“Writing about teenagers is partly because of terminal immaturity on my part, and partly because I take a lot of mid-life crises and put them in 16-year-olds. What looks psychotic in a 45-year-old can look almost perfectly natural in a 16-year-old. Teenagers are very dark, I think. That’s all the goth and emo stuff. They’re experiencing a lot of stuff that adults experience, but in a much more raw way. It’s that extremity that I’m interested in, to be able to go down so far and come up so quickly. Also, it’s a period of time before the shutters go down. Grown-ups don’t wake up each morning thinking about eternal nothingness and death, whereas kids haven’t figured out how to black that all out yet.”
Meg Rosoff in the 27 June edition of Time Out
Teenagers & Mid-Lifers
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Hang on, I wake up thinking about eternal nothingness and death. And I’m 34.
This probably explain a lot.
Interesting you should post this now. I have just received an email from a friend to tell me that the 14yr old boy fatally stabbed in Holloway this week was from her 16yr-old son’s school where she is a governor. They are very freaked out, of course. Does understanding make it any better? I guess not, but perhaps it suggests the importance of providing an environment where kids have an outlet for expressing their dark side without killing themselves and each other (some hope… an environment in the school perhaps, but in society as a whole with its current priorities…)
Pete – it’s part of my mental check-list every time I leave the house. Wallet? Keys? Phone? Vague sense of existential dread?
Someone jokingly called me an “eternal teenager” the other day. I took it as a compliment. I’m sure they were secretly envious.
Teenagers get bad press for being grumpy and histrionic, but I reckon they feel more alive than most adults
Jean – some of the kids at Mrs Hg’s school knew the boy who was stabbed. It’s always sad, of course, but more so when there’s a personal connection.
There’s a related quote that I’ve been meaning to post for weeks, which I’ll do tomorrow. I think you’ll find that one interesting too.
Every few weeks I complain I haven’t grown up. Mr GF then tells me he hopes I never do.