When adults behave like teenagers

To be born is a crime, and to grow up compounds the offence, well that's how she felt.A friend confides in me about his daughter.

"Oh you know, how can I put it...

"We’re getting no place/As fast as we can', she would hum in a casual way. Kinda undermined your reason for being".

We lived in the suburbs, you see and she would taunt us in a rural accent chiming 'you are an academic success in this town if you can return a phone call.' Are Mums tranqullisiers around?" she would say to me.."All the mother in this damn town are strung out on quack therapies and self-help books, they have no higher purpose than to reflect on mental illness."

"Sounds like a poignant and articulate display of teenage self-pity." I ventured.

"Yep,

"Sound like she she had a predilection for self-pity."

"She would aruge that it was, well-justified. You know, I suppose that none of this is unusual in the ethos of depressed teenage suburbia that I am trying to evoke: your typical teenage pop group might strike rebel poses, and write aggressive hymns to the spirit of generational angst; but if you scratch the surface, their songs turn out to express a fervent longing for a strong family life."

So we lived through this world of teenage fantasy and stunted development. Only this unhappy deluded teenage dreamer, is now in fact an adult. And that is our problem.