Hi there, I am the single mother of 3 teenage children. Whatever else I have or haven’t done with my life, that statement alone should bestow on me some kind of award for life achievement! Me, a lone woman, guiding and directing 3 young people/almost adults who are all taller than me, louder than me, more stubborn than me and, after 11am, all have more energy than me!!

I don’t think I’m going to get an award, any more than any of the other millions of single parents skilfully navigating the choppy and often stormy waters, of single-handedly parenting youths. However, what I have been given is the opportunity to write a regular blog about our lives as a family and hopefully share some thoughts and insights into the world of single parents and teenagers.

It is, I feel, a dubious honour as it raises many questions for me, such as……Is our family interesting enough? Will my kids give me enough juicy material? Will people just expect tales of trauma and trouble?.......

These questions are particularly interesting in light of a recently published book. This book, called ‘Living With Teenagers’ was written by an anonymous author, but it has recently been revealed that it is the collected weekly newspaper columns of journalist and novelist Julie Myerson about her experiences of family life with teenagers. This revelation has brought her a lot of criticism, including from her own children, for portraying life with teenagers as a bit of a nightmare and her children like demons.

Now I’m guessing that nightmare tales make more sensationalist reading and help sell newspapers and books, and, it could be argued, are helpful to parents struggling in their own lives with unruly teenagers, but I definitely want to avoid portraying my experiences in that way or being in any way sensationalist. There are three reasons for this.

Firstly, in comparison to her nightmare experience, my experience of my children as teenagers has been a dream. Of course it’s had, and still has, its share of trauma, upset and drama, but it’s been a lot more than that. I’m not denying that having teenagers can be a nightmare at times and some parents go through extremely painful experiences. However, for most of us, I think, the reality is that there will be some difficult times, and at times our teenagers will be rude, disrespectful, stroppy etc, but on the whole, they are alright, and can be funny, interesting and even, dare I say it, delightful at times.

Which leads on to my second reason: if I want other parents to get anything from reading about my experiences, then it is that ultimately their kids are alright. I can’t help feeling that a column like Julie Myerson’s supports our society’s continual, and increasingly relentless, demonisation of teenagers and encourages parents to view the teenage years with fear and dread. As single parents we have experienced excessive demonisation over the years and continue to do so in some areas of life, so let’s not do the same to our young people.

And lastly, I want to be able to be honest and at the same time, write something that my children wouldn’t be upset to read and that they would consider a fair account of their lives.

‘They’ are Dan, who is 19, Sarah 16 and Jamie 14 and, not strictly a teenager, our bat-like and very vocal cat, Pudding, who would hate to be left out of any listing of ‘my youngsters’! There are only myself, Jamie and Pudding currently in the house as Dan is at University and Sarah is living with her Dad right now, although there are more than enough passing-through and sleeping-over youths to make up for their absence! I split up from Sarah and Jamie’s Dad 6 years ago and Dan’s dad, in the ever worthy cause of keeping my life simple, hasn’t been seen or heard from since I was pregnant.

So, that’s us, and you’ll hear more of the highs and the lows from me later……..