Teens - by Darylynn Starr Rank
January, 2005

So your just-turned-thirteen-year-old arrives home after school, barely says hello, heads off to her room tossing jackets and books on the floor as she goes, grabs the phone before she even gets to the bed, speed dials, and she’s off. 

What’s that you’re thinking? You wanted to know how her day went? Well you’ll just have to wait now, won’t you? So you go on with what you were doing, the laundry maybe, and forty-five minutes later as you finish the last load, you remember you still haven’t heard how her day went. So you go to her room.

She’s still on. 

You give her a look. She nods reassuringly, holds up one finger to tell you she’ll be off in a jiff, and you head optimistically back to the kitchen to wait for her. (Well, she has only been a teenager for a short while. You’re still a little naïve…)   

You start preparing dinner and lose track of time again. This time when you look up, it’s been another half hour. 

That’s it! Your pulse goes up and your mind starts racing. What could she possibly be talking about for an hour and a half?!!. “Susie, get off the phone, now!  This instant!!”

And the battle begins. Either she hangs up but doesn’t speak to you for the rest of the night or she stays on until you get even more angry.

We’ve all had this reaction to teenagers on the phone. But it’s really quite an interesting topic. How’s this for a heretical question from another adult? What’s wrong with her being on the phone all that time? You know she’s at home, not off doing drugs or getting into trouble with a boy. She’s safe, for sure, in her bedroom. But you’re furious all the same.

So why does it make us crazy? Of course there’s the obvious reasons. She has homework to do, chores, and so on.  But perhaps there’s more to it than that. The reasons can be absolutely fascinating if you delve just a little further to see what you’re actually thinking.
 
Here are some of the things that might be running through your mind: 1. It’s costing a fortune!  (But that’s probably from your own childhood when it cost money to make a local call. It’s free now). 2. Why doesn’t she want to spend time with me? (Behind that one is ‘She's my little girl.’)  Nope. She’s a teenager now. She’s only your little girl some of the time, like when she doesn’t feel good. It accelerates from there. 3. She hates me! She’s on the phone talking about what a horrible person I am. 4. She’s telling her friends every single thing that goes on in this house. I can’t even have a fight with my husband without the whole world knowing about it. 5. Oh my gosh. She’s making arrangements to buy drugs.

So you cave. Maybe you’re lucky (?) enough to have a phone you can eavesdrop on without her hearing you. So you pick up the receiver in the other room (probably downstairs in the basement…) to listen. 

“And did you see what Brittany was wearing when she presented the award. Oh, my gosh. I’ll never be able to hold up a gold halter like that. And the way she smiled at him! And did you hear what Justin said???…” 

Three or four minutes of this is all you can handle, so you hang up feeling more than a little bit stupid. But don’t.  Sylvana Yeomans, who teaches workshops on dealing with teenagers, thinks most parents have been through this in one way or another. Thinking awful thoughts about why their kids do what they do. Awful about the kids, or awful about themselves. It’s what parents do.

And teenagers will continue to sit on the phone for hours, talking about clothes and makeup, movie stars and music, and that really cute boy in their class. It’s what teenagers do.

Take care all.

Darylynn Starr Rank (psychologist/writer) works part-time for Family Services of Greater Vancouver as a group facilitator. Her articles appear bi-weekly in The Record (New Westminster) and the Richmond Review.

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