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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

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Original poster

Is life with a teenager inevitably hideous?

38 replies

Winnie · 09/05/2001 07:48

Hi everyone, it is good to see this discussion on teenagers... what I'd like to ask other parents is 'is life with a teenager inevitably hideous?'
My daughter is eleven-going on fifteen(at least). She has always been a great kid (but I would say that wouldn't I?) but thankfully everywhere we go people say this too. Since my daughter was a toddler my mother has said, with an air of wishful thinking,'wait until she is a teenager!' I was a hideous teenager (although not by todays standards) but I had a terrible relationship with my parents. My daughter and I have a good relationship which I dread loosing, is teenager angst inevitable? What are your experiences?

OP posts:

Chairmum · 09/05/2001 21:59

Life with a teenager has its ups and downs but can be great fun - or at least, that's my experience so far. I've two boys, now 26 and 21. We had our run ins, especially with the older one, the usual stuff, drinking, staying out late, not working at school. But hey, he's now got an MBA, a job with the Scottish Parliament and a lovely girlfriend, so it all worked out.

Second son was easier, he wasn't such a party animal as DS1. He went to work in India for 6 mths when he was 18 and that matured him immensely. He's currently at uni. studying psychology, sociology and french.

My older daughter is almost 14 and hasn't given us any grief yet.(!) She's very easy going. She tries to strop occasionally but can only manage about two minutes before laughing.

The 5 yo daughter is a horror now, so I'm not looking forward to her teenage years. But I can always threaten to send her to stay with big brother, who is far stricter than I am!!!

The biggest bone of contention in the house with the boys was the state of their rooms. But I know now it just isn't worth sweating over. They do clear it up eventually, after about 5 yrs of squalor.

I've loved it as my children have matured. Its so great to be able to talk to them (and their friends) about all sorts of things. They shed new light on old subjects and they have a wonderful sense of humour.

Bloss · 10/05/2001 07:46

Message withdrawn

Janh · 10/05/2001 08:46

bloss - yep - you are total weirdos :o)

Original poster

Winnie · 11/05/2001 15:45

Thanks for your replies... I don't expect it to be plain sailing but I am hopeful it won't be hideous. As for being weirdos Bloss, we must be too, as our household is very like yours!

OP posts:

Chairmum · 11/05/2001 17:32

Can I join the Weirdos clan, too? It's DD2 who does the shouting round here!

Tiktok · 11/05/2001 23:48

Teens make you worry - that's my experience. The phone call at 2.30 in the morning from the police station, the late nights when you aren't sure where they are, the driving (OMG the driving.....), the broken hearts when the latest love has dumped them and your heart breaks as well....all that affects me far more than worries about drugs (I'm not bothered about cannabis, though I have always warned them they'll get kicked out of school if they're ever daft enough to be in posession there; I'm concerned about other drugs, though...). I have always been more scared of them being drunk and incapable, and maybe dying through inhaling vomit after passing out. I have always told them never, ever to leave a drunken friend to 'sleep it off'.

So, I have found these years to be more stressful than the baby years, but not because of stroppiness!

Azzie · 14/05/2001 08:05

The prospect of teenagers worries me - my son (currently only 3.5) is temperamentally very like me, and I remember only too clearly what I was like as a teenager! And I have no idea how my husband will cope - he was a very mature and sensible teenager who never went off the rails at all (unlike me), so he has no personal experience of what might happen.

Robbie · 20/05/2001 20:46

Would you consider reading your teenager's diary if you were worried about what they were up to? Obviously it's morally wrong etc but what if you knew they were worried about something but you couldn't get to the bottom of it - wouldn't the end justify the means? And if you found out the worst would you ever admit to reading the diary, or should you just lie?

Janh · 21/05/2001 09:08

ooh, robbie, dangerous ground. what are you worried about exactly?

Sml · 21/05/2001 13:23

I'd read it while they're teenagers. They are too young to have our experience of life (!) so it's in their own best interests and therefore not morally wrong. It would be morally wrong to let them get in a scrape when you could have prevented it. But I wouldn't read it when they are adult.

Twinsmum · 21/05/2001 13:38

Robbie..I don't have any experience of this with my children (too young) but i do with my younger sister. When she was a teenager she got herself into all sorts of trouble. I was incredibly worried about her and in the end read her diary. This gave me an insight into what she wasgetting herself into and made it possible for me to help her. I've never told her I read it...but 'm afraid I don't regret it.

Janh · 21/05/2001 16:10

robbie - pending your reply - i would say do it but never EVER admit it - pretend you're psychic or imply one of their friends dropped you a hint. (i'm assuming you're assuming it is something very serious or you wouldn't contemplate it.)

how many teenagers have you got? i have 2 and can often find things out from the other one...has to be v discreet though...

Bells · 21/05/2001 16:19

I''m with Janh. If the concern you have is a serious one, I would read the diary. I would however not admit to having done so.

Bugsy · 22/05/2001 10:25

Robbie, I think if you are worried about your daughter you should do anything you can to find out what is wrong. If something did happen to her, reading her diary would seem a very trivial thing to have done.
However, don't tell her that you did this. It is undoubtedly a violation of her privacy and she will not understand or respect you for having done it at this stage in her life.
Good luck - I hope you get it all sorted out.

Janh · 22/05/2001 10:55

bugsy - she didn't say it was a daughter....

Bugsy · 22/05/2001 11:57

Apologies, for the daughter assumption - no offence intended.

Janh · 22/05/2001 18:36

bugsy, i replied earlier but obviously forgot to post...
no criticism intended - i just thought it interesting that you assumed a daughter because i did too, thinking about s.e.x. probably, but it could be drugs or bullying or school and could just as likely be a boy. i think we just feel teenage girls are more vulnerable.

Gracie · 23/05/2001 08:06

Aren't they just a LOT more likely to keep a diary than boys??

Janh · 23/05/2001 10:35

gracie, you are undoubtedly right. i just asked my 16-yr-old if she was aware of any of the lads at her school ever having kept a diary - she might have heard a rumour! - and she said she didn't think so...mind you if they did they wouldn't advertise it, would they, lads being what they are (one of their friends would find it and THEY would advertise it!) but she is good friends with some of them and would probably know.

Rachel1969 · 23/05/2001 13:57

My mum read my diary when I was a teenager and discovered things that she really didn't need to know about me - we had a blazing row and I felt like my privacy had been utterly violated. It marked the beginning of the love/hate period in our relationship which lasted years.
However ... I think I'd read my daughters diaries but only if we were having problems with them at the time. If everything was rosy then it would be too much of an intrusion - I think it's one of those extreme measures you take if you don't have any alternative.
If you do without damn good reason then I think you only have yourself to blame for what you discover - as long as your kids are happy don't you have to trust them to be doing the right thing (or what they believe is the right thing for them)?
Omigod - am now imagining my sweet little girls being teenagers and getting up to all the exciting but awful things that I got up to. Am going to have to go for a little lie down...
Can we talk about something else - like secret ways of stopping time?

Original poster

Winnie · 23/05/2001 14:34

Rachel1969, probably around the same time judging by your nickname, my mother read my diary and found out things she'd rather not have known, and like you it did not help our relationship a bit. In fact I still keep a diary and although I don't hide it from partner or children (we all respect eachothers privacy) when my mother came to babysit this weekend, asusual, I hid it!!!

Only read the diary if you really, really feel there is no alternative and be prepared to learn things you really, really don't want to learn and never, never, admit it. (I can't believe I have just written the last 4 words my policy is always honesty at all times!

OP posts:

Rachel1969 · 23/05/2001 19:12

Winnie - I know ... my mum didn't learn either. Ten years on she did the same with my baby sister and then rang me in tears over what she'd found. That was my chance to tell her why she shouldn't have done it to either of us in the first place - except a bit more articulately than screaming I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I WISH I WAS DEAD at her!!!!!
In all honesty though I think it would be very hard not to read your child's diary - it would be such an insight into the way they think and how they feel about the world we've brought them into. And maybe what they think about us. But it's just fraught with danger ...

Cam · 24/05/2001 11:30

Dear Bloss
Your upbringing sounds ideal - I think I must be much older than you (I am pretty old as I have a 28 year old and a 4 year old) but when I was a teenager it was obligatory to rebel as hard as possible! At least it gave me the ability not be shocked or "impressed" by anything that my eldest daughter subsequently did. She was nowhere near as wild as I had been. However, in reality I was rebelling in a very self-controlled way and always knew I would never make it a "lifestyle". It was a specific phase with a lot of peer pressure involved. By the time my 4 year old enters those difficult years, I will be far too old to care and probably collecting my pension (if there is any by then!). Anyway 4 year olds today already think they are teenagers and have "makeup" to play with,etc, don't they.

Tigermoth · 24/05/2001 12:15

If my sons ever keep diaries I will be just so pleased they are putting old-fashioned pen to paper in their own free time that I would be happy with whatever they wrote.

Seriously though and something all teenage diary-keepers and their parents could bear in mind,
all diaries run the risk of being read eventually. I have all my late mother's teenage diaries. She didn't choose to dispose of them, and she crossed bits out, so I assume what remains I can read. Very funny some of it, I can tell you. I was amazed at what she got up to - and so young!

So, if my worry was really gigantic, I'd read my son's diaries and as others have said, never, ever tell.

As for all the comments on bringing up teenagers, Janh, Chairmum, Tiktok and others with more grown up children, don't go away now will you? I can see myself asking you lots of questions. Have no experience whatsoever of teenage sons. Am stressed just thinking about it.

Janh · 24/05/2001 14:45

cam, you sound like me...my mother, did she but know it, almost made me rebellious by being such a daft bat. on one occasion, "tidying my room", she came across a letter i had written to a friend about a really quite mild snogging session; i was on a french exchange and she sent me an APPALLING letter calling me a slut. i was 16!!! this was 1967!!!! (and she kept it, hidden in her stockings drawer - i wonder now if she was planning to blackmail me!)
i learnt a lot from that though. i do occasionally find out things i might prefer not to know but i do keep quiet about them. and both my daughters tell me things i would never have told my mother, both about themselves and their friends. tigermoth - keep the channels of communication open at all times - if poss!!!

i have 2 boys too - 8 and nearly 13. currently we all have a pretty good relationship, apart from normal daily niggles. i so hope it lasts!

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