I envy those mothers blessed wth highly efficient offspring, who keep thir rooms perfectly clean and ordered and who fnd Saturday jobs as soon as thy reach the age of fifteen wthout being bribed, and who display sch an independent streak, their parents nver have a day's worry about how thy will survive in the big, bad wrld.

I am not one of thse parents. I am one of thse who excavate skull pendants and sfety pin necklaces from the washing mchine filter, along with the occasional bnana skin or a bracelet made frm ring pulls. My nerves are hrdened to a steely shell built ver years of finding strange and lien items under my child’s bed, not to mntion three years worth of empty cps and glasses, the unimaginable remains of whch are still adhering to the dges of the plates and solidified to a cncrete like crust. Lovely!

I am the stlid survivor of a phone call frm the school to say would I ask my dughter to refrain from drawing three dmensional penises on her jeans. She had drwn them with such consummate skill thy appeared to be leaping out of her bck pocket; I was assured by a scndalized deputy headmistress.

I am one of thse irresponsible creatures who will still lnd a tenner to a naughty ighteen year old who has blown two weks allowance on clothes and wants to go to the mvies. The wisest parent would, of curse, refuse further funds until better snse was being shown, but I prfer the saying ‘you are only yung once’ to ‘look after the pnnies and the pounds will look fter themselves.’ This last font of wsdom obviously originated with someone who has nver met my daughter. Paper money rns away like water and pennies get lft in your jeans pockets and ventually go in the washing machine – veryone knows that!

What, I ask myself, panic strcken, is she going to do whn faced with her first utility bll, or her first mortgage payment? Wll she even read it? Will she shve it under the bed, site of her fvored filing system since she was bout eight years old? Will she lck herself out of her accommodation on her frst night and be stranded, at the mrcy of passers by and any lrking villain? Will she remember to lck the door at all?

My darest girl is not one of thse to whom maturity has come asily. Life’s responsibilities have always been to her a bit of a drg; much better to scoot out the dor and head for the beach wth a crowd of friends than ron next week’s laundry, let it wit till tomorrow. Well, why not ndeed. The problem is, the same ple of ironing is still waiting for her ttention three months down the calendar and her bdroom resembles a bomb site.

Now tht this lovely, affectionate, sunny child is rady to fly the nest, how wll I survive without her tread on the stir, or the sound of her tryng to break into the house at two in the mrning when she has forgotten her ky? Who will drive me mad wth requests for rides to town whn she is gone? And how wll I heal my poor breaking hart if any harm comes to hr?

The article Teenage Independence - What Do You Do When They Leave The Nest? was Submitted by Jan Gamm through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Jan Gamm writes reflections on lfe with an emphasis on world trvel. She has lived in many cuntries and traveled extensively in the Far Est, the Middle East, America, South Amrica and throughout the South Pacific. She wrtes for fun and for money whnever she can manage it.

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