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"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

- Mark Twain.

Yes, teenagers are people too, and like adults some of them are smart and some of them are dumber than they could be. As my own faculties fail and my two teenage boys mature, I am reminded on a daily basis that the future belongs to the young, and that they will live in days I will barely comprehend. They make me aware of this every dinner time. But I can't help remembering that I too thought my parents  didn't get it, and that I used to roll my eyes every time they questioned my teenage lifestyle. Truth is that we could both learn from each other if our minds were open to that fact.

Teenagehood is a particularly frustrating time for parents. The manual we were given when they were born seems now to have nothing but blank pages. Yet, still, we try to shape their little minds, try to make them little carbon-copies of ourselves, because otherwise what, as parents, is our purpose in life? As an old git, I understand from deep experience that hours spent "levelling" are hours truly wasted. Why can't you kids spend weeks playing with Lego like I did?