Joanne Fedler - Love in the Time of Contempt: Consolations for Parents of Teenagers

Praise for Love in the Time of Contempt

How refreshing to finally have a book aimed at parents that is not a guide or how-to. This extremely insightful, honest and engaging book examines the world of adolescence from a place of deep reflection. Fedlers writing is so engaging, authentic and thoughtful that I was left on countless occasions wanting to jot down a line that resonated.

This was an outstanding overview of how to understand the world of the teenager today. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to joyfully reflect and also to be consoled on the journey of parenting an adolescent.

DANI KLEIN, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist

I had always planned to write a memoir about parenting teens, but Jo has written it for me, with her poignant, irreverent and hilarious book Love in the Time of Contempt.

With perhaps the most apt title out of any work about teens ever written, the book beautifully elucidates the challenges, heartbreak and hysteria of losing our babies and enduring their awkward metamorphosis to adulthood. I found myself nodding, laughing, wincing and wondering how the hell Jo smuggled the hidden cameras into my home.

I would recommend it not only to parents of teens, but to the teens themselves, to give them the tiniest insight into what their poor parents are going through every day.

KERRI SACKVILLE, author, columnist and speaker

Joanne Fedler is an internationally bestselling author of eight books, including Secret Mothers Business and When Hungry, Eat. Her books have sold over 600,000 copies worldwide. She graduated from Yale with an LLM, is a former womens rights advocate and law lecturer, and was once made Asshole of the Month by Hustler magazine for her work against violent pornography. She is an inspirational speaker and writing mentor and takes women on writing retreats and adventures. She is married to Zed, and has two teenagers and two cats. Learn more at www.joannefedler.com.

Published in 2015 by Hardie Grant Books

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Copyright text Joanne Fedler 2015

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the

National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au

Love in the Time of Contempt

ISBN 978 1 74270 730 3

Cover design by Peter Salmon-Lomas/Salmon Design

The paper this book is printed on is certified against the Forest Stewardship Council Standards. Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody certification SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests.

This book is for Jesse and Aidan,
and for all mums and dads who dont know
what the hell has hit them

Contents

So heres my problem: when it comes to generating writing material, teenagers are gold. Their world is a narcissistic, anarchic, paranoid hell of anxieties and stresses about how they look; how popular they are or arent; and how fast or slowly, big or small their private parts are growing. As an observer, its fantastic. Hilarious, at times. Poignant and heartbreaking. It is all the stuff of great human drama because, before your eyes, you get to witness character transformation. Boy grows into man. Girl grows into woman. Writers strain to make this shit up.

But and heres the catch we dare not discuss any of this if we want our kids to trust us or ever talk to us again. And thats because, lifts and pocket money aside, teenagers crave privacy the need for which hatches both swiftly and silently while were sorting out the laundry. Its as if they suddenly wake up one day creeped out by the thought of all those years we wiped their butts and helped them put on their undies and they go into lock-down. They smoke us out, put up walls, close their doors, shut down their stories, and waft, earphoned, through our homes in a shroud of hormones and appetite. Their lives in which, until recently, we participated with Too Much Information and gross oversharing suddenly become none of our business.

So youll appreciate it was something of a start-up challenge to try to write about things Im not even supposed to talk about. On top of that, Ive no desire to add to the oversaturated, overanalysed market of parenting books on how to tell if our kids are gifted, depressed, indigo, suicidal, special, different, dyslexic or catatonic, or have ADHD, ADD, Aspergers or anxiety. (Read enough of these books and you are sure to feel depressed, anxious, suicidal and catatonic yourself.) Im ambivalent about the theoretical inclination when it comes to parenting after having spent most of my first pregnancy studying the books as if I were expected to complete a dissertation between contractions. Before childbirth, I fancied myself as something of an expert on the baby-to-be. I can now confirm that there is no text that can prepare one for thirty-six hours of labour followed by a Caesarean. Or mastitis. Or colic. The books help pass the time in the ob-gyns waiting rooms but theyre useless at 3 am when you have a screaming baby and a dried-up bosom.

Likewise, what can anyone say to prepare us for parenting teenagers? All the psychology books insinuate that if we dont get it right in the first two years of our kids lives, with the right amount of bonding and breastfeeding, weve buggered up the source code. By the time our kids are telling us to get a life, it may be too late. Continuing to self-flagellate with the whip of being a better parent long into the teenage years may amount to a personal neurosis for self-improvement, rather than offer any benefit to the offspring.

So youll probably be relieved to hear that this is not another how-to book. It is my ethical obligation to inform you right here on page xi that I do not have a single qualification for writing a book about parenting teenagers. Other than a few legal ones, I have no university degrees that might give you a modicum of confidence that your money has been well spent. I am confident that by the end of this book you will not know whether your teenager is secretly smoking, doing drugs or giving blow jobs behind the canteen at recess.

I made the decision a while back to stop reading books about parenting and take up the guitar instead. At this point, my parenting aim is to simply get my kids through school and into their own lives so I can get back to mine. Id prefer for them to be reasonably resilient, responsible and not idiotic with money. If my wishes have any bearing on who they turn out to be, I hope they believe in something, anything god- or spirit-like; that they take enough care of their bodies; and that they use protection when they start shagging (eventually, way into the future).