Confessions of a Bad Mother: The Teenage Years

by Stephanie Calman

  ‘WHY? WHY IS HE DOING THAT? WHY?!’

  ‘Because he wants her to marry him instead of the other man. Well, actually two other—’

  ‘I’VE GOT A BIG POO IN MY BOTTOM!’

  ‘All right, darling, just a minute.’

  ‘IT’S COMING OUT – NOW!!’

  Whatever happened to Couples’ Time?

  What’s become of the Good Enough Parent?

  And what the hell are these people going to do when – if – their children ever move out?

  Uber has liberated some of us from giving lifts to older kids, with the result that there are now teenagers who’ve never been on public transport. Some parents think buses are mobile non-secure units for the deranged, and of course they are, but that also makes them invaluable training facilities for spotting creeps and weirdos before you encounter them at work. If you ever get that far. The Bugaboo-to-Uber child will never be mugged on the night bus. But will they find it harder to cope with university in a strange town? Maybe in the future they’ll go everywhere in special transfer pods, inside tubes like those sealed corridors that take you from the terminal to the plane but without the scary strangers. Actually, since it seems that autonomous vehicles might catch on, that’s not so unlikely. We’re promised our own individual ones, for maximum personal freedom – and isolation. And less freedom for the young, whose parents will still know where they are at all times.

  A group of guests at our kitchen table recall how much more relaxed things were in the past.

  ‘I used to walk to school, when I was about eight. Now, people won’t let their kids go anywhere.’

  ‘I blame social media: there’s too much ability to be in touch all the time.’

  ‘Yes!’ says another. ‘They track them via their phones.’

  These are not our friends but Lawrence’s.

  ‘Listen to this,’ says a girl possibly named Harry. ‘My parents were away, and when they came back – a bit earlier than expected – I was out.’

  ‘How old were you?’ I ask.

  ‘Eighteen! I didn’t know they were back. After the gig or whatever it was, I went back to a friend’s. My phone was off. And they went crazy.’

  They started panicking, phoning and texting her friends. At 9 a.m. they rang the police.

  ‘They had the dogs out – everything.’

  ‘They just have too much ability to be in touch,’ says one of the others. ‘There’s Find My iPhone, Oyster tracking . . .’

  Another chips in:

  ‘My friend was tracked by his parents via an app on his phone.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘If he turned it off, they cut off his allowance.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  I never imagined a time when we’d have our own kids under surveillance.

  ‘But why?’

  She pauses for a moment. ‘I think it was to make sure he wasn’t buying dope.’

  It doesn’t do that, though, does it? After all, the pulsing white dot in Alien shows us where the monster is; it doesn’t save the crew.

  Light at the End of the Tunnel

  Lawrence is down for the holidays. I’m getting the hang of the routine now. The first bit, when he’s just arrived, is not always easy, but the rest is starting to feel more normal, and the delicious meals he makes when he’s here definitely help.

  He is in the hall, with his bass on his back.

  ‘I’ll see you later. I’m just going over to Cameron’s.’

  ‘D’you need a lift?’

  Despite the statistical unlikelihood of his being mugged for a second-hand left-handed bass, I worry. And it is South London, a transport Bermuda Triangle.

  ‘Nah, it’s fine. I’m meeting the others.’

  ‘Others . . .?’

  OMG.

  He’s in a band.

  The first band was back in Year Eight. One of us would drive him with his bass over to the house where the drummer lived, because whoever has the drum kit has to host, and Alex, the abnormally well-organized guitarist, would always ring first not only to give him the rehearsal time but to remind him to bring a packed lunch. I bet Jimi Hendrix never had someone to do that for him; his life could have been so different. Anyway, that boy will go far.

  The next thing we know, they’ve lined up a gig.

  ‘Can we come? Can we come? Please please please please?’

  ‘Not really.’

  It’s in Manchester, at a tiny venue, and they’re not ready to be seen yet, by us. Or, for all we know, anyone.

  The next gig is bigger – but still in Manchester and still too soon for us to come. Actually, it is extremely soon.

  I say:

  ‘Do you think you should organize some rehearsals?’

  Alert: you are close to your Helicoptering Allowance for this month.

  ‘What, before performing in front of two hundred people? Why would we do that?’

  A couple of days later I’m heading downstairs and hear music: music I don’t recognize, but rather like. Mmm, an eclectic sort of style . . . production’s a bit rough. Then I realize it’s live. They’re rehearsing!

  I hurriedly text Peter THYRE PLAYG IN TH KTCHN but he doesn’t reply so I dial his number, then press the red button so he can hear them for himself, but I just get a mystified DID U CALL? So I surreptitiously try to record them on my phone by propping it up against the coffee jar while pretending to boil the kettle, but fail to secure it properly so it crashes noisily to the floor – just as they all get to the end of the song and look up.

  Just behave normally.

  ‘That was so good!’

  ‘Hey, thanks,’ they say politely. ‘Are you coming to the gig?’

  WE’V BN INVITD TO A GIG!

  The venue is a pub, in nearby Peckham. A couple of the other parents are there too, and Lawrence’s girlfriend. She’s another beauty, with dark tumbling curls and a Fifties film star figure, and she reads – books!

  Lydia arrives with her friends. I know: I’ll be the generous parent and offer to buy them all a drink. It’ll make her look good too.

  ‘Thanks! A double Captain Morgan and Coke, please,’ they all chant sweetly.

  This round’s about to cost me over £30!

  ‘Yeah, I got them into that,’ says Lydia.

  Mm, well done.

  I debate briefly whether to get the cheaper stuff or even singles, but I don’t want to show her up. And it is so nice to see the delighted expressions on their little faces, just like when it was Easter eggs, or fairy cakes with different coloured icing. It must be years since I last bought a round, so that takes me back – in both senses. But what feels really strange is what happens next.

  The moment I step through the doorway into the function room, the decades fall away. I’ve just left school and joined a small music paper, on £2,800 – a year. I’m eighteen again, only instead of Linx or Incognito onstage it’s my child, who’s roughly the same age, in a strange but beautiful time loop. The sensation is so vivid, I almost reach for my notebook.

  I drift off into my memories.

  Then I realize I’m moving.

  To the beat.

  And so is Peter, just a little.

  Oh no . . .

  I once nodded my head to a song – and mouthed some of the lyrics – at a school concert, and Lydia was so horrified she left the hall. And at the time I thought: Bit of an overreaction, Drama Queen. But now I’m cringing retrospectively. If my mother had done that at my school, I would not only have fled the building but run all the way to Dover and got on the next ferry – to anywhere.

  I stop dead, and see Lawrence grinning at me.

  It’s OK! He’s not going to jump down off the stage mid-song to march us to the exit. Even so, I keep it to within a square foot or so, to be safe – and because Lydia is not far away, and while he may have come through the Tunnel of Embarrassment into the light beyond, she has not.

  After the set we go and sit ba
ck down again at the same table, as no one has taken our seats.

  ‘Wow!’ I say to Peter. ‘This is so great! We can hear and we can sit down!’

  ‘Let’s quit while we’re ahead.’

  We say well done to the boys, and I give Lawrence a twenty to get some drinks; being a student he considers this a perfectly decent amount. The sooner we get his sister off to art school, frankly, the better.

  So we drift towards the door with an understated wave, but they come over and envelop us in generous hugs.

  ‘Thanks for coming!’ they say.

  ‘No, thank you!’

  We get into the car, and Peter says:

  ‘I feel as though we’re in a new phase.’

  Though he says this if they put their mugs and their plates in the dishwasher, this time I think he’s right.

  ‘When they’re little,’ he muses, ‘you take them for playdates and talk to the other parents and so on. Then when they become teenagers they can’t mix you with their friends any more, because they’re trying out their new selves and they don’t want you to see.’

  And because suddenly you’ve become a hideous liability, unable to perform the most rudimentary social transaction, such as asking, ‘Would any of you like something to eat?’ without causing them to recoil in horror and hurl themselves screaming from the room.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now . . . we’re – adults, and so are they, almost. Before, it was a bit like we were some old item of clothing they were forced to wear; they had to keep shaking us off.’

  As if we’d suddenly gone out of fashion: parents – they’re just so last year.

  ‘And now we’re on equal ground. They don’t feel responsible for our behaviour any more.’

  And I no longer tell Lawrence, when we bump into people, to say hello.

  ‘They were quite good, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m so glad we never paid for music lessons.’

  Considering what we’ve just spent on double Captain Morgans, it’s just as well.

  Life Skills

  Lydia sits me down at the table.

  ‘Right, Mum. I’m going to show you something.’

  ‘Er – OK.’

  She produces a cardboard box from a paper carrier and takes out a piece of fried chicken. It smells lovely.

  ‘OK, pick it up.’

  I take it and bring it up to my mouth.

  ‘No, don’t eat it. Hold it, like this. And just bite off the end. Now, you see that bit just peeping out there? Take that, and pull.’

  It’s a bone. I remove it.

  ‘Now, do the same with this . . .’

  The second bone also slides out easily. There is just flesh and crispy coating left.

  ‘Ooh.’

  She gestures, and I put it in my mouth.

  ‘Mmm. That is delicious.’

  ‘And that is How You Eat Wings.’

  I guess she feels, now that she’s passed this on, that I am ready for her to leave.

  And Lawrence? I can officially stop worrying about him, for I now have definitive proof that he is a grown-up. From a launderette in Manchester he texts:

  Guy gave me a free wash while he was fixing the machine. Literally the Best Day Ever.

  Coda

  Peter has taken Lydia to her Halls of Residence and the house is eerily quiet. There are no platforms, fake-fur coats or cans of Venom in the hall; no random damp towels draped over the banisters.

  I put on Radio 4 and start the supper. It still feels too quiet.

  I know – I’ll listen to one of Lawrence’s playlists, with the good speakers he convinced me to buy myself for Christmas.

  Remember to wait for the Bluetooth . . .

  Remember to select the speakers, not just gaze blankly at them.

  The room fills with music.

  Ah, that’s better.

  I go over to the back door to close the curtains, and see his bass, lying across the sofa. When I lift it, I find it’s still plugged into the amp.

  Acknowledgements

  Once again, I’ve been the beneficiary of the commercial and creative brilliance of the best agent in the world, Mark Lucas. Both he and my editor, George Morley, inspired and cajoled me to produce work infinitely better than I could have managed alone. I’d also like to thank the copy-editor Jessica Cuthbert-Smith, Laura Carr, Liz Marvin and Chloe May, whose efforts smoothed away those remaining flaws that could be smoothed.

  My husband and fellow writer Peter Grimsdale urged me not to pull my punches, as well as being endlessly willing to have his carelessly uttered words recorded and exposed on the page for the benefit and entertainment of others.

  To Lawrence and Lydia, who were so generous with the material from their own lives and tolerated my interpretation of it, I am also deeply indebted. And thanks go to Lawrence’s friends for sharing their acute and invaluable observations on the age of surveillance.

  Sophie Doyle is owed huge thanks for courage in the face of receipts, lists, sudden texts and piles of family archive blocking the way to the desk. She makes our lives less chaotic and is indispensable. I’m also indebted to the wonderful people on the 10th floor of North Wing.

  Thanks go also to all those dear friends who gamely allowed me to include their own experiences and mishaps: Patrick Tatham, Karen Stirgwolt, Lucy Lindsay, Jon Price, Jo Hage, Sarah Beardsall, Sarah Harding, Diane McDonald, Angela Neuberger, Max Neuberger, James Castle, Liz and Gabriel Irwin, Susie and Justin Foulds, Alan Bookbinder, Jessica Ray, Jane Gaspar, Tilly Vosburgh and Teresa Howard. Teresa’s advice here is worth the cover price.

  I’m also grateful to my sister, the novelist Claire Calman, for her morale-boosting emails and forensic standards of fact checking, for example of the exact workings of Katie Kopycat.

  My mother, Pat McNeill, who died while I was writing this book, was a sceptic who showed by her example how to resist the fads and commercially driven scaremongering which have increasingly colonized the field of parenting. My writing has benefitted hugely from her influence.

  Finally, a huge and heartfelt thank you to Katarina Petruscakova, who’s evolved over twenty years from nanny and domestic troubleshooter to friend and irreplaceable member of the family. That our offspring are in such good shape is due in no small part to her invaluable contribution.

  Also by Stephanie Calman

  Dressing for Breakfast

  Gentlemen Prefer My Sister

  Confessions of a Bad Mother

  Confessions of a Failed Grown-Up

  How (Not) to Murder Your Mother

  How (Not) to Murder Your Husband

  First published 2019 by Picador

  This electronic edition first published 2019 by Picador

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5098-8211-3

  Copyright © Stephanie Calman 2019

  Design and illustration: Mel Four / Picador Art Department

  The right of Stephanie Calman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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  bsp; Stephanie Calman, Confessions of a Bad Mother: The Teenage Years