Let’s do this together

The Monday morning blues crashed into the back-to-school holiday blues yesterday, which means The Dark Lord is a no-go zone at the moment unless I want my head ripped off.

I have to admit, I had no idea parenting a teenager would be this hard. There should be health warnings: “Nookey kills – a minute in the sack, a lifetime on your back.”

Kids wreck your looks, career, bank balance and mental health, and then just when you think you’re getting your life back, they hit puberty, and you go through it all again, but this time they don’t draw you cute paintings or give you sticky kisses.

Admittedly the “I hate school” phase has been going on a while, but it’s very hard to work out why The Dark Lord feels so personally aggrieved at being given an education. Much of it is hormonal, of course, and also down to a chronic lack of sleep. No matter how many hours of sleep she gets, The Dark Lord is grumpy at night and in a double grump in the morning.

Getting her to go to bed at a sensible time is tough, and it’s hard to argue with her logic.

“If I go to bed, that means it’ll soon be time to get up and go to school,” she’ll growl.

I’ve even started setting the alarm in the morning 20 minutes earlier to give her swearing and clumping around time. And just lately I’ve had to add an extra 10 minutes for hair-straightener time, so she can flatten her curly hair to flop down and give her something to scowl behind.

Sometimes I go to say something, then remember that even my breathing annoys her. Then when we arrive at the school gates, it’s like a switch is flicked. “Oh hi, how are you?” she smiles at her friends, getting out of the car and motioning for me to move away quickly in case anyone should think we’re related.

Soon as she’s out of sight, I flick a V sign and stick my tongue out at her.

It’s childish but I feel better.

Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.