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3 hours ago
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The “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon” is a more satisfying name for frequency illusion – noticing a concept, word or product more often just after becoming aware of it. And after reading a fascinating article by a professor who insists that when a teenager makes “the stupid choice”, their brain is actually “working exactly as designed”, I’m suddenly seeing teens everywhere. Not just literally, because it’s the school holidays – hanging about in groups, being scarily tall and all dressed identically – but also in news stories, adverts for adolescent skincare, old clips of Harry Enfield’s Kevin and Perry sketches. Not unrelated: my son’s 12th birthday is fast approaching. This is the very last year my little boy will be nice and preteen, and I’m being reminded from all angles, by all algorithms. Soak up every second while there’s still time! Tick tock, tick tock! Thanks, Baader-Meinhof.
Teenage minds function “in a way that has been shaped by evolution for a unique and uniquely challenging time of life,” according to Dr Evelyn Svingen, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Birmingham. This is reassuring and concerning in equal measures – in the future my son’s going to make dumb decisions, but it’s OK, because that’s what he’s meant to do. Sheesh.
However, the most awful part of preparing to parent a teen is that I’m certain karma is coming for me. My mum physically rubs her hands together with glee whenever the subject arises, already snuggling into her front row seat, ready to enjoy the show. I was the most terrible teenager who has ever stomped across the earth, then slammed the door while screaming “I hate you!” And I’m worried that what goes around will come around. The way my mum tells it – and boy does she still tell it now, decades later – I went up to bed on the eve of my 13th birthday a delightful angel, sunshine personified, cartoon birds landing on my finger. The next morning, I had transformed into the princess of darkness. The sky went black, there was an ominous clap of thunder, and sullen, furious and monosyllabic, I appeared at the breakfast table.
Over the next few years I made every stupid choice going (although, look Mum, it turns out my brain was working exactly as designed). But to be honest, what haunts me most now isn’t the risks I took, the dangerous situations I blundered into, or the mistakes I made, it’s how embarrassed I was by my parents, simply because they existed.
I remember walking into the town where I grew up with my dad once, purposely dawdling to ensure I was five paces behind him, so no one would see us together. Some of this was because he was wearing a deeply unfashionable anorak, but mostly it was because being out in public with either parent was horrific. I didn’t consider for a millisecond what that experience was like for him. The irony that now, 14 years after his death, I would give almost anything to walk down a road with him is not lost on me.
But it’s astonishing how quickly that switch flicked; one day I was happily holding my dad’s hand, chatting away, thrilled to spend as much time with him as possible, the next lagging behind him and eye-rolling like Trinny and Susannah. I can recall that feeling so vividly, and while of course I want my son to be safe through his teen years, it’s humbling to acknowledge that I also really want him to still like his parents, even if only behind closed doors, when nobody’s looking.
His descent into teenagerdom has already started. Driving with him last week I realised I needed to pop into a supermarket, and he was mortified by the idea, in case any of his schoolfriends were around. I suggested he stay in the car, but waiting in the car for your mum is apparently a fate worse than being seen in Sainsbury’s with her, if you can imagine such a thing.
This is an essential stage of growing up. I know we have to try to understand. I know we have to not take it too personally. I know we have to let him go … but not too far, hopefully. Tick tock, tick tock.
