Saturday 26 March 2011

Teenage Rampage

I need help.

I've always joked that she was born a teenager - but now.......

Mr Roving Blade thinks we should come down hard on her unacceptable behaviour. That seems like fighting fire with fire. Never understood that phrase actually. But it's a bus stop along from smacking a small kid for smacking another kid.... 'Don't do what you just did and to show you not to do it I'll do it.' Er...... When it's mental teenage horrificness - are we really only able to be horrific back? What does this gain? Headaches and doors off hinges.

I've had enough already. She's always been volcanic but the last 3 days have been unbearable - and she's still 11. And it's just Day 3. I've got years of this now. I know I have. I remember it well from my own eruptions. Just shoot me now.

I'm remembering the small grey silent stone child that I used to deposit at school and the brittle grey stone bitching harpie I used to pick up. She turned quite human for the last few years. And now.... now I have a spitting amazonian spot-riddled obstreperous screeching warrior gorgon dervish beast screaming into my face until her voice cracks.

And I'm the 'understanding' one who sits (at a respectful distance) on the pummelled settee in the middle of the night when she's come downstairs to sob.

When I caringly suggest she needs to get plenty of sleep because she's growing so much at the moment she turns even blotchier and blubs that she doesn't want to grow any more. It is true that most of her friends are tiny. People always think she's older than she is. And she wants to be OLDER than she is. She's always trying to pull away and go off somewhere ELSE. But she doesn't want to grow any BIGGER.

It's a crap age. It's crap being a girl at this age. I remember one very lovely lady telling me about some groovy wooomany moony ritually woolly bollocky book that was supposed to be all beautiful and at one with the universey but it's just not gonna cut it in this house. When she first asked me about periods 'n' stuff I told her it was shit. I really did. I did feel a bit guilty and tried to be a little more groovy wooomany etc but I can't keep that nonsense up. I read about some types who do white dresses and grandmothers in circles and no dads or brothers allowed in the big tent and bowls of red flowers and all that hippy shit and I just thought they sounded like wankers. The truth is this age is hell and you cannot pretend it's all wonderful just because you stick a candle in a puddle of tofu. It's just pretend. Your daughters will still hate you.

I'll probably have to go and knock on her door in half an hour or so and see if she's either trashed the joint or is huddled up in a muffled shaking hysteria. Don't know whether to wave a white flag or wear a helmet.

So there it is - I have up to now always managed to find an excuse to wander off when friends start talking about their elder daughters, sticking my fingers in my ears and blalalalalaing until I was safe. But now I need to start probing. Examining. Researching the evidence. Trouble is, I usually find other people's advice to be laughable. Certainly anything to do with child rearing. 99% bullshit. How will I know what's good and what's bogus about the teenage lark? I really don't know if anyone has any answers at all. A bit like the cure for the common cold. Everyone's got their own twaddle to spout but....... hey - right now any twaddle any of you may choose to share would be bigtime welcome!!! I'm desperate!!!!


H * * * E * * * L * * * P * * * !!!!!!!

6 comments:

  1. I won't spout forth with knowledgeable advice on bringing up daughters as I haven't any...advice or daughters for that matter!

    Cup of tea?

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  2. Arsenic maybe.......

    Don't know where she gets her drama queenness from eh?

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  3. "The truth is this age is hell and you cannot pretend it's all wonderful just because you stick a candle in a puddle of tofu."

    Yep. My thoughts exactly. There'll be no hippy bollocks here. All I got at that age was a Family Circle 'Now You're Growing Up' booklet chucked through my bedroom door and a few awkward clearings of throats during family viewings Michelle's pregnancy on Eastenders.

    Seeing as my kids have already asked all possible questions (in public toilets in very LOUD voices) we'll skip straight to the 'I hate you and I'm going to run away' bit.

    I've got 2 boys to get through first (i.e. the hair, BO, spots, knocking furniture aside everytime they move, door-slamming, taking up the whole house simply by breathing thing) before I even start on the girl hormone thing with child no 3.

    (word verification was 'Bolonka'(?!))

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  4. Yes I remember my nephews suddenly seemed to fill entire rooms overnight - all limbs and hair. Very Alice in Wonderland in a grunting sort of way. Of course now I look at mothers with only sons and harumph in a 'you-don't-know-you're-born/why-can't-I-be-you?!' kind of way. Why?! WHY??!! W H Y ? ? ? ! ! ! Sob sob sob.......

    Bolonkas indeed to the smiling tofu worshippers..

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  5. i have come round here for words of wisdom since i have three of the darlings aged 11 to smash the house up (i was quite adequately doing that on my own without any help at all).

    tiger and shark are sort of okay and i can nearly handle them after a fashion, because they just go horribly bonkers, scream, yell, become purple in the face, make me cry and throw things, which is ...ahem... well, let's just say the apple never falls far from the tree.

    squirrel, otoh, has got a horrible lip curl and sneer with silence and contempt oozing from every hair that makes me want to scream and chuck wine bottles about and is, frankly, humiliating.

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  6. Oh gods be damned you have THREE!!!!!!!!!

    Is there a name for a THREE-headed mythical beast - I'm sure there was something.....

    I cannot begin to imagine the THREEfoldness of a Minx eruption. I've started to shake.

    ....There seems to be a large gap where words of wisdom could fit....... Anyone? Anything? ANYTHING AT ALL?????!!!!!!!

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