Hilarious and spot-on
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I am astounded by some of the negative reviews this book has attracted and I do wonder what on earth people were expecting - have they actually met a modern teenager, let alone given birth to any?!
Okay, so this lot are both very urban and very middle class but the writer is not pretending anything else, is she? Neither does she pretend to be a perfect mother ( far from it - she is constantly self-critical) One reviewer says she sounds selfish. SELFISH! Good GOD! Speaking as one who is also hanging on to this particular cliff-edge I am just impressed that, throughout, she manages to find such an endless supply of patience and sympathy - it's more than I have with mine!
An interesting comparison is Gina Davidson's books about her daughter 'Treasure' written in the 90's and, like this one, originating from a Guardian column. Not that much seems to have changed except, certainly, how explicit the anonymous writer here has felt able to be with expetives...
I read this book in a sitting, snorting with laughter and whooping with recognition. I have one very, er, challenging teenager and one who is a completely different character and has, so far, given me no trouble at all.
I found possibly the most touching moment in the book was when the mother looks at all the perfectly turned-out and maturely-behaved young ladies at a wedding and suddenly longs for her own prickly, difficult, stylish and utterly original daughter.
For readers who, like me, find that it helps SO much just knowing you are not alone, hearing how others deal with this stuff and - perhaps most importantly - being able to laugh about it, this book is a gem.
I also recommend another title: 'Get out of my life but first take me and Alex into town'.
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Touching and frightening in equal measures
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Reading this book is like watching a car crash happen in slow motion. You long to intervene, to shout a warning, to wrench the steering wheel back on track. You even long to look away. But you can't do anything, you can't help, and somehow the story compels you to keep going with it.
It's a very engaging book. It's not a "how to" book: Anonymous doesn't offer any parenting lessons or pep talks or bracing anecdotes of "this is what worked for us, this is how you turn your teen into a well formed adult". She just tells you what happened (no doubt with a spot of journalistic exaggeration). In so far as you DO learn from it, it's "how not to", to be honest. She and her husband seem to have very little control over their children, who swear at them, steal from them, lie to them, smoke everything they can get hold of and break every promise going. By the end of the book the eldest child has dropped out and is living in a squalid flat, drugged up and hoping vaguely to form a band. So far, so depressing.
But what makes this book gripping, and actually rather moving and touching, is the way that Anonymous weaves in her own story of the experience of motherhood, and how she contrasts the present with the past when the children were small. She tells simply and powerfully of how she longed for them, how she loved them, how she mothered them. She remembers their warm little bodies in bed with her, the smell of their hair, the fun over simple things, their emerging personalities, the tooth brushing, the soft toys. All the sweet and simple things of childhood, and what they meant to her, and how proud and happy she was and how hopeful it all seemed. And then with a jolt it's back to now, and the little boy who's turned into the yoof in a hoodie in front of her telling her she's a "sh*t mother" and asking for money which she knows he will spend on draw. She's aware of her own inability to set boundaries, to enforce punishments, but she seems powerless to change.
I really recommend this book. It's not deep, it's not analytical, but it is an unusual and interesting mix of the touching and the frightening. And as "how not to" books go, it's very effective!
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Possibly the least self-aware author ever ?
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Anonymous wrote the column from which the book is drawn as a means of coping with the stresses and strains of bringing up three gorgeous, bright, funny, exasperating London teenagers. Or, she wrote it to distract herself from her inability to cope with the rigours of living with three foul-mouthed, disturbed, violent, abusive drug-taking reprobates. Take your pick. I have a 15 year-old daughter and some experience of living with someone who is suffering from mental disorders (not my daughter) and I have to say, the three teenagers struck me as deranged and Anonymous on the verge of a breakdown.
How The Guardian didn't see fit to step in as the dreadful story unfolded week by week is beyond me.
This is a seriously worrying book if it is even half-way true as it illustrates the fiction that it is only the deprived who fail to exhibit adequate parenting skills. The frequency with which these awful people lie, swear at their parents, break promises, steal and squander their considerable talents is very depresssing.
My daughter got hold of it and read it before I did. I asked her whether she thought the portrayal of the kids was realistic. Let's face it, she is certainly no angel herself at times.
"I know people like that", she said, "None of them are my friends though".
I wanted to know what she thought of the book overall.
"The adults are rubbish parents", she said.
Well, quite.
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A little maddening for an actual teenager to read.
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Apparently, this column was recently discontinued due to the kids involved having found out and confronted their mother on why their lives where being plashed across the guardian's family supplement on a weekly basis, without their knowledge.
So... fair enough, it stopped - but I do wonder whether it's really okay anyway? After all, everyone recognises how irrational, irritating, embarrassing and occasionally downright insane people can be as teenagers.
I guess if I apply some infuriating teenage logic to the subject, I would ask; Is it okay go go breaking in to peoples houses and stealing the clothes they never wear until you get caught? (maybe because someone wonders what the hell happened to their flares)
But then again, I thought it was pretty entertaining and occasionally insightful throughout.
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Don't let your teenager read this book
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My teenager is an avid reader and I encouraged her to give this book to her Dad for his birthday as a sort of joke because we have 3 teenage children and we thought they were pretty bad - she read the book first WHAT A MISTAKE. We thought she was difficult but the teenagers in this book are the worst - they swear dreadfully, take drugs, steal etc and their mother is a total wimp- my daughter is now convinced she is an angel and our lives are now even more fraught with rebelliousness
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