Things have been a bit quiet on my blog. I’m still alive and my teenagers are still fully functioning, but much like cars with their detailed specs – different models with various sized engines and a couple of fuels they run on – once they’re written down and discussed there’s not much new to say.
I use the car analogy, as it’s relevant. Since daughter 1 almost drove us into a wall (literally and metaphorically) the first time I took her out driving on her shiny new L plates, my relationship with teenagers and cars has been marred with stress and worry, not forgetting a bottomless pit of cash.
We’ve somehow managed to get to the stage where four of our kids are driving (although we can’t take any credit for two of them, as they learnt away from home). I can happily now have gin-fuelled piss-ups with my best mate and not have to queue for a cab, so long as I’m cool with the white-knuckle ride home. Yes – teenagers and cars are a potent mix, similar to giving a toddler a gun, except you wouldn’t let the toddler out of your sight. It’s a terrifying cocktail of teenage ego and speed and I have found myself saying, “drive carefully” in a trembling tone as they’ve left the house, more times than I’ve said, “don’t get shit-faced or take drugs.”
Anyway, I wrote and published my book, ‘Raising girls who can boss it’ a year ago and it’s still all totally relevant. It’s just that daughter 1 is now a PE teaching assistant, Taekwon-do and Swimming teacher, daughter 2 is knee-deep in A levels and an endless supply of 18th birthday parties, daughter 3 has buggered of to Wales to play football and daughter 4 is basking in the glory of being the youngest of six, with a mother who has steadily dropped her parenting standards as she’s gone down the line. She’s probably running a drugs cartel from her bedroom, as she seemingly spends all her time sitting in bed fully-clothed in her dressing gown, engrossed in her laptop.
This has given me time, in-between teaching people how to kick ass, to turn my attentions to other things, like doing my bit to save the planet.
It all started when my step-daughter came to stay before Christmas and I could feel her eyes boring into me as I chucked away a tea bag. It got worse as I went to put an empty bottle of wine in the bin. “You don’t recycle?” she said, with the enquiring, guilt-ladening tone of a twenty-something composting queen. My defence about the recycling bins being at the same place as we teach Taekwon-do and it not looking good for the students to see their instructor shoving crates full of Shiraz bottles into the holes, didn’t move her. This Gen Z eco-warrior was on a mission and I was on her radar.
So when I told her my plans to start a clothing line in sportswear, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised when her initial response of enthusiasm at the thought of road-testing freebies, was tainted by the thought of me clogging up the oceans and adding to landfill.
So, it’s for this reason that I am currently spending every spare moment between dogs, teenagers and work, developing a sportswear brand that embodies me: a brand with a bit of attitude and a newly-found conscience. A brand that empowers by the very fact that it recognises that we’re all on our very personal journey – just doing our bit to get fit, whether it’s a dog walk, a park run or Ironman and doing our bit to help save the planet. Gen Z is teaching this old dog new tricks. I’ll keep you posted.
