London 2012 blog

I have a confession to make. I am thirty eight years old and growing older by the day. I have a sixteen year old son and a fourteen year old daughter. But it has gradually dawned on me that perhaps being old enough to have teenage children disqualifies me from advising on young people’s voices. 

I will be working with Steve Mannix, Cultural Programmes Advisor, and the rest of the Culture team to try and figure out how young people really can have a say in the way LOCOG delivers its culture programme.

So what does qualify me for this role? My work currently as Director at Creative Partnerships (Thames Gateway) and formerly with Brentwood Borough Council and Colchester Youth Arts Partnership has certainly given me something to go on. I’ve also worked with the Duke Of Edinburgh Awards scheme and with young people on ESF funded media courses. This all adds up to quite a few years of working with people less chronologically challenged than myself.  But the truth is, it’s my own children that keep the fire burning in my belly. 

My passion for young people begins at home, like charity and everything else that costs me money. They are the ones who ask if I’m really, seriously, considering going out of the house, ‘dressed like that!’  Without their patient guidance I would still be using phrases like ‘pop songs’ and ‘cool’ in the company of friends. I would not have learned that ‘POS’ means Parent Over Shoulder on MSN and that ‘book’ in a text message is more likely to mean ‘good’ than something you would pick up and read. 

Life with teenagers is a daily education. But you can be assured that the research continues with every slam of the front door and every pair of trainers I trip over in the kitchen. There is nothing more ridiculous than someone of my considerable age trying to ‘get down’ with ‘the youth’.  Try to emulate the language and you’re out of date before you’ve even got your head around Emo or Scat (which is a very serious insult, by the way). 

If you really do want to work with young people my best advice is to try to retain some dignity; be honest at all times; be respectful of their complex world, its subtle rules, allegiances and etiquette; put your prejudices aside and remember that, like spiders in the bath, they are often just as scared of you as you are of them.