As part of my blog tour for 'This Family Life', I've asked other writers to write blogs for me, and today we have the very wonderful and funny Sue Watson. If you haven't heard of Sue or read any of her books, she's currently in the Kindle top 100 with her latest romantic comedy 'Love, Lies and Lemon Cake' which you should definitely check out right now! So without further waffle from me, here's Sue and her very funny blog about being the parent of a teenager!
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| SUE WATSON |
Hi Jon Rance fans! As part of his ‘This family Life’ blog tour, Jon is over on my blog talking about the highs, lows and apocalyptic horrors of early parenthood so do pop over. http://www.suewatsonbooks.com/
As a mother of a 15-year-old I read Jon’s hilarious blog
post with a strange combination of revulsion and deep, nostalgic longing for ‘The
Nappy Years’. I am here to tell Harry (and Jon for that matter!) that once they
hit puberty the vile and disgusting contents of his children’s potties will
seem like a day in the park.
Like all teenagers my
daughter firmly believes the sole reason for her parents’ existence is to cause
her maximum embarrassment. I’m over forty, not cool, I can’t get free tickets
to gigs, I don’t speak in acronyms (WTF is that about?) and I’m not on Snap Chat,
Kick Ass, Ask Fm nor, sadly am I a YouTube sensation (but I’d give it a go). Therefore,
it seems without these highly rated teen credentials I am of no use to the
world and should leave at the earliest opportunity.
In my new book ‘Love,Lies and Lemon Cake,’ the main character Faye is over forty her only child has
left home and she’s feeling pretty useless. But I reckon the teenage process is
put there to prepare parents for the empty nest and that apart from the obvious
dispensing of cash or lifts by car, parents are pretty pointless when a kid
hits their teens. At 2 or 3 years old a little one smiles and looks in
wonderment at Mummy and Daddy – but at 13 your own child is replaced by
something scary. On their thirteenth birthday, all children are reprogrammed to
roll their eyes at anyone over 25, put two fingers up in family holiday snaps,
say ‘gross’ or ‘ew’ to everything a parent utters and treat any polite inquiry
regarding school or food consumption as ‘interrogation.’
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| PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE |
When my daughter became
a teen I worried we’d grow apart so attempted to involve myself in her life by requesting
her friendship on Face Book. This was grudgingly accepted with conditions: I
wasn’t allowed to ‘lurk’ ‘like’ or ‘tag’ and under no circumstances was I ever permitted
to put a smiley face (or anything else ‘lame’) on her status updates.
I accepted her
‘friendship’ with the humble gratefulness of Uriah Heap adhering strictly to the
somewhat rigid rules my internet Scrooge imposed. However, recently I suffered an
immediate un-friending and my first verbal warning when, on my own page I
posted a lovely picture of the cat. Okay, I may have referred to the cat as ‘my
pussy,’ which might have been taken as a double entendre by some – but this, to
my daughter was apparently the ultimate, ‘gross... eww.’ I’m currently sitting
on the Face Book naughty step and have been told sanctions will be lifted when
I’ve earned some online trust and stopped doing ‘Carry On’ style updates with
Mrs Slocombe undertones (my words – she’s never heard of either).
I could write for hours on this subject I have so much
material – as this is just a flavour of the joyful teenage confection to come. But
in the meantime don’t worry Harry (Jon) if this all seems a bit daunting
because there is a light at the end of the teenage tunnel. As writers we can have
exquisite revenge on our teen tormentors... use all their lines and turn them
into a book. Now how ‘gross’ is that? Eww!
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| LOVE, LIES AND LEMON CAKE |
If you want to read my blog on her site, please pop over here http://www.suewatsonbooks.com/family-life-jon-rance/
Until next time.
Hugs,
Jon X
