October 2017
Beginner
240 pages
4h 19m
English
One of my teenagers voluntarily came over to me for a hug the other day. As I raised my arms to hug him back he said, ‘Get off! Don’t touch me.’ And there you have the essence of teenagehood in a nutshell.
At the heart of being a teenager is a dilemma. On the one hand, they have an instinctive drive to be independent, and on the other hand they’re terrified of being grown-up and want you to go on looking after them forever.
This is why they can simultaneously want you to hug them, and not to touch them – half of them is longing for reassurance while the other half knows it’s time to go it alone. It’s almost impossible to steer a steady course through the middle of these two conflicting drives, ...
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