similar to having a double mastectomy that isn't needed for pressing reasons of physical health.

don't get me started on the fact the the brain isn't fully developed until mid 20s

And that's with normal puberty, of course.

(A tangential thought re brain development - I wonder if there's any work being done on the impact of electronic devices and gaming, SM, FOMO etc - are they resulting in more youngsters not getting enough good quality sleep nowadays and if so how does this affect brain maturation?)

Now I have small children, thinking back to the things I did as a teen makes my blood run cold.

Life-threatening, reckless, idiot things. I wish, frankly, that I'd been stopped from making some of the damn fucking stupid choices I'd made.

Thankfully most of them didn't have life-long consequences, and I managed to pull things back and eventually get on the meandering and narrow.

The list is endless (and worrying!)

Playing on train tracks in early adolescence (it was a diesel line so no electricity but still had the odd train passing) cannot believe how stupid that was.
Walking home from nightclubs alone and drunk.
Going to "after parties" after nights out with friends, to total strangers places.
Gave my address to a stranger on a chat room when I was in my early teens, so he could send me a key ring.

I shudder when I think about the stupid shit I did when I was younger!

I was all set to leave school at 15 and move overseas. Parents persuaded me otherwise. I'm now an academic 😂 I did not make thought out decisions at that age and don't get me started on the fact the the brain isn't fully developed until mid 20s!

This is such a great thread. What a brilliant lot you are. My stupid shit is so pathetic in comparison.... for me.

In the end the boss found out and I got sacked.

So as a teenager you got the blame for being taken advantage of by an older man?

As a teenager I was totally nuts - I’m amazed I survived - silly drinking, silly behaviour with boys etc. Many of my friends were equally challenged on the sensible front.

I think I wasn’t in a very happy place and that helped me make some bad decisions - luckily I’ve grown up (a bit) now. If you saw me now you’d never know (apart from one small underage tattoo)

I daren’t even start on that, Buffster. It’s always seemed blindingly obvious to me as a reason not to let teenagers have elective mastectomies, take drugs with irreversible side effects etc. Like not sending children to play on the motorway. Yet ‘responsible’ adults have been allowing it.

I drank way too much as a teenager, which led to me being hit by a car. I wasn't badly injured and it didn't stop me.

I lived with my drug dealer boyfriend and did an assortment of illegal drugs. Half the time I didn't know what they were.

I'm amazed I survived unharmed, frankly

I was a “late developer” and seriously thought that I was not going to get periods and breasts like everyone else - I dreaded it and was really quite depressed and messed-up in my head when puberty finally caught up with me. I haven’t a shadow of a doubt that I would have leapt at it like a shot if I’d been told I could avoid all that by taking medication and staying an eternal tom-boy.

I was a car-mad, petrol-head, started driving on farm roads when I was 11 and on the roads when I was 14. I’d hitch hike and then when I was picked up ask if I could drive for a while, cracking on I was 17 and had passed my driving test.

I hitch-hiked everywhere and had some close shaves where I was sure I was going to get raped or murdered when the driver took weird detours or stopped in a lay-by for no reason.

I went through a manic phase when I was about 16 and used to sneak out of the house and walk all night down country lanes in the pitch dark. Got caught in a blizzard one night when there was already deep snow on the ground and thought I wasn’t going to make it back alive.

Things got even wilder when I went to university. Only really settled down into a semblance of sanity in my late 20’s.

Having a friend group all decide they were lesbians... now almost all married to men.

Another friend group egging each other on re: self-harm and eating-disorder behaviour.

(Both in all-girls schools, different ones. But social contagion is definitely made-up by mean old hags...)

*arse

I was 16 and had an affair with a 32yo married man with kids. Yes I was taken advantage of but also I was 100% convinced that he and I were meant to be and his wife was a bitch troll who was awful to him and drove him into the arms of another woman. Like, it's worrying just how much I believed it and how little empathy I had for his wife and family. I was consumed by this man, who looking back was average looking, slightly devoid of personality but good at flattery which my 16yo self craved.

We didn't sleep together, we worked together (I was a waitress he was the Head Chef) but we did have a lot of stolen kisses and fumbles in the stock room. I'd have run away with him at the time if he'd asked me.

I'm mortified that I behaved that way. It's not anything like me now and I am just so, so happy that my actions didn't hold me accountable for the rest of my life.

In the end the boss found out and I got sacked. Never saw him again except in the street. His wife never found out...I ended up briefly working with her and she's one of the nicest people I've ever known. About a year after our affair ended she left him as he did the same thing with someone else. She remarried an amazing man and he went to prison for drug dealing.

Karma bit me well and truly in the area as my exH had an affair with a teenager.

Was absolutely adamant that I never wanted children until I was 24 ish, then I wasn't so sure, and by 26 knew I very much did. First child in my early 30s, and being a mother has been the best thing in my life. But if I'd been offered the option of a sterilisation before age 24 I'd have argued for it and been very sure it was absolutely the right choice. So very, very grateful I was protected from my younger self.

When my boobs appeared I became so unhappy and as I grew I became more popular with the boys. Which further separated me from the other girls.

16-18years I used to meet up with people from MSN grapevine chat room. People who I had never met before and sometimes not even spoken to them on the phone. Often I'd go alone.
I'm extremely surprised that I didn't end up raped or murdered tbh.

God yes. I did such stupid shit as a teen, no idea how I survived. Certainly wouldn't have been mature enough to make life changing decisions like taking pb or having top surgery!

Nearly got married at 18. It was twu wuv you know. Thankfully the scales fell from my eyes before the big day and I realised what a plonker he was.

Walking home alone from clubs in mini skirts and heels and very tipsy.

Going off with various lads having just met them and merrily going to their place by taxi without a clue about where I was, having to wake and ask said lad the next morning for the address so I could order a cab home, or even worse being unable to rouse him and having to ask his flat mates! Or worse still his parents! Didn't even shag most of them! I was this contradictory mix of free spirited and prudish!

Going to job interviews in all manner of dubious places with no more knowledge about said job than a 15 word ad in a paper! Some 2 or 3 counties away

Advertising babysitting services in local newsagents on a postcard, going to said babysitting jobs having never met any of the people concerned - from the age of 14! Wtf my parents were thinking LETTING me do this I don't know!

Allowing my parents disapproval of my first fiancé and his parents too, to split us up. Lots of class issues, snobbery, insecurities (theirs!) disguised as concern for our being "too young" to know better, they were right but not in the way I thought. I was too young and insecure to stand up to them and have regretted this for the rest of my life.

Met ex at 19 married at 22 - to quote Julia roberts BIG mistake HUGE! Total rebound from the fiancé (they were total opposites) my parents very much approved of husband and liked him. I think they were as blindsided as I was by his cheating.

Pregnant at 18 by recently ex fiancé, mc but fuck knows what I'd have done if that hadn't happened! I was living in a bedsit earning fuck all and with no support network to speak of and in all likelihood would have been sacked as soon as employers knew (demanding physical job but shit pay) and made homeless once landlord knew! Didn't tell anyone until I saw dr once mc was underway who was perfunctory and not at all soothing. Told me yes pregnant yes miscarrying but it appeared to be happening naturally, prescribed painkillers and told me to go home and "let nature take its course" and when the bleeding had stopped to go back in for a check up with the nurse to ensure "it was all gone" didn't tell parents even until I was ttc with now ex husband and I was stressing out. Not unfounded as I mc again. At which point it became very clear I'd suppressed all my emotion regarding the previous mc such that I was effectively dealing with the emotional fallout of having lost 3 babies and being told I had a Gynae condition which meant I may not ever be a mother and that I needed several surgeries and treatments for there to be a slim possibility. I was a wreck!

I didn't do much more than a bit of shoplifting and skiving off school, but neither were wise things to be doing. The Goth phase turned out to be permanent, although the Wiccan one wasn't, and I fell in love with a wanker at 17. Mostly I floated about thinking I was some tragic figure in a song by a band I like. I'm not much more grown up at 32.