Future looks bright with young, care-free stars
Love Lewis Capaldi for his unashamed daftboyness. So I can forgive sweary Buckie-drinking behaviour at the Brits.
And 18-year-old sensation Billie Eilish with her wild hair and wacky outfits is such a refreshing change.
Teenage girls should be edgy, not dressed like they’re Generation Game hostesses from the 70s. Full-length gowns? Why?
But the Brits show was stolen by rapper Dave who performed a postively poetic set about being black in Britain. He even called Boris Johnson a racist.
If the new generation of musicians refuse to toe the line of mediamanaged reality TV clones, there’s hope for the future.
How are we supposed to advise him on negotiating what lies ahead when we haven’t worked out how to negotiate
21st century life ourselves?
We didn’t grow up in a world of social media. Bullies beat you up at school but they didn’t have 24-hour access to you.
Strangers were strangers and if they’d tried to reach out to you in any way, your parents would phone the police ‘cos they were clearly weirdos with bad intentions.
Trolls lived under bridges and persecuted the Billy Goats Gruff.
And choosing careers was relatively easy because the same kind had been around for donkey’s years.
No one wanted to be an “influencer” or a “YouTuber”, no one dreamed of fame on a reality show or riches from marrying a Premier League footballer. No one could have planned to be a Bitcoin trader or a media mogul.
There will be many parents out there, like us, fretting and struggling with the dreaded “options” at high school because we’re not sure what difference any subjects will make to our kids’ future prospects.
Should my 13-year-old choose engineering science (what even is that?) over practical technology (which is woodwork, I think), even though he shows absolutely no signs of becoming the next Elon Musk and has created nothing remotely practical, unless I find a use for a wooden block with a groove through the middle (I’m told it’s a mobile phone holder but I’m not convinced)?
Is it a waste of time to study French or Spanish when we’re cutting ties with Europe and retracting into Little England, so he’s unlikely to need the ability to converse in anything more complicated than text speak.
Should he bother putting in the slog for maths when computers work out everything on his behalf and he might more gainfully spend his time playing Fortnite ‘cos at least there’s money in competition or sponsorship?
We had a thrilling moment when he declared he’d like to work for Google then we realised he’d simply heard they have helter-skelters in their offices.
My older boy, who’s 16, is hoping to become a doctor (yes, he gets his brains from his father) but the pressure of Highers is bearing down hard and the closer they get, the more he insists he’d be satisfied working in the local pool hall.
I snapped his pool cue accidentally. Honestly.
It’s a minefield for parents but in the midst of all the stress, we’ve been offered some consolation of the “it-could-be-worse” type.
Billionaire, worldrenowned movie director Steven Spielberg has been informed by his daughter Mikaela that she’s going to be a porn star and has already started producing her own “solo” videos.
Working in a traditional job just wasn’t satisfying her soul, apparently.
The 23-year-old told her parents last weekend and claims they were “intrigued” and supportive of her intention to “honour my body in a way that’s lucrative”.
Interestingly, she told them by FaceTime, not while sitting in the same room. Can you imagine the scene in the Spielberg family mansion after they closed the laptop on their “adult entertainer” daughter?
The phrase “tears and snot” springs to mind. That wasn’t the way they’d hoped she’d follow her father into films. But what can they do but support and protect her?
And at least, their troubles make our problems with a 13-year-old seem relatively mild, though we have taken the precaution of steering him away from studying drama in case he gets the taste for public entertainment.
It is so very hard to offer guidance but after the terrible events of the past week, we plan to stick with the sage advice: “Do what makes you happy, ‘cos life’s too bloomin’ short.”
Just don’t become a porn star...
Mikaela and with dad Steven, above