10 things my teenage daughter taught me about myself

When I became the mother of a baby girl, I spent many hours imagining the conversations we’d have as she grew up.

Girlie chats about make-up, hairstyles, clothes, boys and weddings – I’d teach her so much!

Or so I thought.

And then she turned 13 and I realised I had nothing left to teach her.

Apparently, she knew everything there was to know and my input was nothing but a dull noise in the background – something which she pretended not to hear as she binge-watched Keeping Up With the Kardashians on her iPad.

In fact, instead of me teaching her things, it seemed she felt a role reversal was desperately needed.

In light of this, I have been made aware of a number of things recently which I may have remained blissfully oblivious to had she not felt the need to share them with me.

Here are just ten things I learned about myself in the course of the last three months.

1. I am a painfully embarrassing human who should remain silent at all times.

Navigating our local main street with me is akin to tap dancing across a minefield for my daughter as she desperately attempts to steer me out of the path of people I may initiate a conversation with.

2. If I know little about make-up, I know even less about hair.

She genuinely blushed for me when I unveiled my new hairstyle ahead of a family wedding three weeks ago.

3. I can’t use the word ‘sex’ without my nostrils flaring.

“Until you can say that word without my seeing the inside of your nose, please stop,” she said.

4. She knows more about the variety of tampons available than I do.

“ I’d be wearing a nappy if it was left up to you”, she told me.

5. I can make fill up with tears at something she says when I least expect it.

And not the good kind.

6. I now know the young woman I wanted to be at her age.

That youthful flair unencumbered by crippling insecurities – where did I get her from?

7. I have an innate inability to be in any way ‘chill’.

Maybe I don’t want to be.

8. I say incredibly awkward things when left unchecked.

Sometimes she supervises my phone conversations with her friends’ mums for fear I will let the entire female species down.

9. I cannot fill my car with petrol without circling the pump at least three times to be sure I know which one to use.

“Stop, I’m getting carsick.”

10. I talk to myself and sometimes I answer myself.

“Didn’t Granny start doing that near the end, Mum?”