Mind the Gap

When you live in each others pockets (and jeans and skirts and tops) how do you tip-toe the thin mother/daughter divide?

'Mum, have you seen my liquid eyeliner?'

'What, you mean my liquid eye-liner – the one that I never get to use because you've always got it?'

'Yeah, but you don't need it – no-one can see your eyes properly behind your glasses anyway. Which is just as well, cos you put it on so badly, you look like a tramp.'

'Thanks.'

'And you're not going out wearing that are you? That skirt's way too short – and it's mine! Why do you always have to wear my clothes? Don't you know how embarrassing you are?'

'Well at least I wash stuff afterwards – fold it up and put it back in your drawer. When you borrow my things, I never ever see them again...'

And so, another typical, loving exchange between me and my delightful 16 year-old daughter Rosie. Is it my fault that her taste in clothes far surpasses my own? That she happily spends vast quantities of her hard earnt baby-sitting money on new and innovative items for her wardrobe, whereas I'm such a skinflint that my annual clothing budget (including shoes) probably amounts to less than £20? Can I help it if I happen to fit into certain, but not all, of her things (sadly, not shoes as she's a size 4) and have a mental block when it comes to remembering Rosie's pleas to 'keep out of her room.'

She does have quite a talent – has the knack of being able to co-ordinate various random items to create a quirky and/or trendy look. I told her she should have done textiles at college, and she told me that she knew she should have done textiles too, but because I kept telling her... she chose sociology instead. Yep, she's a natural when it comes to style, and I'm deeply envious, as whenever I try copying her fashion sense it's never the same –
I can never quite pull it off. Not surprising really, I'm 40, and should know better.

Her younger sister, Lucy, however, is far more successful at emulating the Rosie flava – gazes admiringly and wistfully at her in-house fashion role model as she's devising each outfit; takes notes to refer to later, reproducing similar ensembles a respectful day or so down the line (much to big sis's annoyance). I keep saying that it's a form of flattery really ... but she ain't wearing it.

Recent photographs of Madonna, with an identically attired Lourdes, show how celebrity mothers are leading the trend-setting way – how their offspring are being groomed to be miniature clones of their famous selves. Ha! I'd like to see Rosie stepping out in my saddo, ancient, way-too-flarey-not-at-all-skinnyleg jeans, with a holey green-knitted jumper
(a litter-pick find from the Eclipse Festival on the Lizard, back in 2000) and sensible walking boots. Fat chance.

'Mum, can you turn the music down? I'm trying to get to sleep!'

'Sorrrry.'

Payback! Does Rosie not remember the time I very kindly agreed to go sleep upstairs in her bed, so that she could entertain a gaggle of boys downstairs*, even though it was already gone 1am by this point? And how I magnanimously refrained from cramping their style/complain about the noise level (no music – just a loud, and heated debate on politics; the war in Afghanistan; climate change etc...) so as not to embarrass her? Has she no idea how frustrating it is to have to listen to the testosterone-fuelled kind of drivel they were coming up with, in the middle of the night, when you're a) knackered, b) have to get up early in the morning, and c) are distracted by the faint luminous light emanating from a ceiling plastered with glow-in-the-dark stars?

Eventually, I cracked. I'd tried stuffing corners of the duvet in my ears; wrapping a jumper round my head; burying this same jumper-clad head under the pillow... all to no avail.
I was wired – wide awake, with the sort of heightened sense of hearing that you only truly experience courtesy of nighttime sleep deprivation. At 2.30am, I had to very humbly go down in my bad pyjamas, to request that they please, very quietly, leave the building.

Rosie, obviously not at all tired (and no doubt feeling guilty for them having drunk half the bottle of Port that her older brother had brought back for me, from his surf trip to Portugal, just the other week) decided that now was a good time to do the dishes. I swear the walls of this house amplify sound – resonate at the exact, required frequency to raise the decibels, and shatter any illusions of peace. Every clink of plate on sink, cut through the bedroom floor from the kitchen below to set my nerves a-jangling, guaranteeing no possibility of any shut-eye for me.

At 3am, she stumbled into the room to claim her sleeping space – cruelly kicking me out to stagger back down to my own crumpled 'bed'; tripping over empty wine bottles, and cursing teenage hostesses along the way.

At 6.30am, I was awakened by the sweet dulcet tones of number one son, Eddie, getting ready to go daffy picking (it was half-term, and he was flower-picking while the sun shone. Only it wasn't. It was pissing down with rain the whole week).

'Mum, have you seen my Marigolds?'

(mumbled) 'Hanging up in the bathroom – I borrowed them. Sorry.'

'Have you seen my black jumper, the one I was wearing yesterday?'

(slightly narky tone sneaking into voice) 'It was wet and filthy. I found it dumped on the end of my 'bed' so now it's in the wash, ok?'

'Have we got any bread?'

(well grumpy now) 'Have you tried looking in the fucking freezer? If there's none there then no, we haven't got any bread. Now please, fuck off, and let me try and get some sleep!!!'

A few days later...

'Mum, have you seen my Fat Freddy's Drop CD?'

'Ummm, yeah, sorry. Borrowed it the other night when I had those people round. It's probably still in the CD player.'

'I've looked. It's not there. Why do you have to keep taking all my things? I found the Cat Empire one you took as well, fallen down the back of the TV, and it wasn't in its case or anything! It'll be all scratched now – it's so not fair. Why can't you just leave my stuff alone?'

'Shit, sorry Rosie. It's got to be here somewhere.'

(Fruitless search of entire house fails to unearth lost CD).

'Look, it was only a copy, so it's not as if you paid out loads of money to buy it or anything. I'll sort out a replacement – ask Eddie to help me download it off Soulseek, or burn a copy off someone or something. I'm really, sorry. Honest. And I did take you to see them play in Newquay didn't I? Reneged on my promise to take Graham so that you could have his ticket instead...'

'I hate you Mum.'

*Fi Read lives with her four big kids – Eddie, Rosie, Lucy and Billy – in a tiny 2-bed terraced house in Penzance. She doesn't have a 'bed' as such (or a sofa even) but has been sleeping in the downstairs living room, for the past five years, on a mattress in the corner.