Thirteen candles

Thirty three years after I ceased to be one myself there is once again a teenager in the house.

My teenager.

And like all parents left wrong-footed by their offspring’s seemingly galloping growth I find myself pondering: how?

One minute he’s sleeping in a Moses basket, the next I’m buying school shoes, then barely have we marked double-figures but a hop, skip, and a global pandemic later,...boom - teendom: a unique seven-year adventure from gauche adolescence to fledgling adulthood via a maelstrom of testosterone, cortisol and angst.

Here. We. Come.

There is nothing of the baby left in my young hormone volcano - except perhaps from the occasional needy plea in his ever maturing voice. And yet beneath the height, the hair, the pimples and the pubes - my baby he irrevocably remains.

Time may prove me wrong but I have a theory that no matter how old our children become we never quite lose the muscle memory of what it was to hold them as infants. Even now, 14 years after he was surgically wrestled from my body, if I close my eyes I can still viscerally recall wet little lips falling on mine, cool pillowy cheeks brushing against my own, whole tiny feet enveloped in a single hand, and thick, play-doh thighs yielding to my clutches. First steps and utterances may fade into history and the scrap books but you never really forget how they felt.

Yet here we are - my baby and me. No heel I’m any longer capable of walking in is tall enough to redress our height difference, a discreet veil has been drawn over the nakedness he until memorably recently was prepared casually to reveal, and the bedroom door he only weeks ago requested be left open at night so that the hall light might fall a little into his otherwise darkened room is now closed. With each assertion of independence, each small indicator that he wants more space, I bow back a little, like a retreating servant, to provide it.

In fact it occurs to me that much of parenting does lie a little in subservience - in knowing when to speak, when to shut up, when to step back, or step in. And perhaps never more so than during teenage. After all, what else but instinct and observation can a 51-year old rely on when it comes to managing a 21st century, 13-year-old? My own early teens recall the Atari gaming system (remember Pong??), cassette-recording the top 40, and skateboards. This boy’s world features virtual reality and zoom shoes. He’s a born and bred digital citizen - I am an analogue native, adrift in a world whose language feels far from my mother tongue.

And yet the universal themes remain. He may still play with lightsabers (none of your retro plastic, mind - LED blades and sound effects) but the state of his hair these days is as important as any duel.

They’re a breed apart - teenagers: with their own vocabulary, their own logic, their own extraordinary capacity for sleep. Factor in the flouncing and the foot stomping and it’s a bit like living with a semi-wild animal - albeit one that answers back.

I jest. Semi-wild animal, maybe - but magnificent young creature nonetheless.

All birthdays demand a hoolie of course but the truth is that most anniversaries simply mark a segue from one day to the next: new date, new age, then once the party’s over - same old same old. That’s the thing about increments - they happen…incrementally. Thirteen’s different. It’s pivotal - the first of the milestones. Thirteen is a debut, it’s cymbals and timpani, it’s epoch defining - literally the beginning of an era.

All said, despite the considerable generation gap there are some things a young teenage boy and his perimenopausal mother have in common - albeit that absent-mindedness and irritability feature among them. We may be people who frequently misplace our own belongings in our own home but we laugh a lot, too. Looking ahead, I’m counting on that shared sense of humour, along with a dose of luck and a whole lot of love to get us through.

And I wish anyone else who’s sharing their lives with a teenage housemate - all of the same.