When girls crash through the age barrier

CONTRARY to appearances, this is not a parenting column but as a parent on my third teenage child, I assumed I would have had the whole teenage thing mastered by now. I don’t.

My two eldest kids are boys and my “baby” is a girl. Entering her teenage years, I used to resent the mothers of girls who would knowingly nod towards my daughter and warn me that the worst was yet to come; that girls are “different” from boys. It implied that we parents of boys had nothing to worry about, that the boys were grand and if we had troubles, then they were nothing compared to the girls’.

Irritated I would point out the dangers surrounding teenage boys, citing my greatest fear – those senseless, violent attacks on young men. Now that my sons are both over 18 and have the means to pay for things themselves, this crazy world and its social life is their oyster. They are out there and I cannot protect them. I can equip them with common sense of course but it’s down to them to use it.

Then almost without my seeing, my daughter is fast approaching adulthood and hands-up and red-faced, I concede that I now understand what the mothers of females were trying to tell me all along; mothering girls on the cusp of womanhood is a whole other parenting world.

When my sons go out at night, their preparation is minimal. Sure, they wear a smarter shirt, swop the slouchy sweats for the skinny jeans, prime the hair and produce wafts of aftershave on which you could literally lie horizontally. But ultimately I see them as my boys turned into men.

When my daughter goes out, I don’t recognise her.

Naturally I am well used to the whole Irish culture of female preparation; it’s an art-form really and one which my daughter and her friends have been practising for a while now. Still it was different when they were younger. When they were younger, it was clear they were young ones trying to look older and that for all their Boohoo dresses, sky-scraper heels and false tan, they were just little girls playing at being older girls. It was scary and unsettling but all told it was controllable.

But when the all-important crossing line between childhood and adulthood looms, control becomes a slippery surface and despite exhaustive efforts, the handle on certain situations is not quite as steady.

When my daughter goes out of a night, she looks very beautiful but she looks five years older than her 17 years. It’s no longer a case of playing grown-up – she looks grown up. But she’s not. Yet how do I tell this crazy world that? Do I lock her up? Forbid her to wear what her friends are wearing? Do I compromise? Plead? Surrender? Or do I hold her to me until age catches up with appearances?

This is not a parenting column – its just me thrashing out what I thought I would know by now!