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A story of adolescence 1 (vocabulary)

 Adolescence: is quite a difficult period in young people's lives. Young men or women often experience frictions and problems, jealousies, quarrels, lack of communication, frustrations... These years are all the more painful and difficult as the child's conditions of life are complicated by the departure of one of the parents, or by "aggravating" circumstances. Then, the young person needs to establish a new relationship with the remaining parent (single mother/ single father) in order to be able to shape his or her personality for the future. Thus, the teenagers are trying not to suffer too much from a situation they haven't chosen, but must accept. 

It is obvious that, in that period, all the teenagers' feelings and emotions are blown out of proportion. Every event is "magnified, amplified": happy moments and difficult ones (sorrows). The young people's reactions are not always in keeping with the reality of the events. 

Some circumstances of life make this difficult period of young people's lives even more complicated. They can be prostrate, like in a state of shock,  get isolated, lonely, feel misunderstood, and lose self-respect and self-confidence. The teenagers may feel "broken", misunderstood, abandoned, unwanted; they unconsciously crave for reversing the situation wanting to recreate the past, when the family was united.

* To check the situations and solve problems, social workers often visit the broken homes.  

After the mum's departure, a "priviledged" relationship can be established between the father and his daughter. In the following story, the young girl is feeling abandoned by her mother, and needs to recreate a comfort zone with her father.  Nobody should, or could penetrate the comfortable nest. Should anyone try, the intruder should then be ready to feel the huge disappointments which are bound to happen. How far can the young person push this defensive reaction? 

Life could be quite pleasant when you live alone with your father. A new balance can then be established, until...

(This story was adapted from Best Mate, a short story by Andrea Lascelles.) 

Good luck for the test!  

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When my mother left us for another man, I was ten, and I didn’t really understand what was happening. I missed her a lot, but I pretended to feel no deppressionvoidhouseworkingsufferI don't know and be a big girl. I thought I wasn’t houseworkingsufferingdeppressingI don't know. My father found himself quite depressedworkingdepressingI don't know, and had to take care of me as a single fatherbabysingle motherI don't know. He was suddenly swamped with work. He had both his job at the Brewery, and the homeworkhouseworkofficejobI don't know to keep him more than busy. Yet, as father and daughter, we soon became partners in life. I was doing all I could to help him and keep the doctorssocial workerspsychiatristsjudgesI don't know away… We would sit at night, watching tellydoing the houseworkgoing shoppingI don't know, we would go shopping on Saturdays, cleaning the house when it was too messy. He would tease me and would call me ' His LoverSoul mateBest MateLast LoveI don't know ! '

One night, coming home after a ball, he looked very happy but a little illtipsysicksadI don't know ; a few weeks later, he announced we would have a guest. On that Saturday, Marilyn came into our home and I immediately resented her. She was terribly ' feminine ', wore flashy dresses, earrings and the highest and most ridiculous stilettoscollarstop hatsI don't know I had ever seen; most of all, my father doted on her. She was kind to me and acted like the ' kind step-fathergod fathergod motherstepmotherI don't know ' she wanted to become. Dad announced we would have a dinner party to celebrate their six-month-anniversary, using Mum’s beautiful china which had never been used and was still in the airing cupboarddeep freezeboxtrunkI don't know …
(... to be continued)