Julie Jay: Teenagers today are so much nicer than we used to be
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I was 24 years old and working in a busy Dublin deli when a colleague imparted a nugget of parenting wisdom. "Whatever about kids, wait until you have a teenager," she would say after a particularly busy morning of making breakfast baps.
"It’s like having a tiger as a pet: they start cute and fluffy, and before you know it, they’re biting your head off." This was said years before , which reaffirms the woman was way ahead of her time (She was also the first person I ever met to combine bacon with avocado.)
As somebody whose kids are too young even to spell the word teenager, I have not yet been able to test my colleague’s hypothesis. That said, whenever I have struggled in the parenting juggle, I turn to my friends with older kids — specifically teenagers — for support because they are walking, talking evidence that there is life after Ms Rachel. These friends drink coffee uninterrupted, can go for family walks where nobody has to be carried, and are subject to a playlist, which is more Charlie XCX than . They are, if one were to attempt to sound down with the kids, ‘parenting goals.’
One parent of teens, in particular, is great at fielding my voice notes when the baby has, once again, been caught chewing the internet cable.
“When you’re going through hell, Julie, keep going,” is her consistent verbal balm of choice. However, her penchant for quoting wartime British prime ministers is all the more surprising given her distinctly nationalist political allegiances.
Of course, this friend can afford to spout such meaningless statements because she is at the tail-end of teen parenting and has the coffee table covered in breakable glassware to prove it.
While I’m not saying parenting teens is a walk through Phoenix Park, it somehow seems less scary than it once was. Having spent time last week with my friends’ teenagers, I can’t help but feel this generation is so much nicer than we used to be at their age. They don't view ‘feelings’ as a dirty word. They demonstrate huge emotional intelligence — so much so that witnessing an adult falling over is less likely to elicit a laugh and more likely to be met with an ‘Are you OK?’, a question that quite simply didn’t exist during the '90s in Ireland except if you were attending an A&E.
There is an innate kindness to today’s teenagers, a sense of empathy that was possibly latent but certainly invisible when my moody head entered secondary school.
As a pubescent youngster, I envied Hollywood stars like Alicia Silverstone, who successfully filed for emancipation from her parents at 15 in the mid-90s. On one particular evening, having been once again denied permission to get my ears pierced during the summer of sixth class, I informed my mother that I would soon be issuing divorce proceedings against her. An empty threat, given that my mother couldn’t even divorce my father at the time, should she fancy it.
As it turns out, I am still very much not emancipated from my parents (I refuse to take custody of my birth certificate for fear of misplacing it), and my parents are still very much together and cheering for the same culinary heroes on (‘We like him,’ my mother will muse at any contestant they feel is worthy of grace, despite his flummoxed response at being asked to boil an egg.)
The moral of the story is that teenagers can be impetuous, demanding things in the moment without fully considering the long-term implications. It's just as well my idle teenage threats were not supported by legislation. My brain was, and still is, a work in progress, developmentally speaking.
But I truly believe that today’s teenagers are more sensible than ever before, and this was exemplified by spending time with my friend’s partner’s teen daughter last weekend as we adults got ready for a charity ball.
In the run-up to the event, I ran around the kitchen, asking if anyone had seen my keys. All the while, these two young teenagers remained zen, helping me hunt and expressed zero judgment when the same keys turned up in my handbag, having been in the most obvious place all along.
On the way there, the girls joined us in the car, having volunteered to help out at the event. They chatted away with us about school, unfettered by our elder status and speaking to us like we were people. I couldn’t help but marvel at their self-assuredness, and it made my heart swell to know this new generation could possess a superpower that eluded previous generations — they like themselves.
The kindness of these young people is made all the more admirable when we remember that it has probably never been as tricky to come of age, contending as they do with the myriad challenges posed by the digital world, from which there is often little escape.
As we exited the vehicle, the same teenagers asked if there was anything they could carry as I perched precariously on a high heel. Stumbling into the prosecco reception, and before I touched a drop of the pink stuff, I overheard another pair of teenagers in the foyer discussing footwear and stating how they would always prioritise comfort over style. "Who cares if you look good if you don’t feel good," said one, while the other nodded in agreement.
As the ache of fallen arches kicked in, I couldn't help but smile. Whatever else we have to worry about, I don’t think the next generation is one of them. Make no mistake — the kids are alright.