Sleep deprived eyes and teenager lies
I WAS a very naughty teenager but weren’t we all?
No, some of you spent the years from 13 to 19 walking the straight and narrow and obeying your parents.
The year I turned 13 my parents had a baby, a little girl they named Wendy.
She was the cutest little creature and we all adored her.
Mum was kept busy running a business alongside dad while taking turns doing nightly bottle feeds.
My bedroom was at the far end of the house and had its own bathroom, balcony and entrance from the outside.
We were well off, and the house had multiple bedrooms, bathrooms and a big swimming pool.
Because Wendy kept the parental units busy, what I did went under the radar.
My brother Mike is three years younger than me. He was academic and spent most of his time sitting on the couch reading Wilbur Smith books.
Nerd.
Later he told me he was studying me, learning how to avoid getting caught doing naughty things.
Smart, but still a nerd.
From age 13 to 17, I tricked my parents into believing I was home when I wasn’t.
I had a curfew and when I came home after a night out, I had to let my folks know by poking my head around their door.
“I’m home, goodnight,” I’d say. They’d whisper “Okay, thanks love,” and go to sleep.
I’m a mum of four, three now grown and now I realise they were not able to fall asleep until they knew I was home, safe and in my own bed.
At the time I thought they were being clingy and over the top.
After the ole peep and sleep, I’d leave the house again using my bedroom’s outdoor access and walk down the road to where my friends were waiting.
As an adult, I realise they likely thought about my death a thousand times.
Would I be run over while crossing the road, kidnapped by a predator, drugged while at the club and now in a stranger’s basement.
They weren’t awake because they wanted my night to end early, they were awake because all the possible scenarios of my end were playing out in their mind.
I know because I do the same thing with my three sons who share an apartment on the Gold Coast.
Despite them being good kids and aged in their 20s, I can’t help but worry some drugged up lunatic will stab them.
Oh, and don’t start me on king hitting.
Then when I was 17, my parents had another child, a girl they named Tracy.
I’d managed to cash in on five years of sleep deprived surveillance when boom, another diversion enters the room.
I turned 18 when I was in Year 12 and convinced my parents to allow me to see the milestone in at a local pub.
Legally drinking for the first time in five years (but we won’t tell them that).
Sure, they said, but be home by 11pm and remember you are still going to school in the morning no matter what.
Did I listen? No way, no how.
I met my mates at the local club and we danced and drank until the early hours.
It was 5am, when I arrived home and I honestly thought I’d be able to slip in unnoticed because mum and dad would be busy with the two little ones.
But no, who is sitting on my bed but my mama who’d been there since a 3am breast feed.
She cried, I pleaded and then anger took over.
Not mine, hers … never mess with a breastfeeding mother.
I still had to go to school, but I told the office I was ‘sick’ and spent most of the day in sick bay.
My friends bought me a tuckshop lunch that soaked up some of what I’d consumed a few hours prior.
I think it’s important to frame this story with context and that this all happened in the 1980s.
There were no mobile phones or social media back then.
What you did, you did and the only evidence was a (maybe) photograph taken then developed over several hours.
It was easier to go to pubs and clubs, too.
There were not as many checks for ID or punishment for those who allowed under-age people to drink in their establishments.
If I know one of my sons is out on the town, I like to do a ‘soft check in’ during the early hours just to make sure they are ‘still alive’.
Sort of like the ‘I’m home’ peer around required of me as a teen.
They respond because they’re amused and placating me.
Parents often say ‘I hope you get one just like you’ when you’ve annoyed them.
Well, sorry but I didn’t or maybe I did but they’re better at hiding it.
I read that raising a child is teaching someone you love the most how to live without you, and that hit hard.
Not because I realise what it means to me but what it meant to my parents.
And now I am in my 50s I appreciate that they loved me so much that even through sleep deprived new baby eyes, they couldn’t fall asleep until I was ‘home’.
‘Home’ …
