Growing Up Child of our Time

MUSIC: "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" by The Hollies

# The road is long

# With many a winding turn

# That leads us... #

13 years ago, the BBC set out on an ambitious project.

To follow the lives of 25 children

after their birth at the millennium.

# But I'm strong... #

And in the process, we've captured ordinary family life in 21st-century Britain.

Our cameras have been in their homes,

from towns and villages,

to inner cities,

and rural countryside,

revealing the ups and downs life has thrown at them.

I never guessed she would die.

But I can remember quite clearly the afternoon in which I found out.

I think I was ten. And my dad had an affair.

I'm glad they're growing up to be nice young ladies

and I love them to bits.

We've seen our families change.

Now, Child Of Our Time is growing up.

Our children are ready to share their thoughts and feelings as they hit their teenage years.

# He ain't heavy

# He's my brother. #

12 is like being in the middle of being a teenager and being a kid.

You're an in-between age, so you kind of feel different from others.

Every day should be an ice-cream day when you're 12, because your body can take it.

Shallow people are going to be best friends with you for a piece of gum.

Everyone's obsessed with chewing gum at 12.

She used to love pink and fairies and things like that,

but that's now gone.

She is good at doing that teenage focusing out the rest of the world,

where they don't see anything apart from what's immediately in front of them on a screen!

-Bossy, would you say?

-But there again, she's 12, she's experimenting with...

Yeah, but she bosses you around an awful lot, and me!

# He ain't heavy... #

Tonight, we'll see our children

preparing for the greatest change in their lives

and how their parents will need to let them go

to grow as adults.

He's not a grown-up yet, so he struggles to say

what he is feeling.

If you say to them one day, "How are you feeling?" "I don't know."

Another time, all this stuff will come out.

It's quite scary, actually, seeing myself get older, you know.

I don't know, it's just... How could I have been so small and I can be so tall now?

It's a bit confusing, you know.

Like any growing-up young girl,

every single young girl is a massive flaming problem.

And so there's that! It's there.

You know, she's growing up and she's got to move on into life.

And those are very difficult, brave decisions on how you guide a young person through that.

Helena was the first of our children to be born, when her mother, Jeanette,

pregnant with triplets, went into premature labour.

I'm just checking...

He's head down at the moment. Head here.

'I remember being in hospital, in Cheltenham.'

It was four o'clock in the morning and my waters broke at 22 weeks.

And then the doctor having a look and he could see the baby's hand.

What I didn't realise was the exceptional complications

going through full-term with triplets.

And there were two girls and a boy, and it just went wrong.

Born three and a half months early, the first two babies, Barry and Millie, died.

Helena survived, barely clinging on to life.

You didn't know when the phone was going to go and say, "Your child's dying."

It was like that. That's how near it was. And you were warned about this.

We don't know the hour, the moment or the day when something's going to go right or wrong.

You spend hours and hours looking at your little baby

and willing them to survive.

I remember going in one day, and the piece of skin between her nose and her mouth had started to grow.

I could see that it was a bit of distance there. "She's growing! Her eyes are opening!"

This sort of thing. All the very, very tiny, little benchmarks.

But after several weeks of intensive care, Helena's condition suddenly deteriorated.

I remember saying to a technician, "What are you scanning her for?"

And they said, "We're just looking to see what's going on in her heart, it's blocked."

And the world fell apart at that moment in time.

Helena had a blood clot in her heart and other complications were setting in.

She was getting worse. She'd got some problem where she was expanding with water.

They said, "Right, your daughter's really ill.

"Chances are she's going to be seriously handicapped. She'll never be right."

Two days later, they're asking to turn her life support off.

And my overwhelming memory is,

"Why did I bury Millie and little Barry when Helena's going to die?"

Jeanette and Barry were faced with their worst nightmare.

Either ending Helena's life or letting her survive with the near certainty of permanent brain damage.

We're stood in this room, next to her cot.

And she's sedated and her eyes are watching us have this conversation.

And as I looked at her, it showed me that she wanted to fight.

And I just thought, "God, if she's got that much determination

"then we need to just fight for everything you can do."

You know that there is a bond, something that's quite extraordinary -

a feeling, something happening - quite powerfully.

Definitely, we weren't turning that child off.

Not a cat in hell's chance. It wasn't going to happen.

And they said, "All we can do is experiment." I said, "Let's go and experiment, then."

They said, "We can give her a drug that, if it's a blood clot on her heart,

"it may dissolve it, but it has never worked with babies before.

"There's a one-in-a-million chance it will work. If it works, she's going to have a major handicap."

But you don't care at that point. You take what's being offered, because you want your baby to live.

And, you know, she lived.

And the drug worked.

48 hours later, she was out of intensive care.

And she turned out to be a great fighter.

And it was... Well, it was magic,

how nobody expected her to live

and, all of a sudden, she surprised everybody.

Three months later, Helena was off life support

and able to go home.

-HELENA GIVES A TINY CRY

-And you like it, don't you? Eh?

Keep going! Whey!

Arabesque!

Roll!

Jump! Jump! Jump!

Turn!

# Downtown girl The sun is shining! #

Let there be cake!

Oh, well done, Helena!

Helena's story is a story of survival, survival against the odds, there's no doubt about that.

But, equally, Helena can't live with that label for the rest of her life.

Helena has to get on with a normal teenage life.

We struggle to do that sometimes, cos we wrap her up in cotton wool, cos she's so special to us.

In September 2012, Helena became a teenager.

Mum and Dad are now divorced, but Barry is still a full-time dad.

-Anybody home?

-Yeah, I'm here.

-POSH:

-Oh, hello!

-Hello.

I'm so pleased you got your hair back to its curly self.

'It's always been her ambition to be a journalist of some sort.'

And she watches journalists and she reads a tremendous amount.

If I do end up being a journalist, I don't want to be one of those annoying ones in David...

like, waits outside Number 10 for ages.

No offence to people who actually do that.

I write fan fiction.

I'm obsessed with it.

It's usually sad things, cos sad things are easier to write about, let's face it.

Cos otherwise, it's a flipping fairy tale.

I don't want to write fairy tales!

They're too flipping... You know what happens!

A beautiful girl is treated badly and then loads of crap happens.

And then she marries someone at, like, 16.

What's with THAT?!

She's a child that was made for the 21st century.

She was made by technology.

She was saved by technology and she loves technology.

As long as she's still got her mobile phone, her computer and her iPod,

she will be happy, I'm sure.

SIREN BLARES

After Helena's birth in September 1999,

the rest of our children on Child Of Our Time were born over the millennium.

-MAN:

-Oh! Come, my little baby.

WOMAN: Cutie!

It's sort of like, "Yippee! Let's have children! Now what do I do?"

I remember the first night we brought her home, it was freezing cold.

Oh! Putting her in the car!

"Oh, there's a car 200 yards away! I'm slowing down. I'm pulling up. Don't come any closer!"

People always say it's a magical time having you and your baby.

-One of the saddest things you said was you never looked back on it with any great...

-It was just a grind.

I don't believe what he's just done!

HE LAUGHS

Ivo, that's very naughty.

ALL: Whoo!

That was the first proper two steps that she's actually took.

Even in the first few years,

the children's personalities had begun to take shape.

Taliesin as a toddler liked the attention being on him

and didn't like it if you had to do something else. One of his favourite tricks was unplugging the Hoover.

And the first time it happened, I stripped the Hoover apart,

because there was no way the plug could have just fallen out the wall.

And it happened again. And this time, I just saw two little feet crawling off into the front room

and realised that he'd come and unplugged it, and then crawled off, acting all innocent.

You monkey!

So, yeah, he was a practical joker from birth, basically, I think.

When Parys was younger, I relied a lot on voice.

Wait for Mama. Stay there. Hold the door for me.

Good boy.

Like when he got out of the car. He knew that I couldn't...

You see mums clinging on to the child for dear life,

cos they're so frightened he's going to go across the road. Parys didn't do that.

Good boy. Parys...

Good boy. Right, you be very careful because there's cars, OK?

Hold on to Mama. Good boy! Good boy! Hold on to Mama.

Right, now, you stay here. Bit more! Bit more!

Bit more. Stay there, stay there! Now stay there, please. Please stay there.

'When I said, "Stay with me," he stayed. He just knew.

'So, he relied on me verbally, rather than physically.'

You're being such a clever boy. Come here! Good boy. That's it.

She put trust into me to listen to her.

I couldn't just, like, ignore her,

cos she couldn't, like, physically pick me up and move me,

or, like, grab me to take me somewhere. I'd have to always listen to her, which I would.

WHISTLING AND APPLAUSE

Alison Lapper found fame as an artist.

In 2005, a cast of her body was placed on a plinth in Trafalgar Square in London.

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

Alison took Parys almost everywhere she went and the two developed the strongest bond.

-Where are we going?

-We're going to the Eiffel Tower, babes.

And me?

Oh, absolutely! Of course and you! Where do I go without you?

He's travelled a lot for someone so young.

But I like him being around!

I like being with him. I enjoy him.

He IS my world.

You know, he is so important to me.

Mwah! You're such a brave boy being up here.

It's great having a famous mum but, the down side is, she always talks to everybody who comes past.

-Nice to meet you. It's so great to meet you.

-Thank you, and you.

For example, when we went to Korea.

For some weird reason, we were really big over there.

So, everywhere we went, we felt like Tom Cruise.

And it got annoying, because we couldn't do anything we wanted

without having, like, 25 people following us with cameras.

It's not only Alison's fame which has meant that they are constantly surrounded by people.

Since Parys was born, they've had her carer living with them.

'There are people in mine and Parys' lives 24/7.'

It's got its good qualities and bad qualities.

For example, good qualities if you want some food or a cup of tea,

then they'd kindly make it for you.

But the bad thing is, if I just wanted to be with my mum,

they'd always be around, don't have much privacy.

Like, not have anybody else in the house apart from me and my mum. I can't do that.

Every once in a while, my mum can say to the PA,

"You can stay at home," and then me and my mum can just be out, me and her.

We're going to go to the FrightFest. Yeah, we're going to do that Tuesday.

'If we're out on our own...'

He really... He loves that.

It's less invading. Like, you can just...

It's just time with you and your mum. You don't have someone following you all the time.

-..Oh, yeah.

-Because I need to book it for everybody, yeah.

But these precious moments together are now coming to an end,

as Parys reaches his teens.

I look at him and my baby is gone.

'And I can see glimpses of the man

'that he's going to look like coming through.'

-Mum.

-Yeah!

-Do you like any of these scarves?

-Let's have a look!

'The way he walks, the way he carries himself, little bit different.

'And as he grows, we change and our relationship changes

'and, definitely, he is stepping back.'

Would that definitely go with the poncho?

'I hope that we'll always have a good relationship...'

I've done my best

and I hope I haven't... done too badly.

Let's go!

Ever since filming began, our parents have had different and changing careers.

COW MOOS

Only time will tell how this may influence what their children might do later on in life.

When I grow up, I'd like to be some sort of doctor.

When I grow up, I would like to be a doctor or a scientist.

I hope to see myself doing something clever,

or else be a YouTube gamer.

I think it'll be something to do with sport,

but I'm not sure which sport yet.

I don't really know what I want to be when I'm older,

but I know I'd like to have a job that I enjoy.

My mum wanted me to be an astronaut when I was small,

but she kind of knew that I don't think that's going to happen for me

cos I am not so clever at science.

I wanted to make her like astronaut and she's totally different girl.

Het Shah lives with her family in north London.

My first thing would be to be an actress,

and then kind of slowly move on to my singing career and have my own, I guess, band and my album.

And then have my own fashion line, so do fashion designing too.

And have my own album alongside doing movies as well, so doing everything at a time.

Up to now, Het was a little girl and whatever I was telling her, she was listening.

As I say, she's a very easy girl.

But now she's in secondary school, she got her own thinking.

I probably will go US or LA to kind of follow my dreams.

And sometimes I feel so powerful that I can do anything, I will do, cos I know I can achieve it.

Kayla.

Here, have a chunk of grass.

If I do try and get a doctorate and get in the psychology thing that I really want to do,

or photography or forensic science, singing, whatever!

You know, I have loads of different things to fall back on.

The only important things about the job is - one, I enjoy it, and two, it earns good money.

Since she was very young, Rhianna has always understood the value of money.

Sometimes we have been quite pressed for money,

but I never liked being like that.

When I was a little kid I'd go, "This is an own brand and this is not an own brand, this one's cheaper."

'So, I knew from quite an early age about how much things costed

'and what I can't get and can get.'

-Let's go home now.

-I just need some money.

-No, you don't.

-Well, you can pay for everything, then, with your great wad of money in your purse.

-No.

-Thanks.

-Bye.

-Bye-bye!

The family's finances have often been tight. Andy has tried many different jobs.

To be honest, you've always been a really, really good worker

when you put your mind to it.

-It's just that in the past, you got slightly distracted quite quickly.

-Yeah.

There are some things I've started and not seen through, yeah, I'll agree with that.

Fishing, caged birds.

-Mini-motorbikes, quads, go-karts.

-The kitchen at Monk Fryston.

-Off-road buggies.

-The conservatory at Monk Fryston.

-Buying and selling cars.

-Once the novelty's gone, you're not interested any more.

Ow! That's sharp!

What colour do you want?

You got it? You've got it.

Smashing! Thank you very much.

Andy even tried his hand as a market trader.

Do you want one? Excellent. Take your pick.

Some days you can have marvellous days and then, two or three weeks on the trot, nothing.

Poor, poor as a church mouse, and then you're trying to...just live!

'If there was work there, I'd do it. If there wasn't, fine.'

There was no, "Oh, I'd better think about paying the mortgage in four months' time."

Four months' time! Four days, I don't think I could even...

Four hours I could cope with. Four days? Mm-mm. Four months?

I would have thought you'd have just said, "Mortgage? What's a mortgage?"

You know what I mean, never planned anything.

Right, we need a withdrawal with receipt.

'My mum's quite financially cautious.

She's the one that worries about the finances.'

She'll be the one that's going, "Oh, we can't. Maybe. Oh, no!" She'll be the one fretting.

-I did get resentful cos you weren't pulling your weight.

-Yeah.

-Very resentful, in a very quiet and undermining way, I would guess.

-Mm-hm.

My dad will do whatever he wants, when he wants, in whatever he likes to wear,

which tends to be his dressing gown on a morning, sat outside smoking.

You just had moments where you were...

-..childish.

-Yeah, quite possibly.

-Self-centred and childish.

-Yes.

But the core person wasn't... You're not a bad person. I didn't ever hate you...

enough.

One of his favourite catchphrases is, when he comes back and he's hungry, "Nobody loves me.

"Everybody hates me. I'm going to go and eat worms".

Which is... You know, we encourage him to do that.

But Andy now has a regular job and seems quite settled.

With Rhianna growing up - and Rhianna's 12 now -

she needs stability and there needs to be constant money.

And it does feel good to have a constant income.

I go out. I go to work. I get paid.

And I know next month, it's going to be there again and again and again and again and again.

I can start sort of...

mentally thinking, "Right, I can save £100 here and £100 there."

Never quite happens like that, I'm afraid.

I always seem to find some way of spending it, but hey-ho!

-I'll work on that one.

-Mm.

I think it's good he's retrained and that he's trying again, but he also needs to stick at one thing,

instead of going, "Ooh, look! This is nice!" Flitting from different things.

He needs to stay at one particular thing, ground himself and just...

One thing he enjoys or doesn't enjoy, I don't care, as long as he brings in good cash.

If I do enter a relationship when I'm a lot older, I will have separate bank accounts, no joint.

I think it's good to be independent,

cos if things don't work out, for whatever reason, it's good to have your own thing to fall back on.

When it comes to the home environment,

it's not only we parents who shape our children's lives.

Most of our children have grandparents, sisters and brothers too.

# Our house

# In the middle of our street

# Our house... #

Matthew Singleton lives just outside London.

He and his brother, Robert, have been fierce rivals since they were young.

When we do play sports against each other, we are quite competitive,

both of us, but sometimes we do get too competitive

and maybe we argue.

Matthew, in the past, has got very frustrated cos he used to always

think he was the same age as Robert cos they were the same height.

I had to say to him so many times, "You're two years younger than him."

And he would become so competitive

and wanting to beat Robert all the time and get so angry.

At one point, they were very close and people sometimes would say, "Oh, you've got twins!"

I took them into work one and a guy said, "I didn't realise you had twins."

And I said, "No, no, they're two years apart."

But in the last year, things have changed as his older brother has gone through puberty.

Robert's suddenly shot up in height,

towering above Matthew, and I think that's changed the dynamic.

-Matthew...

-Matthew loves having a big brother, he really loves it.

-Robert's getting to adult size now.

I had no idea that that height thing, psychologically, would make such a difference.

-And they definitely get on much, much better now.

-Yeah.

-Oh, that's hot! Ow!

-Are you all right?

-Yeah.

The brothers' rivalry has just been a normal part of growing up

and for them, they've had a secure and tight-knit family throughout their lives.

From the kids' perspective, it's been a very, very stable upbringing.

We've not changed. We've not separated. We've not divorced.

We've been told off occasionally by our children

for having such a happy atmosphere at home, because they've got no traumas they can talk about to people.

That's lovely! That's good!

Do we need to wipe your nose? OK.

Smile, both of you.

'The thing is, we live round the corner and Matthew has a particularly close relationship with Raymond,

'which is lovely.'

'Matthew, for some time, passed our house every day on the way to school and coming home. And, er...'

They would call in and they got biscuits.

Used the loo sometimes.

Well, I have a very vivid memory of... Perhaps you do too.

..of the first day that Matthew went to infant school.

And he ran ahead of his parents in his new uniform coming past our house

and he just leapt up into our arms.

It is a delightful relationship and I think it's very important to be physically close.

-Oooh! Are you going to school?

-Hello.

-RAYMOND LAUGHS

But growing up brings about change and this family have a difficult time ahead.

My grandma's got Parkinson's disease

and because of that, she's had to move into a home.

Which was a very, very big wrench for all of us, especially my father.

It's much better now that she's in a home because she has proper carers.

You don't really know how you're meant to feel, because it's as if...

She's not died, but yet, it's that... It does feel somehow as if she's died.

Suddenly, your family that you always knew were together,

that you always relied on and always just assumed were going to be there for ever together until they died,

suddenly it's been pulled apart.

As far as Raymond and I are concerned,

I think this time is easier for me than for him.

But, you see, I'm very aware of the fact we've had

54 very good years, by anybody's standards.

And we've had a lovely time. He's bringing in albums from our...

The family have all laughed at me. I've had these photo albums, like a true old grandma,

but every since we met.

And we've had great fun and so have the boys. To our delight, they've picked up on them.

-The legacy that your mum will leave the boys...

-Yeah.

Having grandparents living round the corner, and she's put so much into them.

There's so many things they'll remember.

You look at the boys now and you think they wouldn't be like that if it wasn't for their grandparents.

I didn't think they'd be interested looking at these...all these pictures of our lives together

and all the holidays we've had and so on.

So, I think we've got an awful lot to be thankful for, so...

-Are you all right?

-Fine.

SHE LAUGHS

-My name's Ivo.

-My name's Alex!

Close relationships cement families together.

These bonds are often never stronger than between identical twins,

like Alex and Ivo Lloyd-Young in Glasgow.

Having a twin is like having a best friend but who lives with you.

Just means you've got someone who looks very like you

and you can falsify crimes against them.

Having your best mate with you all the time is a fantastic concept.

What a great thing to have someone who's quite like you and shares interests with you

with you all the time, so you can hang out.

Go faster! Go faster!

I can do it myself.

But being an identical twin has one big drawback.

-Are you Ivo or Alex?

-Ivo.

-Alex, can I play?

-I'm Ivo!

-People think we look alike.

-We do!

Uh! And the majority of people look alike, but we don't think we look alike.

-I'm already confused. Who's Alex and who's Ivo?

-This is Alex.

People do it a lot. Just beginning to get boring,

having to tell them you're not the one they think you are.

They're clearly very aware they are very similar, and that is a problem for people to tell them apart.

So, they'd just started wearing coloured clothes.

OK, I'll do it.

-I wear blue. He wears red.

-Ow!

Yeah, we have to do this so people can tell the difference.

Otherwise we just get called Ivo or Alex all the time.

See, like, I could be called Ivo and he could be called Alex.

The person who's Ivo is completely different to the person who's Alex.

Although, interestingly, they share a lot of personality traits, they are completely different.

We've been with the Child Of Our Time children at every milestone of their lives.

Starting primary school was a big moment.

PFFT!

PFFT!

And in 2011, the children started secondary school

and faced a whole new set of challenges.

Secondary school, that was the big one for me.

It was - Rhianna Lees, 11-year-old, first week at secondary school,

and you got this other person came home at night. It was, wow!

School's crap. They have all these "really good ideas about what kids enjoy"!

And a lot of the time, the kids don't want to do these "fun" theme days cos they're not fun.

Having started at secondary school last year, in Year Seven, I felt he slightly lost his confidence.

I think the whole enormity of going to secondary school,

trying to suddenly work out which classroom to go to, who the teachers were, what the names were.

All those things, which... At primary school, they were the oldest in the school.

Everybody knows them. They know everybody. It's smaller. I think that did really affect him.

Hey! Come in! How was it?

One worry that many parents have is that their children may be bullied.

Almost half of all British children are likely to be bullied at some point during school.

Someone's picking on them because of their weight, because they're too clever,

or they're dumb, kind of they're too skinny, they're fat, their appearance.

I hope that my children won't bully anybody else's, but they're not that temperament.

-I don't remember being bullied either when I was at school, on the contrary.

-Oh, I was.

SHE LAUGHS

Yes, I remember being locked in the lavatory when it was time to go to my piano class.

Sadly, for Taliesin Stevenson,

bullying has been an issue in his life since he was only four years old.

HE CRIES

They keep crashing with me. That isn't funny, is it?

They decided they didn't like me from pretty much the first day.

They never let me, like, play with them or anything like that.

They always left me out, they just used to call me names,

and, like, the normal kind of, like, what bullies do.

I think I was bullied because maybe I looked weaker than everyone else

and they decided to pick on the weakest.

I don't think they understood him. I think they were...

They weren't really on his level.

Um, and so he withdrew into what he found interesting.

It's so interesting!

It's a monster.

And then...

He didn't have this basic view that all the other children had of how everything goes together.

He took a photo of a fire extinguisher, I think, and birds flying.

Aah!

I just thought that was the most creative thing I could think of - birds flying in the sky.

I was amazed at that, from when I was young, so I'm like, "Ah!" Ching, ching, ching.

He had a totally different imaginary world that he lived in.

So, the birds flying and fire extinguishers

and everything else that caught his eye, really,

rather than focusing on the miserable situation that he was basically in.

Go away!

'There were so many times that I didn't want to go into school.

'Then I just started getting worse at that and saying, "I don't want to go in! I don't want to go in!"'

Then my mum said, "Is there a problem?" And that's how I told her after five years.

Knowing that I was sending him into an environment that he really wasn't comfortable with was...

It was awful for me, it really was, and I'd come home and cry.

I had to drive him into school a lot of times because he just wouldn't walk.

He just point blank refused.

Um, and I had to stand with him and wait and....

He'd go off and...

It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking.

Taliesin being bullied struck a nerve with Olivia,

because she had also suffered similarly in HER childhood.

I wasn't only bullied at school, but also being bullied at home by my father.

In June 2000, Olivia returned to her childhood home

to tell Child Of Our Time about her traumatic upbringing.

This is the woods that my mother's house backs on to.

When I was very, very young and got worried at home,

I used to jump over the fence and I'd run out into here.

It's like a safe haven.

So, it is hard as a parent, when you've been through that bullying,

to see that happening to your own child.

It's the worst feeling ever.

But I just knew I had to do something about it.

And I got myself a job there working as a midday assistant,

so that I could see.

I thought, "I'll know what he's up to from across the playground,

"and I'll see what he's doing to these other kids to provoke the reaction that he's getting."

And what I did see was an awful lot of stuff flying in his direction

when he was even walking away.

It was at that point that I decided it really wasn't going to work,

and I just had to remove him from the school and find somewhere else.

Taliesin moved schools, made new friends and is now much happier.

I think the bullying wasn't actually a bad thing.

Well, it is, but it wasn't bad as in the sense that it ruined my life.

I think it's made me stronger as a person,

like, deciding to stick up for myself rather than just take it.

# What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

# Stand a little taller

# Doesn't mean I'm lonely... #

He's got some really lovely friends now.

I don't begrudge them what they did. I think they did him a massive favour.

# What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

# Stronger

# Just me, myself and I

# What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

# Stand a little taller

# Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I alone... #

He's just so strong, and he's such a character.

And, um, I'm just so proud to be part of that,

to develop him into the adult that he's becoming.

# Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone

# I'm not alone. #

Everything changes when you become a teenager -

your mind, your body and, of course, your hormones.

That's it! Inside leg, left leg! Go, go, go!

And girls develop faster than boys.

Megan Davies lives in South Wales.

I definitely WAS a tomboy.

I don't think I am now, but I'm not one to wear dresses.

But, erm...

I don't think I'm as boyish as what I used to be.

She will paint her nails and she will doll herself up a bit,

but her fashion sense, compared to Delana, her sister, isn't the best.

Got to watch what you say now.

Some of the things Megan will wear...

We see her coming downstairs ready to go out for a meal or something.

"Where do you think you're going?" She's just got some horrendous choice of clothes on.

-So, we just leave it.

-She's not bothered at all.

-No, she's not that fussy.

Not a lot of my friends actually have boyfriends, cos we all stick to the same, like, motto kind of thing.

We all agree that we're a bit too young to take relationships seriously anyway, so...

They will choose their own friends.

They will decide what kind of life they want to lead, really.

And it's from now on this is where we'll see big changes, really.

It was quite a shock, actually, when we got to about the age of nine

and she went from being a very compliant little girl to saying, "No, I'm not going to do that,"

which is, OK, perfectly normal, I'm told. Erm...

She is a very, very typical teenager.

Spotty, becoming a woman,

capable of being a total pain in the arse,

and being a beautiful girl the next moment.

It's going to be hell, cos I'm always going to get into arguments with my mother.

I'm not looking forward to being a teenager.

It's just you get grumpy a lot.

Sometimes he's a pain in the butt.

And I have to remind myself that he's supposed to be pushing the boundaries.

She was angry, grounded me for, like, three weeks.

He's getting quite clothes conscious and he's quite into his music.

Oh, what's he called? I call him Tiny Tim and he gets furious with me.

Tiny somebody or other, singer. All these singers and things that he likes.

And, erm... And... Templer. Tiny Templer, I think. Something like that.

Sometimes, you know, I'll be, like, in the mood of a three-year-old

and spinning round in a circle is the best thing ever!

And a rainbow, you know, is magical, you know.

But then if I'm in, you know, a sensible mood,

nothing is funny, you know, everything is just, like, "Oh, God sakes!"

To look at, she's tall, quite mature for her age in some ways,

-but she's not as mature as she'd like to have you think.

-Yeah.

Mum says I'm a wicked child cos I like the idea of turning people into soup.

There's a film that does that. When they get old and decrepit, they turn them into soup.

She's becoming quite hard. She's deliberately developing a hard shell,

-which is alien to her natural character, to protect herself.

-To protect herself, yeah.

As a kid, empathy is useless because people will either take advantage of that, you know,

by asking silly things, like crayons, you know, whatever.

And you can't keep being friends with people you don't want to be friends with.

I think she's less trusting, isn't she?

Mum keeps saying, "You'll need it as an adult, blah, blah, blah!"

But I don't care. I'm not an adult at the moment.

This is how I want to be, otherwise it's going to ruin my life.

So, do you play for North...?

As children gain independence,

they start to make decisions for themselves,

and for one of our boys, this has had a dramatic impact on him and his family.

I stopped competing, really,

cos I got a bit...bored

and I was getting, like, a lot of pressure put on me.

Ah, fantastic play!

From a very young age, William Roberts seemed destined

to become a professional tennis player.

When I first started playing tennis, I was four.

I thought I was more naturally good a tennis player,

cos people tell me that I'm very athletic.

I think he's got a very good hand-to-eye coordination.

He has a natural ability.

He was definitely in the top eight for his age group in the country.

APPLAUSE

All William's spare time was taken up

practising tennis and travelling to tournaments.

-I'm not...!

-Calm down.

-HE WAILS

'He was travelling further than nearly anyone.

'He was giving up more school than nearly anyone.'

Half the time, he'd have his lunch in the car.

He had more meals in the car than anywhere else.

And then drive off to training and you'd be there for hours and then coming back at night.

And he's got to be up at school for eight o'clock in the morning and this isn't working.

You realise it's too much pressure to be putting William through that if he's not enjoying it.

I was just getting a bit tired of it.

And I just started not being too keen on it.

And started looking at other sports.

And I was missing out on school sports that I wanted to do.

I was getting pulled off to tennis

when I actually wanted to do cricket at school and stuff like that.

I just didn't want to really carry on.

I did say to Will, "If you want to carry on, Will, if you really want to carry on playing tennis,

"I will take you round the world."

He said, "I don't know. You're the adult, it's up to you."

And I said, "Well, Will, do you want to carry on playing tennis?" "I don't know."

And eventually I said, "Look, love, 'I don't know' isn't really enough any more,

"because it's too big a thing."

It was tough on her as well because she was travelling around the country when I didn't even really...

I wasn't really keen on the sport, so it was wasting her time and my time.

So, we just decided to stop.

That's it, that's the finish of tennis.

And he looked at me and then he - I was in the kitchen -

he came across to me and flung his arms round me and gave me a big hug.

I wasn't that disappointed thinking that was the only thing that I was...

that's the only sport I was good at,

cos I know I'm all right at other sports as well.

Not going to tennis every day has made an enormous difference to me,

so much so that I look back and think I don't know how I did it sometimes.

Erm...

I now would like to have a job. I have been applying for jobs.

Because I think it's easy to get consumed with housework.

At least have the option of getting a job. It may not go down particularly well with some people,

people that think I have plenty to do without getting a job, but I think, erm...

I think that it would be good for me.

If I hadn't had children and if I hadn't wanted children,

I would be a solicitor with an income of my own

and I would be financially independent.

It would have changed who I am and how I feel about myself.

It would have changed how other people see me.

It would have changed what I had and how I lived

and it would have changed my relationships with other people.

And I could have been more of the person I wanted to be

with that career and that income.

I did have the offer of a really brilliant training contract

with an excellent City firm.

And so I've given up that, and I do...I do regret that.

I do regret that.

I do regret that a lot.

Erm...

I have made a lot of sacrifices...

in one way.

But in some ways, I haven't sacrificed anything.

Yeah. I think, "Oh, well, I would have liked a job and a career."

But the truth is, I wouldn't have wanted anything else.

I... I, erm...

I wanted the children so much.

And I was more confident about being a good mother

than I was confident about being a good solicitor.

But we'll never know.

These are the last moments of childhood,

so a time of reflection for us all.

Being a dad is as good as it's ever going to get, for me, I think.

This is the single best thing I'll ever do.

-..And four, OK?

-OK.

..If you want.

We can't all be brilliant at whatever,

but there's a possibility that they might be,

so, to me, it just feels incredibly special.

I personally feel a little bit like the centre of the boys' lives

has evolved away from me, inevitably.

I used to do lists of ten brilliant things to do at the weekend

and they'd tick what they wanted to do and we'd have paper aeroplane competitions

and Lego model crashing competitions, all this stuff.

And I love toys and kids and all that kind of stuff, and that doesn't happen now, and I miss that.

I think I'm getting to the age where you want to be more with your friends

than with your mum and dad.

I can go into town by my own.

They're not as much, like, crowded around me,

like, "Be careful! Don't trip over."

I just do what I want, really.

'Our relationship, it's changing, which it's bound to.'

But it's me that probably mourns that.

Parys doesn't at all, I don't think.

I find myself increasingly emotional these days,

thinking, "It's not going to be long and they're all going to have grown up and they're going to leave me!"

And it's lovely, because I think that they'll do very well.

Oh, yes, it's wonderful being a grandmother. I wouldn't change that.

It's interesting to see her growing and changing.

And you just hope that you'll always be part of that.

'I'm very privileged to have these children, but I've only got them for a short period of time,'

cos they are going to grow up and leave me, but they're coming back when I'm old. I've told them!

These are the golden moments right now.

There's a kind of sadness, because I think childhood is about loss.

It's about the loss of those moments because things are changing so much.

They're 12 now. They were one.

They're never going to be one again, so you're just losing all the time.

I guess you just hold on to all the kind of wee moments of just magic.

MUSIC: "When I'm 64" by The Beatles

We shall continue to record the lives of our children, and one thing is certain -

the biggest changes and challenges are still to come,

as they become adults.

I probably think I'd like to do something with animals, because they're different.

I'd like to be a photographer.

I don't know what I'll do. I'll just go with the flow.

I want to be a baker as famous as Nigella Lawson.

I don't know at all. It'll...

It'll come to me one day!

I want to be successful so I can make my mum and dad proud,

but I don't know if that'll happen or not.

Find out more about the challenges of the teenage years.

Order The Open University's free booklet, Becoming A Teenager.

Call:

Or go to the website and follow the links to The Open University.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd