Fashion rewind

OVER Christmas Nanny bought the Young Wan a waistcoat which was practically identical to one I had in years past. I had many at different stages and the one the Young Wan has came from a man's suit just like my favourites did.

She hasn't worn it yet because she was waiting to get a large white shirt to wear under it and she came in with one tonight. She also came in with skin-tight white pinstripe jeans and coloured hair extensions.

During the hour and a half it took her to get the dishes done, she had back-combed her hair madly, put in the green, electric blue and pink extensions; and I can't help but think when she gets the waistcoat and shirt on she will look just like Russell Brand. She is better looking of course, but still she will look like Russell Brand. I'm eh so proud.

RM December 21 - Teen Experiments

I WROTE recently about the Young Wan sporting a baldy-man comb-over as part of her latest look. Now its gotten worse - she actually cut a fringe herself and not well at all.

Now bear in mind Nanny is with us for Christmas and is a hairdresser. Yes in the Red Mum household all hairdos and restyles are held off on until Nanny comes to stay.

Why pay the prices of other hairdressers or indeed do it yourself when you have Vidal Nanny at home. Well that is the sensible thing and as we know teenagers don’t do sensible.

The trouble is that because she did it herself, badly, the layer above hangs long and wispily well below the new fringe.

I only noticed it after she had done it a while because she has been tying it up and out of the way. When I saw it I went bananas. Seriously when there is a hairdresser in the house, why would you do that?

And it isn’t the first time she has done this, no it is the third time. I am not talking about taking a lump out of a lock after finding scissors as a three-year-old, no the first time she did she was eight years old.

That cut was something else.

I noticed that time when I was brushing her hair and as I swept her hair behind her head I could not work out why one side of her beautiful long hair kept slipping from my hand.

I spun her around and came face to face with an eight-year-old red-haired Phil Oakey from the Human League circa 1981 mini-lookalike.

I hit the roof that time, I scolded her, I told her it would take years to grow down, which it did.

When Nanny came to stay sometime later she tried to repair the damage. The problem was she cut it nearly right to the back of her head. At one stage Nanny felt like handing the scissors to the Young Wan and tell her to do the same to the other side.
However being better than Vidal Sasson Nanny fixed the hair while keeping some length at the back and over time/years it grew back down.

So that was the first time and you would have thought she would have learned from it. Or maybe she did for a couple of years anyway, probably about the time it took the hair to grow back.

The second time was sometime last year or was it the year before when she went mental with nail scissors. Seriously she cropped bits at the side giving herself 1970s locks. It wasn’t what she intended, at least that what I have told myself. But seriously, sideburns to ehm match her long hair. On top of it all she cropped a bit of the top at the front and a half a layer's worth short underneath her hair at the top of her neck.

What on earth was that all about? That has nothing to do with style, that is seriously mad behaviour. There was nothing that Nanny could do about that, all the repair job that could be done involved time and hair growth.

In fact she had her hair cut shorter before the summer and it was only at that stage that those stubs of hairs have grown down enough. And now she has done it again. She is mad, barking in fact.

Maybe the New Year will see rapid hair growth, here’s wishing us all the best things for the coming year. Happy New Year everyone, oh and I will be hiding the scissors from now on.

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RM November 23 - Teenage comb overs

IT WOULD appear the Young Wan has descended more and more into the world of Emo. Her makeup, particularly her eye makeup has become darker and heavier and an almost daily feature.

She has even taken to sneaking out of the house in the morning so I won’t see her done-up face. But I still catch her – make up and school is a big no no as far as I am concerned. I do not care that others wear it, let them, the Young Wan is not.

Sometimes (I believe I have said this before and probably will do again) her make up transcends between vampish young woman and I immediately want her to clean her face to heavy, clumsiness turning her beautiful large eyes into two black p*ssholes in the snow and again I immediately want her to clean her face.

But I am coming to terms with seeing my beautiful daughter’s face covered in cakes of make-up. After all I was a teenager once myself and probably had more than my own share of make-up disasters/learning curves. I distinctly remember having a gold-phase that included gold-ish lipstick, gold eyeshadow and to top it all gold eyeliner. Beautiful image or what?

But something new and entirely more frightening has entered the Young Wan’s beauty regime; it has been creeping in and across her forehead - an Emo fringe.



What do you mean you don’t know what I am talking about?

I am talking about the heavy side-shade you see sported by the dark-clothed clad youngsters running around the place.

Only herself has taken it to the extreme.

Bear in mind I previously described Emos as “often sporting greasy black hair with a long heavy fringe” and I received emails from other teens complaining that they were Emo and didn’t have black hair.

Good for them, it is better to be a leader than a sheep. And it is better when you have beautiful hair to leave it as it is without dying it to follow a trend.

The Young Wan is a ginger Emo (I should say red-haired) and I hope she never ever dyes her hair until she is older and greying.

So while the Young Wan doesn’t dye her hair - not that I would let her at the age of 14 -she has tried many, many different styles to varying degrees of success and now she is working on the ‘heavy fringe’ part.

The style that has really made me say ‘GO NOW AND GET A HAIRBRUSH AND START AGAIN’ has been what I have labeled the ‘baldy man comb over’ style.

She did it the first time a couple of weeks ago and I was absolutely gob smacked. I looked at my gorgeous teen with her new hairstyle and I couldn’t help saying ‘why are you doing a bald-man comb over’. It really was that bad.

She looked at it with new eyes and laughed. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said ‘well I like it’.

I remember being told as a teenager by some old dear that my long hair which often fell down covering one eye that it was Veronica Lake-ish but would give me a turn in my eye.

But the Young Wan’s style not only covers one eye, it is a full-blown comb over covering half of her face and her complete forehead.

It was at this stage that I became animated and I demonstrated on my own hair what her hair looked like. Again she snorted laughing but still shrugged saying ‘WELL I like it’.

Fortunately in recent days the comb-over hasn’t shown itself, maybe she listened to me after all.

Ach who am I fooling, it is either gone because a pal said it wasn’t the effect she wanted OR the worst case scenario that it is lying in wait for another time when she dolls herself up and resurrects the style.

redmum@gmail.com

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RM October 5 - Dating rules

Dating rules

The Young Wan is learning a valuable lesson this week, well I hope anyway, with the introduction of one of the most important rules of dating. And that is friends’ exes are a no-go area (in most circumstances, there are exceptions of course).

Her pal has been seeing this young fella for the last couple of weeks. A gang of them were out in town recently and the Young Wan came back delighted because her pal’s boyfriend had bought her a necklace.

And she was all full of chat about him and I thought ‘mhhh, this doesn’t sound great’.

How and ever this boy rang the Young Wan the other night to say he was going to break up with the pal. So the Young Wan wanted to phone her and having no credit in her phone despite being given €20 on Saturday, another rant another time, she used mine.

At this stage I stepped in and said ‘friend’s boyfriends are off limits, you don’t do that. It causes bad feelings and it is something that you steer away from as far as humanly possible’.

Did she listen to me, of course she didn’t.

I believe that when she phoned her pal to tell her about the fella’s impending breakup scenario that she may have asked if it was okay if she went out with him.

So the next day somewhere in between home time from school to being outrageously late getting home, this boy has finished his courtship with the pal and asked my daughter out.

Charming or what!

It all appears to have gone a bit pear-shaped because the pal phoned her last night saying that she did have a problem with it so the Young Wan has agreed not to see the Romeo himself.

Now if she had listened to me a lot of this could have been saved but hey that would be too sensible and we all know many teenagers do not do sensible.

I got a great response last week from two teenage readers of The Echo about my emo column.

Orla 14 years old said: “I just had to say thank you for the article written in The Echo about the emos. What I am thanking you for is clearing up what an emo is…. After reading your article I was happy to see people writing about the positive qualitys in emos as I am usually slagged in school saying I cut myself and that I want to die. This is all false and thank you for showing the creativity in emos.”

Trish who is 15 said: “I have to say how much people exaggerate on the whole emo situation. People’s views on emo kids are ‘oh they sit in the dark’ or ‘all they do is cry’ or ‘oh they slit their wrists, freaks’ but the majority of people who are emo are the complete opposite… I don’t understand why emo gets the most slagging when all they do is dress a certain way and listen to a certain music, but is that not the same for people who like metal music? It is… Personally I am proud to dress emo and listen to the music because it is what I like and everyone is different.”

Thanks for your emails and just so long as you are happy do any labels matter?

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Teenager responds to emo post

I RECEIVED a lovely email from a reader in response to my last post which appeared in The Echo this week. I'll let her do the talking.

Hello!

Hi this may be a wierd e-mail but i just had to say thank you for the
article written in this weeks "the echo" about the emos!
what i'm thanking you for is clearing up what an emo is! i'm a self
confessed emo although without the black hair unfortunity born blonde! my
parents i think a bit worried by the term emo when i first told them about
it but after reading your article i was happy to see people writing about
the posative qualitys in emos as i am usually slagged in school saying i cut
myself and that i want to die this is all false and thank you for showing
the creativity in emos!

that might have been wierd but i really and truly had to say thank you

by the way my name is XXXXXXXXXX i'm a 14 year old emo in third year

Glad to help! And I am even more delighted that I have tangible evidence that someone is actually reading the column.

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RM September 21 - Is your child an Emo?

I borrowed a paragraph from a previous post to use in this column, so you may have read part of it before, apologies!

THE phrase ‘Emo’ is one that has been popping up in our household a lot over the recent months.

You may have heard it yourself if you have teenagers. It would probably be in conversations which sounded something like this ‘ach they are nothing but a weirdo Emo!

It probably shows my age because to me the person who would be called an ‘Emo’ is actually what the majority of us would recognise as ‘Goths’ with a liking for emotionally-charged punk rock music. You know the type, the kind of music that has you banging the wall yelling ‘turn that down’.

Emos is short for emotional and the best person to explain Emos is the Young Wan herself, so over to her.

I am not an Emo before I start explaining. Right an Emo is yes you guessed it another label. An Emo is someone who has black hair short usually and a side fringe that covers his/her eye. They are suicidal and cry all the time. They listen to bands like Bullet for My Valentine (which are the only good Emo band in my opinion). They write poetry and aren’t very good at talking so they express themselves in their own way which is grand but they take it over the top. I have nothing against Emos I have friends who are very Emo but I wouldn’t like to be one. Some idiots would use it as a insult but really it is pretty unimaginative. Emos (as in the real ones not the wannabes) are usually quite artistic. Anyway Emos are good listeners and are nice people in general so if you see one on the street give them a hug. But be warned you may get a punch.

So how do you spot an Emo. Well they will often sport greasy black hair with a long heavy fringe, wear children’s t-shirts, sporting horn-rimmed black glasses and they feel no one understands them.

While being an Emo sounds like the epitome of teenage angst it is not always doom and gloom. If you read anything about them it is normally concerning their propensity to self-harm and other such negative details.

But this is a mass generalisation and has no real basis in truth. I wrote recently about research into Goths which show that Goths are a very accepting and non-violent group as well as being high achievers academically. While Goths and Emos are two separate groupings there is more than a little cross-over in our house.

A British national newspaper recently had an article on Emo and self harming and the Young Wan was all annoyed. The paper claimed Emo is a celebration of self-harm. I have to say that is utter nonsense.

The article went on to say “If this environment is coupled with the psychological traits of self-pity, introspection, self-dramatisation and hormone imbalance, you have a fully-fledged Emo, even without the small T-shirt and black hair.”

Surely that just describes the vast majority of teenagers not a new and foreboding Emo cult.

So to any parents out there who may be worried because their child is displaying some of the characteristics described here, don’t worry. Okay your child is going to look a bit scary for a few years, there may be some door slamming and shouting. And there will definitely be some loud music. All of which is nothing to worry about, is it?

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He he, look, that says EMO

THE LAST weekend before school started the Red Mum household headed off for a last summer holiday weekend in Spideal and as always we had a ball.


Ehm theres some cows in the garden - check out the young farmer in red shooing the cows with a tennis racket. He is only two.

At one stage the Young Wan spied a couple of petrol stations that made her laugh heartily. I didn't manage to get the camera out in time to capture a pic of my own so I have borrowed these from Meg on Flickr.





And if you are wondering what I am talking about check out this previous post from the Young Wan on what an emo is.

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