AS A TEEN, YOU live in fear of many things, including but not limited to:
a) Being left out;
b) anyone finding out about those dodgy glasses you had back in first year;
And c) your parents.
As such, most of the ins and outs of teenage life are carried out in secret.
However as we grow older, it becomes less and less frightening to let your parents in to certain parts of your life.
Your love life
When you’re a teenager, the mere mention of a possible boyfriend or girlfriend had you turning red as a beetroot and fleeing from the room. Now, your other half and your parents are BFFs – and it’s kind of weird.
Your potty mouth
Used to be that as a teenager you wouldn’t dare swear in front of your folks, and any album with the “explicit content” sticker was bought and listened to in secret. Nowadays you pepper your conversations with swears just because you can. I’M A F***ING ADULT, MOM.
Alcohol
Remember when you used to go to your friends’ houses for “movie nights”, return home completely sloshed, and head straight up to bed to hide your misdeeds? Now you get drunk quite unashamedly at Christmas, and chide your parents for giving up and going to bed before you.
Your sense of style
Back then, you waited until you had left the house to roll your skirt above your knee/let your baggy jeans hang down past your bum/wear red lipstick/gel your hair in spikes (delete as applicable). Now you defy your parents to tell you: “You’re not leaving the house looking like that.”
Any tattoos/piercings
If you secretly got a bellybutton piercing at 16 or horrified your parents with fake nose rings and tattoos drawn with permanent marker, you’re probably not too bothered about showing off the real deal now. What are you going to do about it, huh?
Your distaste for certain family members
At age 14, you wouldn’t dare tell your parents that Great Uncle Harold was a bore (or you might have, but you’d have gotten roared out of it). These days they’re so used to it they actually give you excuses to get out of their visits.
