The Times Magazine 9SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
have acquired a teenager and it’s the
best thing that’s happened in ages. As
is the way of it, you don’t realise how
much you’ve missed something until
you get another one, and then you
wonder how you existed without it
for so long.
Teenagers, the more ornery the
better, are just wonderful. Mine is only
borrowed – she’s the daughter of a friend,
whom I propositioned when I needed a dog
walker – but even for the brief snatches of time
that I possess her, it’s life-enhancing. I want to
steal her, the way some women want to steal
babies, and learn about life through her eyes.
Holly – let’s call her that, although she’ll
hate it – is the perfect age: 15 when she started
coming; now newly 16. Peak teenager. Peak
different planet, on that cusp between
child and adult. Brimful of attitude. Sassy
doesn’t begin to describe her; she’s smart,
uncompromising, utterly her own girl.
I’ve never had first-hand experience of a
modern teenage girl, because I didn’t have a
daughter and because having been a teenager
yourself in the Dark Ages just doesn’t count.
Today’s young women are ten zillion times
more together than my generation: knowing,
poised, sleek, droll and slightly terrifying.
Boys, I’m familiar with. They’re a totally
different species – goofy creatures; simpler,
younger, a million times less sophisticated. My
son’s adolescent years were characterised by
a bit of binge drinking at parties, dismantlingbikes and digging holes with his mates to
create jumps. Holly by comparison is cool
and switched on, sharp as a tack, a veteran
of social media. She’s also as funny and sweet
as the characters in Clueless and Mean Girls,
classic teen comedy movies that I deliberately
went and relished again after I met her.
I’ve learnt to ambush Holly when she
returns with the dog. I watch for them coming,
him towing her, her face buried in her phone,
up the hill on his extending lead. By hanging
on to her money for a few minutes, I get her to
remove an ear bud and spare me a bit of her
chat. We discuss school, sport, fashion. Some
days she can do nothing but yawn, which
reminds me of Doug at the same age. Other
days she’s enthusiastic, full of surprises, direct,
disdainful. I respect her lack of smarminess.
She makes me laugh out loud. As Clueless
protagonist Cher Horowitz said of someone in
their early forties: “Old people can be so sweet.”
Occasionally Dave, who was never a
teenager and doesn’t have a clue, tries to tease
her. He doesn’t realise he’s a lamb going for
slaughter. She puts him down with withering
contempt. He doesn’t know what’s hit him. You
can see the speech bubble hanging in the air:
“Yeah, whatever, grandpa.”
Once or twice she’s flattered me by
obliquely sounding me out for advice. At least
I think she has. I play the detached oracle and
suggest she chooses her battles; keeps goodwill
in the bank for things that really matter. And if
I’m really honoured she shows me pictures onher phone – her art, her favourite jeans, a selfie
she took of herself with the dog.
Twice in the summer she paid me the
ultimate compliment and brought some friends
with her for the walk. And just as I yearn
to see the world through their eyes, and
understand their take on things, I see them
eyeing me. Sometimes I feel like a baby bird,
begging to be fed fresh insight on the world.
Afterwards I pray they’re typical teenagers,
oblivious of everything, and forget me.
Adult life gets so settled and unchallenged.
Mine is about being sensible, measuring time
against commitments, weighing up pros and
cons, allocating energy, making decisions
based on physical limitations. Without young
people around, my brain shrinks. I start to bask
in stale wisdom, curious about nothing.
We need disrupters. If you have teenagers
in your home, please don’t take for granted
their innate energy and power, their
maddening ability to challenge opinions
and reject received wisdom. You’ll mourn it
when it’s gone. Holly is only fleetingly loaned
to me, as all youth is loaned to the old. I
caught up with her over Christmas, but her
year will be dominated by exams. The world
beckons. Her axis tilts inexorably towards the
end of school, university. Leaving us all behind,
dog included, nursing our loss. n@Mel_ReidTimes
Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her
MURDO MACLEOD neck and back in a riding accident in April 2010
I
Why everyone
needs a stroppy
teenager in their
lives. Trust me
on this one