Results Day

This morning:
"Tomorrow you will never see me again if I get a bad result" says the teen.
I say nothing.
"I mean it".
Later:
"What kind of results are you expecting?" she queries. I tread carefully, knowing the wrong answer could spark florid accusations of 'insensitivity'.
"Erm, passes?"
Even later:
"If I fail them all will you be disappointed?"
"Of course not" I lie.
Tonight, by the Aga:
"I've got to decide what to wear tomorrow" The teen declares with an air of great import.
I laugh.
"Don't laugh, everybody is discussing it. The main thing is, not to do what Sarah did last year and come fully made up, in heels, really dressed up."
"Why does anyone get dressed up?"
"You haven't seen anybody for weeks, since the end of term." She rolls her eyes. The eye equivalent of 'Der'. The teen is a specialist at eye work. 
She continues: "Anyway five minutes later Sarah got really bad results for her GCSE's and was crying her eyes out. All her make up ran down her cheeks. I don't want to make that same mistake, look wise."
"Hmm. So you are aiming for a sober but glamorous look ideally?"
"Yes. Black jeans I think. A tailored jacket. NOT heels."She draws breath, fiddles with her hair, looks serious."Glasses perhaps?"
I join in: "Quite preppy? A bit, I've already got into university?"
"Yes" she says thoughtfully.
"Will you be upset if I don't get all As?" she asks again, after a pause.
"School doesn't matter" I say. "Everybody knows you are clever. You did my accounts last year. You learnt Excel at 16". 

Update: She got 4 A's and a B.

Dances

"I'm thinking of internet dating" announced The Teen this morning.
I'm still asleep but suddenly I'm wide awake.
"NO" I yell. "You are only 16!  Why don't you go out and meet someone?"
"I don't want to meet someone who goes out.  I want to meet someone like me, who doesn't concern themselves solely with drinking and laughing. I want someone who stays in and reads books and watches TV."

I recall all the dodgy internet dates that I've had. I really don't want her to be in that position. Not a 16 year old.

"Don't you have 'dances' anymore?" I splutter, knowing as it comes out of my mouth I sound archaic.
Cue derisive, loud laughter.
"DANCES? DANCES?"
"Yes, we used to have school dances at your age"
"We are not living in the Victorian age" she says.

Actually the school dances weren't exactly a picnic either. Lots of arrogant lads from University College School. I was 14 when  my mum took me out shopping for my first school dance between my school, South Hampstead and UCS. My mum convinced me that I looked good in a lime green nylon shirt from Marks and Spencer's.  In this shirt and my mum's borrowed velvet jacket, which didn't quite fit, I spent the evening shifting nervously in the dark, seemingly attached to the wall. To escape the ongoing humiliation of never being asked to dance, I escaped outside.
Some of the boys were standing there, smoking a cigarette. Trying to sound cool while talking to them, I swore. One of the boys haughtily spat he couldn't stand girls that swear and they left, leaving me alone and crushed outside.
The teen blithely continues: "I've seen this guy online. He's 38. Fit."
"What about boys of your own age?"
"No thanks. They are all clean shaven and boring."
"Watch out for stubble" I warn, "I remember having terrible red rashes from the tip of my nose to my chin from snogging unshaven men."
"Anyway I've met someone" she says "He hands out The Evening Standard outside the tube station"
"A high flyer then?" I say, unfairly.

"Look" I say "You will meet someone, I guarantee it. But no internet dating. Christ, all those perverts will be round you like white sharks drawn to raw bait."

Runaway

My teenage years were pretty vile. I was always either running away from home or being chucked out. I was the oldest and therefore my behaviour, no longer a compliant child, was a shock to my parents. By the time it came to my brother and sister, they were worn out and had given up on rules.

I ran away and stayed out all night when I was 14, sheltering in a church from a thunderstorm. Another time, I stayed the night in Muswell Hill ladies loo. One day, after I refused to clean the bath tub while my brother was lounging about: "Sexists!", my parents kicked me out. I moved to a squat in Camden Town, Royal College Street, just up the road from where Rimbaud and Verlaine lived.

Jesse Birdsall the actor shared the place with me, along with the sometime drummer/manager/mate of Madness, John Hasler. The place was very basic and had no heating. I lugged a bag of coal from the corner shop to light a fire in the tiny fireplace and lived off kebabs from the shop opposite. It was winter.

A few days later my parents put all of my belongings into black plastic rubbish bags: "Take these or lose them to the rubbish collectors!". Such fury on their part, they acted like they hated me.

I was at art college, flunking badly. I wanted to be a fashion designer and would make poorly constructed items on my mother's sewing machine such as vertically striped black and white trousers in satin (doh!) which I teamed with a pale pink angora sweater from Sex at World's end. I had a boyfriend who told me, on the first date, that he was going to be famous. And he was.

My parents were so strict, so threatened by my independence. I had to do whatever they told me to do. They constantly emphasised that it was their house, not mine. I felt insecure for years, until I finally bought my own place. I swore that if I ever made proper money that I would help homeless teenagers.

Teenagers get a bad rap in society; all those hormones, all that energy and curiosity. The boys are stabbing each other and the girls are trying to get boys to like them.

Many teenagers are homeless, because they were in care, because they don't get on with their parents, because they were abused, because the parents don't know how to parent. And sometimes the parents and the teens just need a break from each other.

This initiative seeks to help by getting teenagers on the street back into education.

Campaign to get half a million teenagers worldwide off the street and into school:

Tell Us Your Story is giving people the opportunity to recognise and reward others who have made a positive impact on their lives or in their community over the past year. Entries are submitted online at http://www.avivatellusyourstory.co.uk/
Launched by Aviva, for every entry they will donate £1 to the Street to School Programme - a global initiative with the aim of reaching 500,000 children worldwide, helping them get off the streets and back into education.

A weekly prize of £1000 will also be awarded to the local hero that captures the hearts of visitors to the site and receives the most votes.  One overall winner will be chosen by a celebrity judging panel for a prize worth £10,000.

About Street to School:
Railway Children is the UK charity partner for the Street to School programme.
Railway Children is the only charity working across the UK with vulnerable children.
Every year in the UK, 100,000 children run away because they’re unwanted, unloved or abused and many are never reported missing. 

Happy birthday Sweet Sixteen

Today the teen is sixteen years old. For once I do my übermummy bit and make her breakfast before school.

Standing in the kitchen, munching on some sourdough toast spread with Brittany salted butter and Marmite XO, she looks at her mobile phone and says

"Only one happy birthday text."

"Shall I send you one then?" I reply wryly.

She rolls her eyes "Popularity is measured by how many happy birthday texts you get, how many pages of happy birthdays on Facebook. None of my friends have texted."

"Maybe because you will be seeing them face to face in an hour and they can say it verbally?" I suggest.

"You need happy birthdays in at least two ways...." she explains.

" Two platforms?" I venture.

"Yeah." Her phone beeps "Oh, got another one. Clearly this person doesn't know me very well, they can't even spell my name right." She ponders "It must be this boy I know that's dyslexic" She replies to his text...." Ah no, it's his friend " She laughs slightly "I'll tell him to stop stalking me"

She looks down at her phone "Another one. From Grandma. I'm going to look such a loser"

She's wearing incredibly high heels. I've been worrying about how she dresses recently. Men have been following her home. My teen says that happens to all her friends, not just her and it doesn't make any difference what she wears, men still harrass her in the street. But what can you do? You can't lock up your daughter.

"Are you taking flats?" I ask

"God you sound like a granny" she retorts "no offence. Anyway, stop worrying mum, look at me! High necked top, long trousers, every inch covered"

She caught me googling 'serial killers' and 'paedophiles' the other night.

"So what are you going to do today?" I ask "now you are 16"

"Fuck loads of guys, leave home" she whips back. "No, actually 16 is rubbish. You can't do anything. I can't even vote. I think the voting age should be brought down and they should do more politics in school. "

An election is coming up and she can't participate.

The teen "You adults can't imagine how frustrating it is not to be able to buy anything you like, go anywhere you like, clubs, pubs..."

She stops and nods, eyes shining "18 is the big one. That's when everything will change. I'm going to go crazy then"

Posh lunch club

Teen gets home.

"I've got some dinner ready" I say. For once I've been a good mummy.

"S'ok. I'm not hungry. I had a posh lunch, in a restaurant. It was someone's birthday."

"Where did you go?"

"Rocca. It was yummy. And the waiters are buff." She stops, looks dreamy and sighs "Some people are so lucky. The rich kids go out to restaurants for lunch."

"To proper restaurants?"

"Yeah. One kid goes to Carluccio's every day."

The mind boggles. I start to imagine little gentlemen from the Lycée, white linen serviettes tucked into their necks, legs dangling above the floor, having set lunches at various Michelin star establishments near the school.

Her school is in South Kensington.

The teen expands "Some kids get pizza for a pound, some go to 'Raisin d'etre', a posh sandwich place. The poor kids go to Tescos. The really poor kids take packed lunches."

She's doing her GCSE's at the moment.She's just done her mocks. It's going ok, apart from Biology. We have to find a tutor, but to find the money for that on top of school fees, it's not easy.

"A. spends £900 a month on tutors. He gets three hours a week"

The class system is alive and well in England. We tried to get her into a good local girl's school, Camden, which is free but, despite being on the waiting list for six years, she didn't get into the sixth form. You have to be really poor or really rich to get into Camden. Really poor because you live in a council or housing association flat in the local area or really rich because you can afford a private property nearby. So I guess I'm going to have to try and find the money for the Lycée for A levels.

There is a local comprehensive but the teen worries about bullying. There's police there, not just outside the school but inside, patrolling, practically attending lessons. But if she went there, she could come home for lunch, just as French children do.

Cussin

In the bathroom. My daughter was putting on foundation in the mirror. Her skin is perfect.

"Why do you wear foundation?" I asked. "At your age?"

"Because I've got skin like an old woman" she said "everybody teases me about it at school. I've got those things...that old men get when they drink ..."

"Thread veins?"

"Yeah, that. I've got tons of blemishes and I have to cover them up"

I looked at my face in the mirror. I had crinkly bags under my eyes. I pushed at my skin, it doesn't spring back into place as it would have a few years ago. Even a year ago.

I seemed to have aged enormously since starting The Underground Restaurant. In fact I haven't properly looked at myself for a while, being so busy. I've neglected any 'beauty routine'.

Next to me was my teen...her perfect heart shaped face...

I sit on the toilet and sigh: "So apart from your weight, your height, the little bump on your eyelid and your old ladies' skin...what else do people at school criticize about you? It seems, according to them, you are absolutely hideous"

"Look that's how it is. Everybody cusses everybody else." my daughter says patiently as if speaking to a retard.

"Do you?"

"Yeah. 'Course. Probably."

"You slag off other people's looks?"

"Well my friends and especially S."

"Why S?"

S. is particularly beautiful, tall and slim with almond-shaped eyes and great hair. She's been spotted by model agencies.

"Everybody has a go at S" snorts my teen "because she's so perfect".

"Does she get upset?"

"Yes, sometimes she cries"

"So you are all making each other feel bad? I mean you come home and cry too" I state.

My teen shrugs.

Cussing, that is, the art of putting each other down, does seem to be worse than it was in my youth. I wonder if it comes from 'freestyle rap battles'. It must be hard, though, for teenagers to build up any self-esteem when every imperfection is ruthlessly targeted. Or does it toughen them up?

Butters

"I'm butters" said my teen.

Now I know I'm biased but my teenager is the most beautiful girl in the world. Bar none. Actually I'm not biased, this is pure fact.

"You are gorgeous" I say soothingly.

"No I'm not. I'm fat. And I'm short".

There's no point lying. She is short. But she's not fat. Not yet anyway. She probably will be later on, just like me. To be honest, I don't think I'm fat, but other people do. I look at all the women we are told we are supposed to look like and think 'Where's the rest of you?'. They look like half people.

She talks about the teasing at school, because of her height.

"Basically the deal here is that you aren't average. You want to be average. There's such an emphasis on being average, but it's boring." I say

I try to think of someone short, not too great looking but with such personality you don't even notice. I hit upon...

"Look at Danny Devito! He's short but I don't think he's ever turned in a bad performance" I tell her brightly.

"But has he got a girlfriend?"

"Yeah. He's married and everything" I say

The teen thinks for a bit.

"I expect that's cos he's famous. I'm not famous. No one is ever going to like me. I've been single for two years."

"You are 15! Someone is going to like you. Of course they are!"

"No never. No one's ever going to like me. I'll be a virgin when I die"

This conversation was provoked by the fact that she liked a boy. He seemed to like her. In fact she started liking him because she thought he liked her.

She thought they were close. He would text 'I love you'. Even today, when 'I love you' and relentless hugging is common currency between friends (not the seldom uttered tight-lipped words that slipped out by mistake, of my youth), texting that phrase to the opposite sex means something.

My teen talked to me about this as we drove...

"I didn't know what was going on, so I took the plunge and texted him: 'Are you into me?'" Tears trickled down her downy cheeks. "He said 'No. We are just friends'."

I recognised this feeling so well...

"I really hate that. When blokes you fancy just want to be your friend. When they flirt and confuse you." I commiserated. "They are power tripping"

"I know" she sniffed.

"I mean my attitude, in the words of Jayne County, is: 'If you don't wanna fuck me, fuck off'" I joked.

"Me too."

We drove in silence, bonded in mutual misery.

Battle of Hastings

The teen went to Hastings yesterday to do geography coursework on tourism. She got up early on her day off to get the train there.

"Did you have a nice time on the journey with your friends? "I ask

"Oh stop sounding so homosexual about it. Soooo gay. 'Did you have a nice time with your friends?' "she mimics in a smarmy mummy voice.

I continue: "Well how was it?"

"It was jokes. We had the two most liberal teachers come with us, they slept the whole journey but made sure they were in another carriage. In our carriage you could see how annoyed all the adults were. I swear every time my friend laughed I could see this guy sighing. She's got a really loud laugh.

"and Hastings? What did you think of it?" I asked.

"It's a shit hole. Nothing there, just some shops and the sea. We spent our whole time in Macdonalds then bought some beers for the journey back"

"Did you manage to ask the questions for your coursework?"

She'd spent days preparing a questionnaire. They were supposed to ask tourists what brought them there, where they stayed, what they did. I said she should ask whether tourists would appreciate a home restaurant in Hastings.

"No way!" she said, staring at me with incredulity

"NO way"

she repeated just in case I hadn't understood the first time.

"There were only residents, no tourists. And the couple of tourists we found when we asked 'could you spare 5 minutes to answer this questionnaire?' refused to talk to us"

I think about this. Of course, what tourist will visit Hastings in October? Really the teachers should have thought this through.

" It would have been better to do it in London, at least there are tourists here. But my teachers said it would be good for us to see another town. Hastings has got the highest suicide rate in Britain or something. The funniest bit was when someone's dog shit in the middle of the tourist office floor. When we went back a couple of hours later, they were still trying to clear it up"

Parent's evening

Tonight I have to go to the parent's evening at the school. My teen has given me strict instructions.

"What are you wearing?" She demands anxiously.

"Um, that black knitted dress I bought in Italy..." I reply

"Ok." Then "What shoes?"

I look down. I'm wearing comfortable black leather open toed sandals from M & S.

"NOT those" she says "something nice"

"Hair?" I continue, slightly sarcastically "Makeup?"

"Makeup. Wear some. But NOT lipstick" I am instructed.

"Then if you arrive early, do not speak to me"my teen commands "if you do see me, just do this..."

She juts her chin up in the air, a brief acknowledgement.

I splutter "So I'm supposed to act like I hardly know you?"

She continues "and DON'T talk to my friends. Don't ask them their names. Don't ask how they are. Don't tell them off for smoking or bunning"

"Bunning?"

Her eyes roll.

"You are sooo old. Bunning is smoking a joint. It comes from the word 'burning' said with a Jamaican accent" she explains patiently. "At the rond point(a small square outside the school), everybody is bunning. Even adults bun. You see them coming after work, sitting down on the wall and bunning up."

"That rond point seems to be the most popular meeting place in London" I remark archly.

"Yeah well our school is popular innit. Kids from other schools come to hang out, cos they finish earlier than us. Boys from local schools come to chat up girls"

It's the age old thing of boys trying to pull posh totty from the private schools.

"One boy, he's slept with like 50 girls from our school. But he is gorgeous, really buff"

('Buff' means good looking, readers. 'Butters' means ugly as in 'butt ugly')

She's not finished...

"When you are in the meeting with other parents, do not ask questions. I know you, you are always asking questions."

I look doubtful.

"Try to blend in mum" she says, softening a little.

Party

The teen had a bit of a party while I was away this weekend. It's the first time I've ever left her alone for any amount of time. I gave extra keys to the neighbours and asked them to keep an eye.

I knew she'd have a couple of mates over...but when I arrived home, she sighed and said

"I'm so tired"

"How come?"

"From all the tidying up..." She looks at me regretfully but continues bravely "they were really messy"

"Didn't your friends help you?"

"No. I had to clear up all the sick." She brightens "It was cool, we got three bottles of vodka for £15 down the road. They knew we were underage."

"Then my friend made out with one of the boys in the shed."

Internally I gulp.

"What exactly does 'making out' consist of?"I ask gingerly, imagining phone calls from the parents...my daughter lost her virginity in your shed...

She groans "Well first you have snogging, then making out, then fingering, then blowjob, then full sex, then licking out."

We've always been quite open about sex but even I was a bit taken aback by this hierarchy of sex territory gained. I'm also interested that fellatio is higher up the scale than cunnilingus.

"So making out is restricted to kissing and tits?" I pry, drawing an imaginary triangle between my mouth and breast area.

My teen rolls her eyes.

"Is this over the bra or under the bra?"

Now she's looking annoyed "Oh for god's sake mum... "

She won't tell me how 'far' she has gone but I don't think it's beyond the 'making out' stage.

But I feel uncomfortable at the idea of some spotty lank haired youth getting a grope of my baby daughter's intimate parts. It doesn't seem right somehow. Them getting that for free. I briefly wish I lived in a culture when I could lock her up in a tower, cover her in a veil and charge a king's ransom for the privilege of marrying her. I also start to feel unaccountably angry, I'm not even sure why. When I lost my virginity, quite late actually, I was almost 18, my mum and dad were horrible to me, calling me a 'slut' for weeks. I now understand that impulse. Your children having sex, even if it's just kissing or petting, feels like a betrayal, almost infidelity. It's like they are no longer your children. There is a raw feeling that they have been besmirched.

I guess you get used to it.

This was a warm up for the real party she is going to have in a couple of weeks.

tongue piercing

I haven't been spending much time with my daughter recently. I've been busy. One night, when I was going out, I'd been out several nights that week already, she said to me:

"I feel like I live alone".

Last night, I catered a gig. It was work. Badly paid. But work. I got home at midnight and, as usual, went into my daughter's bedroom. I saw her sleeping form, the soft pale skin, her little head of tumbled blonde hair, the slender hands ...I kissed her, breathing in her still child-like smell. I love her I thought. This is all that counts. I must spend more time with her. And more importantly, be present when I'm with her. Because even when I'm home, I'm not. My mind is elsewhere or I'm on the computer. Or I'm worrying. Or thinking. Or planning.

She asks me questions nowadays, interesting questions...

"Explain proportional representation."

We go through it. At first sight it looks like a good idea.

"Der" she announces, in her teenage way "of course it's better. Der. Why don't we just do it?"

And then I explain further. That with PR you also get the BNP...and the Greens and lots of little parties. They then have to form coalitions to be able to wield any power. So you end up with a big messy compromising party anyway.

Then, switching subjects rapidly she asks:

"Can I have my tongue pierced?"

I look at her. I feel stupidly anxious. I don't want her to have her tongue pierced. I want her to have brown long hair again, untouched by hair dye. I want to see her in her ballet outfit again. I want her to curl up in my arms at night. I want her to think I am the bestest most important fantastic loveable human being in the world again. Like she used to. I want to be called 'mummy' rather than 'muuuuum' or when she's annoyed, 'mother'. 

I say lightly, a little cruelly: "If you let your hair go back to it's natural colour, you can have your tongue pierced."

It was a joke. I then attempt a weak excuse like:

"Isn't it dangerous? Can't you get an infection?"

And even more weakly, grasping at straws...

"What if you get in a fight? They could, like, rip your tongue out".

She laughs:

"You said that about my pierced ears mum. And I've never been in a fight".

This morning she was leaving for school.

"Right Saturday afternoon my mate and I are dying my hair brown."

I'm still only half awake.

"Is it a good idea to keep dying it?" I ask gently "it will end up frizzy".

"Well I'm doing what you said."

I look non-plussed.

"I'm dying my hair brown so I can have my tongue pierced".

I gasp. "What? That was a joke".

Her expression changes. She mutters something. It sounds like 'bitch'. 

"What did you say?"

I'm thinking I've got to put a stop to this. The disrespectful way she talks to me. 

She explodes:

"You are TOTALLY evil. Oh my god you are a LIAR. You said I could have my tongue pierced. LIAR"

"It was a joke. You knew it was a joke!" 

She slams out of the front door, cursing, upset. She's got GSCE tests today. I'm worried. I don't want her to be upset. I'm also thinking, why do I want to control her appearance? You are only young once. Let her experiment. 

Less than zero

My teen delights in provoking her teachers with her unconventional views. On Thursday one of her teachers asked if she had been at the G20 protests. My teen couldn't come, partly because we had the French exchange student staying. Not sure what this student thought when I texted:

"Probably won't be home in time to make dinner, held in kettle by police, might be arrested".

Shockingly some of her classmates, many of whom are incredibly straight and have views straight out of the Daily Telegraph... straight out of their parents mouths...were against any protest. We call them 'Abercrombies' because they all wear the same Abercrombie & Fitch clothes. One said that

"protesting should be banned!"

How very democratic. My teen went mad.

My daughter tells me that she manages to slip anti-capitalism into almost every subject, even biology. 

"Biology?" I exclaim "how did you do that?"

"There was this test question on the necessary elements for plants to grow. I answered it correctly, sunlight, water, etc but then I put 'This is not scientifically proven but another component helping plants to grow is love'. The teacher gave me zero even though I had everything right."

"Zero!"

"I told him I thought it was unfair. He said that it irritated him so he gave me zero".

Exchange student

It's not going too well. She thinks we are weird. My teen saw on an entry on facebook that she wondered why there were so many tables and chairs in the living room.

The girl doesn't say anything, skulks in her bedroom. I have to force her out.

My teen took her shopping to Topshop on Saturday. She sat looking miserable.

"It's too expensive" she eventually pouted

"So let's go to Primark" says my teen helpfully. But she didn't want to go.

There was a party in Harlesden Saturday night. I was worried. Harlesden is murder mile. Another mum dropped them off and picked them up. I was doing the Underground Restaurant so this was really helpful. Although my teen was annoyed that they were picked up at a quarter to midnight.

"The party went on till two am" she complained "only losers leave before midnight".

Personally I think that midnight is fine for just 15. At the party the French exchange student sat in a corner the whole time. 

My friend 'Kurt Cubain' came over Sunday. Blonde, dreadlocked, he's just back from six months in India. He was lighting up joints and strumming the guitar. God knows what the French exchange student thought. When he left I tried to bring her out of herself.

"He's just back from India!" I announced cheerily

She nods.

"Would you like to travel?"

More nodding.

"Are you going to stay in Epinal?"

She shakes her head vigorously. A bit of animation there.

"Where would you like to go? "

A word, muffled "London?"

"Would you like to go to India?"

Enthusiastic nodding. That's the longest conversation I have managed with her.

(I think her mind is a little blown by us, London, the UK. It certainly has not been comfortable. But possibly she'll go home with her horizons broadened. This is real education, which is not always comfortable.)

Our lot are exchanging with the year above from Epinal. Have to. The Epinal kids are so unsophisticated.

We must speak English to her. But it's hard to estimate how much she understands. Because she won't ask. 

The school seem to have a policy of mismatching the kids. Therefore the 'year slut' from the French school was paired with the 'year geek' from the Lycée. This was such a disaster in France that the 'year slut' refused to stay with him on the London leg, and went to stay with our 'year slut'.

The French 'year slut' brought over £350 and spent every penny. At least she has a lust for life.

I guess my teen is the year outcast and they've matched her with the French year 'straight'. 

15

Some girls at my daughter's school are having sex before they have even started their periods.

Another girl, just 15, has been sleeping with a 28 year old illegal immigrant. When she was 13 years old, she had an abortion. Her mother, middle-class, well-off, is fine with it.

One girl never uses contraception, relying purely on the 'morning after' pill.

"These girls are trying to be adult. But they don't act like adults" I say to my teen.

She tells me that many pupils go through the school day high on coke or 'e'.

I'm restrictive. Over-protective. I ask to speak to the parents if she is going to a party. I want to know where she is, where she is going. Some of her friends can go out whenever they want. 

"This girl C. can just go out at midnight. Her parents say yeah, no problem, do you want cab fare? Everybody lies to their parents" my teen says. 

But she came home tonight complaining that she was being hassled by men on the street. 

"Twice this evening, on the way home from school. I told one to fuck off"

I look at her. "I know  I know" says my daughter. 

When I was her age, I got pestered all the time by men in the street. Once I told one who wouldn't leave me alone "hey baby baby baby" to fuck off and he punched me in the face. Hard. 

"Careful" I say "these men are not nice. One minute they want you they next they are hitting you. Nice men don't pester young girls in the street."

Nanny state

Or should that be Big Brother? Just got call from the youngpersonsunit or something. Some New Labour bollocks.

It's about my daughter's arrest last year for smoking dope.

Apparently the police lied to me. Her arrest will be on her record for 100 years.

It will affect her ability to get a visa for the United States.

So trying a bit of spliff, from a friend's joint, not even her own, at the age of 14 means she will have a record for a century?

The youngpersonsunit said it was government policy to follow this up. To warn young people of the dangers of drugs. To give her 'drugs counselling'. To get her into after-school activities. 

I fumed.

I was more angry about this police lie than my daughter's dope-smoking experiment. She isn't a stoner after all. 

She doesn't have time for after-school activities. She's too tired and has homework. 

From MMR vaccines to thrusting endless leaflets about how to feed my child (5 a day) to general interfering, this New Labour government is starting to turn me towards freedom (liberté rather than egalité) on a scale worthy of the Unabomber.

Please butt out. 

We are not all idiots. 

Some parents are idiots, cruel, ignorant etc. But little is done about them (Baby P anyone? I heard Sharon Shoesmith's interview on Woman's hour and it was a show. She is the typical Blair babe spouting gobbledygook rather than common sense). No, those parents, clearly inadequate, are given endless second chances.

Why is everybody lying about drugs anyway? At least Obama admitted to inhaling.

Teenage bedroom

Plus ca change. Except in my day, it was Donny Osmond and David Cassidy (in those divine shaggy boots) torn out of the pages of Fab 208 magazine, which were rapidly ripped down (and hidden) to be replaced by Rod Stewart. Superceded by David Bowie, then Lou Reed. By the time it got to punk, I'd stopped putting posters on my wall, it would have been, in today's parlance, 'gay'.

Years later, as a photographer, I got to photograph David Cassidy. Arriving at the record company, I went to the loo. I saw a small man exiting, with an orange face and an armful, literally an armful, of foundation bottles and tubes. At the photo session I realised this man was David Cassidy.

Snow

In the morning

The view from my living room

The balcony (at least 5 inches of snow!)

The view from my dining room

Report back from my teen. 

"went skiing today, and it has put me off for a while, well i'm certainly not going skiing again in the vosges.

 it was -15 at one point and i told them i was too cold so i went to the car early with my correspondant. thank fuck i couldn't even think or feel anything.

last night went to a party the frogs organized for us and it was... well you can insert any word in the dictionary and it would be right.. us English made it otherwise i would have fucked off.

 & don't worry i was drunk (don't get angry, look it's HONESTY) but i didn't even kiss anyone for god's sake let alone have sex (i think you're worried about that). and i was the only one i can assure you.

 it was a mental night. we only got home at 2 though (not too late) but we had to wake up at 8 and i've felt really ill all day.. i think it's a mix of freezing temp, smell of meat in this resto, no sleep, etc.
it's a competition of who can resist the urge to run away the longest here... we all hate it because it's freezing and it's a shit hole.

tomo we are going to Strasbourg from 7 till 8h30!!!! so long day and so boring..
the divide is well funny like Les Anglais are in one corner and the Frogs in the other.
I miss you alot and the really warm weather in ldn.

here you get a moany message too:
their bloody accents!!!!!! so provincial. it drives me crazy.
and im so tired always.
and i hate these french people and their pathetic little village.
and THE COLD MAN. 

i've got another warm jacket given to me so it'll be better tomo.
O omg. I'm so tired all the time.
Family are okay they give me alcohol so it makes up for everything else... don't worry it's just at dinner. It's so cool.
sooooooooo boringgggggggggg. I wish I was in LDN so much: no school, snowing, warm. etc.

Yep the french did come with to strasbourg today but it's not like that made a difference, we never talk to them and they HATE us (especially me )..."

The family give her alcohol every night?

Everybody but her had sex at the party?

Did I read that right?

Teenage kicks

My daughter is now in France on the exchange trip. I got virtually tear-stained desperate texts on the first (Thursday) night.

"I'm scared. It's awful here. I love you so much now."

On Friday evening I got the news that my daughter's best friend, who was still in London, had called the school saying that there was a bomb. She then called the police to repeat the same warning. The police traced the call and caught her at a phone box near the school. Helicopters, two police vans, several police cars and sniffer dogs arrived. The whole operation cost over £100,000. 

Some of the pupils at this school, the Lycée francais in London, are diplomat's children. In fact the girl's sister is Madonna's daughter's best friend. A threat like that would be taken extremely seriously.

The entire school, almost 4000 children, were evacuated to a nearby park. This was done within 10 minutes. The children were told that there was a bomb warning. Some of the smaller children were cold, they had no time to pick up their coats. But nobody panicked. 

My daughter's best friend spent the day in prison and has been expelled. Her parents are mortified. Her father, who is Syrian, no doubt spent a few uncomfortable hours with the police. Their house was searched.

My teen messaged me on Friday from Facebook, so annoyed.

"I've been waiting for years for something like that to happen. Why didn't she do it while I was at school? Why did she do it while I was away?"

I think things must have improved on the exchange visit because I haven't heard from my teen since.

Update: the girl did the fake bomb message to avoid a history test that afternoon. Love it. Teenagers eh? 

Like a virgin

Talking about my teenager's trip to rural France (tomorrow yikes!) a friend from the Irish countryside said

"Well of course in the countryside, all teenagers do is have sex. There is nothing else to do. When I came to London I met people that didn't get round to having sex until they were 21, they were so busy".

That evening I asked my daughter:"Are you going to have sex in France?"

Spluttering her tea she said:"NO!"

"In fact I'm so sick of hearing about sex. That's all they talk about at school. The more they talk about it, the less I want to do it. One girl writes 'I love sex' all over her pencil case and her exercise books. It's pathetic. I know for a fact that she's only had sex once. And she didn't even like it. But she keeps making out like she loves it. To be popular."

It is moments like this that I truly love my daughter and think that I must be doing something right. 

I was at school near Swiss Cottage and we had to walk to Belsize Park to play tennis. There must have been rehearsal studios there because every week we would see men with long hair and guitars unloading their van. One week, a group of us 14 year old schoolgirls were standing around watching them when one of the men stopped unloading. He perused our group and commanded

"Hands up who's a virgin!"

Embarrassed, our hands remained firmly next to our sides except for an orthodox Jewish girl, Esther, who wore thick round glasses and had her hair in pigtails. She was the only one who didn't hitch her school skirt up to look like a mini-skirt. She said daily prayers over her packed lunch. 

Esther proudly put up her hand with the enthusiasm of a pupil knowing the answer to a teacher's question.

The group of long-haired men laughed.

A few weeks later I recognized the same men on the TV, they were a band called Thin Lizzy. 

The school trip looms...

My teenager and I are both anxious about the school trip to Epinal next week.

"Mum, I don't want to goooo" she says.

We looked at pictures of her 'correspondant', the girl she will stay with.

"She's a geek!" declares my teenager in dismay.

"I'm sure she's very nice" I reply firmly but note that both parents are accountants.

My daughter and her friends have started a special group on Facebook, inviting the exchange students to join. The London lycée students are talking, with awe, about the fact that the students from Epinal are allowed out till midnight on weekdays and 3 a.m. on weekends.

"That's because they are in the countryside" I explain "they probably just hang out at each other's houses or play babyfoot in the local tabac. It's not like they are out clubbing, as they would be if they lived in London."

The return exchange happens in March, when they come to us. No way are they going out till midnight or 3 a.m. in London, I don't care what her parents have given permission for or what the form says. 

Interesting random fact: people from Epinal are called 'Spinaloi's'.