I think this one needs to be your Mum’s hair – tidy but not necessarily stylish – could you copy it? Would you want to? Go on – have a go – do her hair – be her for a day…
Family. Family. Family.
What a minefield?
And when you’re a teenager it’s like someone flicks this switch and everything that was warm and comforting about your family becomes like nails down a blackboard. You can’t even watch them eat without wanting to KILL THEM.
I can remember watching my mother drinking a cup of tea and having to leave the room because the way she did it was so irritating! And your family in public? Oh…so much worse. If we could just keep them in the house and not allow them out until you turn 25 – life would be so much better! I think if you can name all this stuff and laugh at it too then it can really help. It stops the feeling of isolation of ‘nobody’s family is more embarrassing than mine’.
In Dads, Geeks Sadie’s family is perhaps more extreme – being in such close proximity – than other families.
But all of your parents have friends don’t they? And they all talk – we know that. You leave the room and they’re talking about the latest things you’ve been up to . In my family my poor older sister’s exploits were legendary; the time she went to a David Bowie concert and was in a stampede and came back with only one shoe, the time she caught the wrong train home and had to fling herself out of a moving train at our station because possible death was preferable to the wrath of my parents etc., but by the time it got to me nobody noticed what I was doing. I was completely off the hook which of course was very unfair.
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