Category: MHM Quotes and Poems

If…you are a teenager, this is all about you – of course

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and always blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself not to put an open party invite on Facebook, when parents doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too; (remember last summer and the trashed sitting room?)
If you can wait until you are old enough to drink legally and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about by people who call themselves friends, don’t deal in lies,
Or being lonely in your room when everyone seems to hate you, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good in your sister’s top, nor talk too wise: (despite knowing everything)

If you can dream of life without a curfew—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think about others for once —and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph: a 100 likes on Instagram and Disaster: getting less than 25
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the half-truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by your mum to make a trap so she finds out what really happened,
Or watch the selfies you (literally) gave your life to taking, lost when your phone got broken,
And pose and build ’em up with endless pouts:

If you can make one heap of all your minimum wage earnings
And risk them on one really good night out,
And lose your new iPhone 6 in a bush, and start saving at the beginning
And never breathe a word to mum and dad about your loss;
If you can force yourself off the X Box
To help out the fossils long after they have asked,
And so hold on to thoughts that the World’s against you
But no-one cares so tell them to: “Jog on!”

If you can talk with your parents and keep humouring them,
Or walk with them —then lose them as soon as you see your mates,
If foes and loving Facebook friends’ comments can hurt you,
If all opinions count with you, but none too much; (because ultimately YOU’RE right)
If you can fill every single unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of FaceTime every night,
Yours is the 24/7 hotel and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Teenager, my son/daughter/consummate professional at driving me to the edge and often over it

By Kipling, MadHouseMum, partner and daughters