When Mum’s got the puberty blues

If a teenager gets a whiff of a parental weakness they won’t hesitate to go in for the kill.

Let’s face it, being a parent of teenagers isn’t much fun. Almost overnight your sweet angel child with the dimpled cheeks and baby powder aroma has turned into a sweaty smelly grunting know-it-all who doesn’t want anything to do with you unless it involves you lending them $20 or dropping them to a party. Puberty pulses hormones around their bodies, and it’s hard to reconcile that the cute child you gave birth to is now this seething mass of mood swings and melancholy.

But something has recently popped into my son’s life that has me feeling better about parenting a juvenile. Within these dark days of teenage trauma, just below the surface lies a benefit, a gift if you will. A gift that keeps on giving and giving, and giving. Pimples.

I’ve always loved them – particularly on other people who need me to squeeze them. For the past 21 years this has been restricted to the occasional blinder on my husband’s back. Too occasional for my liking, so I’m not ashamed to admit that I was very excited when a friend introduced me to the wonders of Dr Sandra Lee, aka Dr Pimple Popper. She was my kind of woman, taking the art of pimple popping (and it is an art, I’ll argue that) to new heights by developing an online platform of videos showing some of the best sebaceous squeezing ever.

So now I can create some of this magic right here in my own home. Yes dear readers, dreams can come true.

I’ve gone and purchased all the tools the experts use on their videos: latex gloves, head lamp, blackhead extractors, spiked tweezers for releasing built-up pressure, and disinfectant wipes, so

I’m prepared to ready, set, squeeze.

I considered the white coat, safety goggles and Dr Parent Pimple Popper MD (Mother Dear) sign for the bathroom door but thought that might be a bit OTT at this early career stage. Oh yes, with four kids coming through the adolescent ranks over the next few years, this activity has the potential to occupy all my spare time.

Sadly, we’re nowhere near video-ready as my 13-year-old is yet to reach the dizzying heights of acne experienced by his father at the same age and, so far, has only provided a few small chin eruptions and blackheads through the T-zone. Of course, like most teenage boys he’s not keen for me to go anywhere near him. But as my Grandma once said, “If there is pus about it must come out.” So, again, I’m exhibiting best practice role modelling and bribing him to let me corner the carbuncles.

Actually, that does me a disservice, I’m not bribing him, rather I’m offering him incentives for participation. He wants some time on Instagram? Sure, I’ll provide it if he lets me have an up-close-and-personal with his nose. He wants to go to the football with his mates to watch the under-18s play? Of course, but let me run the blackhead extractor over your problem areas for a bit before you go darl…

He’s onto me though, and has worked out that I’m more interested in the pimples than he is in the freedom, so he’s started to bribe – sorry, incentivise – my parenting. Just yesterday he woke with a cracker on his forehead ripe for release. Before I could say ‘Clearasil’ he upped the ante and said “I’ll let you squeeze it for five mins uninterrupted if you give me $10, take me to the movies and not worry about me cleaning my room…”

Grrrrrr, teenagers, they really get under my skin….