Teenagers - fabulous
creatures in disguise
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Fabulous creatures
in disguise
by Mary Aspinwall, ISHom, PCHom
Published in Homeopathy Today November 2003
Who are you and how did you come to be living in my house?
Over the past decade as a homeopath I have seen my fair share
of teenage clients. Some come of their own accord wanting
a magic wand waved over their acne, period pains, or exam
nerves. More often, though, they are brought in by an unhappy
parent who wants a magic wand waved over their rule-breaking,
terrible dress sense, insolence, and idleness! The question
is this: are these symptoms a suitable case for treatment?
If so who should receive treatment: the teenager, the grown-up,
or both?
Metamorphosis
Let’s face it—the flies in the ointment of teenage
paradise are the grown-ups. In no particular order, parents,
teachers, career advisors, ministers of the church, ID checkers,
and officers of the law all want to rain on the teenage parade.
It’s as if they either can’t remember what they
got up to as teenagers or else they remember all too well!
I myself stand on the very brink
of turning into a fly in the ointment. My daughter is almost
twelve and is already arguing the merits of hair dye and body
piercing and giving me the benefit of her many opinions. She
deplores my carnivorous diet and I, nodding sagely, have flashbacks
to the days when I fed my own long-suffering parents seaweed
rolls and nut cutlets. She questions my lifestyle choices
from the point of view of an intelligent being with a fully
formed social conscience: “Why have you bought this
stuff in plastic packaging?” “Surely we could
make room for a second cat from the Animal Refuge?”
“Why are you always so busy? When will you ever slow
down and smell the roses?” She is right to ask. Somewhere
along the line I have lost the plot.
Unfettered teenagers often have
admirable priorities. They are passionate about justice, world
peace, caring for the environment and free expression. They
are passionate with one another.
The heat is on
To everything there is a season and the teenage years are
Spring heading at full tilt into Summer. They are all about
expansion, experimentation and preparing to fully enter and
engage with the world. To this end most teenagers are building
up a head of steam and most grown-ups are intent on putting
the lid on it. At best this buys the grown-ups a little time,
but at the expense of turning the average teenager into something
of a pressure cooker!
The Circle of Life
Our teenagers want to be free and we are understandably scared
and, dare I say it, a little envious. So we treat our teenagers
with the opposite of freedom. The medicine comes in various
guises: early bedtimes, curfews, groundings, vetting friends,
loads of school work (and telling them their very futures
depend upon doing it), and after-school clubs galore. We chauffeur
them everywhere for fear their face will end up either on
the FBI’s most-wanted list or on the side of a milk
carton. Yet you know and I know that teenagers will always
want to be free, because that is their default setting.
With the trend of having children
in our late thirties and even forties, many teenagers will
now have parents in their late forties and fifties. This life-stage
comes with its own default setting. We are slowing down, cooling
off, contracting, and seeking out security and certainty.
To live harmoniously with people
who have radically different default settings from our own
is always challenging. In Nature, the elements and the seasons
all have their parts to play in the Circle of Life and we
curtail and suppress any part of that beautiful cycle at our
peril.*
A mama’s dark secrets
Last week I paid a long overdue visit to the place where I
misspent my youth. I returned to the river I used to stroll
by whilst I should have been in church. I mourned the loss
of the smoky little café where I used to hang out for
hours after school with friends. I drove past the lovely old
house where I had my first passionate love affair, the very
same place where my friends and I were threatened with arrest
for playing the Sex Pistol’s “God Save the Queen”
at full volume from an open window during a local street party
to celebrate Her Majesty’s 25th year on the throne.
I remembered the unstoppable lust for life I had back then.
Ah! Happy Days indeed.
These fabulous creatures
Let us pay homage to these fabulous creatures, teenagers,
for not only are they most excellent at lying in bed, they
also know how to live with passion and how to put the world
to rights. The question is do we know how to let them? Can
we in the busy, squirreling Autumn of our lives stand aside
and take pleasure in watching the sap rising? If we can’t,
then should we be surprised when our teenagers become “economical
with the truth” and choose not to call upon our hard-won
wisdom, gleaned from the many mistakes of our own glory days?
* I am grateful to Jeremy Sherr and his teacher Joseph Reeves
for their teachings on The Circle and the Four Elements for
informing my views on this subject.
For those interested in exploring some of the points raised
here about raising teenagers I’d like to recommend a
new book called Harlemville, a photographic record of two
years in a New York State Steiner community, and The Teenage
Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewelyn.
About the author:
Mary Aspinwall studied at the London College of Homeopathy
and is a Dynamis School graduate. She is a Registered member
of the Irish Society of Homeopaths. In 1992 she designed the
best-selling Helios Double Helix homeopathic medicine kits
for home use, foreign travel, and childbirth and wrote A Basic
Guide to Homeopathy. She now has a large, busy holistic health
center in the South West of Ireland, teaches for the Irish
School of Homeopathy, and together with her saintly husband
runs www.homeopathyworld.com. You can read more of her cases
and articles there.
© Mary Aspinwall
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