Hire a teenager now!! While he still knows everything

The funniest bumper sticker I've ever seen on a car is the one that says...."Hire a teenager now !!! While he knows it all.".

It made me laugh because it's so true. . The poor things actually believe it is true, but the thing I find amazing is that it seems to happen overnight.

How is it possible for the child that grew inside you, that you gave birth to, nursed, taught, played with , plus a million other things.....just HOW can said child turn overnight into an alien from the planet Zod??

I can still remember the shock inside me,as I spoke to my son one morning, a simple , normal, schoolday and felt I was talking to a complete stranger.This is not my son, I thought. (steady on Dim,) Look at him. Yes, same height, same weight,same features, same auburn hair even though he had shaved it to within an inch of its life.. I immediately think the 'hair' thing is my fault because he had such beautiful thick , wavy auburn hair I never wanted to cut it short.. Of course to him and his friends it just made him 'ginger'.

The difference in the way he looked at me and spoke to me on this particular morning, ...was....well..... I felt.. Surely, I can't be living one of my favourite films.!!! Have you ever seen an old black and white movie called 'The Body Snatchers?', or a more recent update(though still quite old) with Donald Sutherland staring in it.?

The Body Snatchers were aliens from a dying planet who came to earth to take over the bodies of humans. They managed it only when the person fell asleep. As you slept a giant pea-pod would be nearby or under your bed and gradually tear open to reveal the image of you, the new alien 'you', born from the giant pea-pod would take on your life but minus , normal human emotions. Great film .. A bit scary, but a shade more scary when you look at your teenage son one morning and think. RIGHT! That's the only explanation. The Body Snatchers are in town.. After checking under my son's bed and finding no giant pod, I had to resign myself to the fact that this was my eldest child, therefore my 1st teenager...

I cast my mind back to something my sister-in-law had said when her 1st son was about 15, he'd let his wavy, beautiful , shiny locks grow down past his shoulders. He could easily have been mistaken for an escapee from a renaissance painting of Christ at the Last Supper., but my sister-in law said she always tried to keep in mind that it was still Andrew ,despite being mistaken for a girl with gorgeous hair from the back, , inside he was still Andrew and the phase would pass.. I tried to keep her words in mind even though my 'hair ' problem was the complete opposite. My son hardly seemed to have any...

I hope I am not disheartening anyone whose children are on the cusp of becoming teenagers. These things are temporary for the majority of youngsters and they come out the other end of the teenage years as if nothing has ever changed. (infuriating for parents who've been lying awake for years wondering if their child is late home because they've been atacked, raped, run over by a vehicle, kidnapped etc., only to find he or she went back to a friends' house till 3 0 a m and didn't think a phone call would have been nice)..

Another weird thing about our teens(and I do include myself, though it was many years ago) is that when your child is small and pre-teen Daddy is often a 'god' who knows more than anyone elses' dad. In fact daddy is a hero..Suddenly when the child becomes a teenager dad knows nothing. In fact parents are as thick as 2 short planks of wood.. (how did you ever manage to rear me? was one great quesion from our daughter?)

In our sons' case we keep one incident in mind . As soon as he was old enough to ride a motor bike he bought one out of his own savings and I felt as though I was having heart failure every time he left home on it until the moment I'd hear the mild roar of a small motor bike pulling up in front of our house.. The minute he was of an age to drive a car, great , didn't frighten me as much as the bike., but of course HE knew it all because he was a teenager..

One night he tells his dad that he needs to drive from A to C and he'll go via B. Don't go that way, says my husband or you'll surely end up in a place called Blackwood. Lots of people have made that mistake and it's difficult to get back onto the main road. You'll be lost.. It better to drive from here A to D then you'll be on the main road to C which is where you want to be ..

2 hours later the phone rings."Er dad, I'm in Blackwood. How do I get out of here?" No one likes the expression "I told you so" but because teenagers know it all of course our son had taken what he believed to be the 'short cut' and ended up in a tiny place in the middle of nowhere, just as his dad had said he would. .. The expression lives on in our family. Oh no I've ended up in Blackwood, meaning any silly mistake we make to cut corners and really all we do is shoot ouselves in the foot..

We visited our daughter recentlyand because her eldest , 14 almost 15 is learning to play guitar, I thought it would be a great idea to write a song with him. WRONG! He thinks we should write a book not a song. I don't think I have enough years left on the planet to write a book, but of course he knows best, after all he's nearly 15. So the lyrics I've started to write are pushed to oneside and we begin our book. Silly me! What was I thinking of?

In fairness he reads a lot . That's always good in my mind. Hanging around with a bad crowd or getting into drugs is BAD. I should be grateful for the little quirks of the teenagers in our family, (well so far, so good, anyway). I cannot get my head around the mantality of drug dealers outside school gates , sometimes even junior schools, 8 or 9 year olds. The mind boggles at the heartlessness of drug dealers , but that's another subject. Here I'm only writing about the average teenager who thinks he knows it all, especially does he know more than his parents.His peers know more than his parents too. Parents are pretty dense, yes quite stupid and of course we were never teenagers... O but I do love them all. It can't be easy being a teenager in this modern world and the majority of them are great in my eyes. I love young people.

As for my 'song' everytime I get past the 1st verse the tune seems to turn into "the cryslal chandeliers'"by Charlie Pride and many other cover versions, so if anyone out there is musical enough to do something with these lyrics without it turning into 'the crystal chandeliers' be my guest.

Just remember me for a modicum of the royalties when you get a number one hit ..

""Hey guys, We think we know it all, now that we're 15,

but I've just learned the strangest thing, it's just a teenage dream.

We''ll never get to know it all if we live 300 years,

There's more to learn , much more to learn if we live 300 years.

CHORUS

If we live 300 years oh if we live 300 years

we'll still have so much more to learn if we live 300 years.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I

If Jimi Hendrix were with us, though he has passed away,

He'd teach us how to play and sing in such an awesome way,

But even Jimi Hendirix, wouldn't know it all if here,

He'd learn some more, yes so much more . He'd need 300 years.

CHORUS

OH if we live 300 years, if we live 300 years,

We still will never know it all if we live 300 years........