What happens when independence comes with a car, school pride turns into a menacing shade of tribalism, and peer pressure means getting drunk and experimenting with drugs? All of a sudden, your angel has a whole lot of attitude
There’s a long-running debate over which age is most difficult to parent. How do the sleepless nights of the first year compare with the terrible twos? Are tweens more difficult than teenagers? Or are eight-year-olds the real monsters, as one recent survey suggested. Puberty starts to kick in, there’s a push for independence, peers become important and, all of a sudden, your angel has a whole lot of attitude.
Despite the publicity, it felt like every month I heard of another family friend assaulted. Boys I knew – out drinking with mates – in hospital with head injuries. Everyone had a story. The most chilling among them a friend’s son, punched in an unprovoked attack outside a bar, then repeatedly kicked in the face while unconscious.
But I was shocked by the number of assaults I heard about that year and the brutality of the attacks. They left me sickened. They also left me nervous. Every Saturday night I’d lie awake waiting until I heard the reassuring sound of an Uber pulling up outside, the click of a key in the front door. And the perpetrators? I had a pretty clear idea what they looked like: thugs raised on a diet of violent video games, pumped up on steroids, maybe brutalised by their fathers. Lock them up, throw away the key.
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