Blaise Tapp: Being parent to a teen can be tricky, but it can also be fun
If I needed a reminder that I’m not as young as I used to be, then the fact my first born turned 15 at the weekend was enough to do the trick.
It was one of those significant life moments that had a much bigger impact on me than I had anticipated – a bit like when I found my first ever earhole hair….but a bit more significant. I mean, middle aged blokes like me are made to feel old on a daily basis – having to Google phrases and words that my kids drop into conversation is standard practice as is explaining to younger colleagues who the Inspiral Carpets and Underworld are.
But suddenly having a child who is within touching distance of adulthood is quite a sobering prospect for anyone who subscribes to the age is just a number philosophy. While each passing birthday of offspring is a reminder that life is moving at pace, this most recent landmark is the most seismic so far, probably because I can remember what life was like for when I was 15. Back when I was the same age my daughter is now, opinions that weren’t nicked from others were beginning to form, my social life was much better than it is today, and I was starting to earn my own money.
It was also the year I started to understand the meaning of independence, which is not to say that all the choices I made back then were good ones – the terrible French crop haircut still haunts me more than 30 years on.
While being a parent to a teenager is as tricky at times as everyone gleefully told me it would be, you can at least begin to reason with a 15-year-old and they do tend to want to frequent the places their parents do, such as football stadiums and half decent restaurants. This coming weekend we will be attending a music festival together and we’ve started to plan which acts we want to see and, surprisingly, it has been amicable. Having a child with broadly similar music tastes to me is a thrill so huge that I can’t really do it justice here.
There is much to be cheerful about having a child who is as close to 10 as they are 20, especially when you can see glimpses of the adult they are likely to become, but it doesn’t half make me feel old.