Dear Auntie,
I am a 16-year-old boy. I have just completed my matric, and am on holidays these days. I usually have nothing to do the whole day. While I wanted to take up an internship or a job, I could not find any. I don’t know why but my mother often gets angry at me for chilling at home the whole day — it’s my summer vacation, why shouldn’t I?

She takes her anger out on me for no reason. Yesterday she shouted at me telling me that I am lazy and that I was not doing anything. She also turned off the internet which was quite annoying. She also forces me to study in my summer holidays. And now I also get irritated all the time. Please help me to deal with my mother.
Bored

Dear Wake-Up,
Call up all your friends who are around to find out what they are doing. You never know. You might hear of a group of teenagers who might be getting together to play cricket every other day, or who have started a book club or are putting on a play. Don’t wait for things to happen. Get in touch and get involved. If you have a camera or even using your phone’s camera, try your hand at photography to see if that excites you. There are plenty of instructions for pretty much any hobby you might want to take up on YouTube and the internet generally. So, use your access to the internet responsibly to look up things that interest you and which you can do in the real world.

My mother takes her anger out on me for no reason

You can, of course, have a few friends over to watch movies even once a week. However, don’t start demanding that your mother run around to serve them. Ask your parents if you can have your friends or cousins over for movies or a barbeque, organise it and make it happen.

Don’t wait for things to happen. Get in touch and get involved. If you have a camera or even using your phone’s camera, try your hand at photography to see if that excites you. There are plenty of instructions for pretty much any hobby you might want to take up on YouTube and the internet generally. So, use your access to the internet responsibly to look up things that interest you and which you can do in the real world.

Also if you can, help your parents out with some chores around the house. Auntie knows it sounds utterly boring to be told to clean up your room or clear out the storeroom, or help put up some paintings on the wall, but these are real tasks that will help improve the quality of life of everyone living in the house. You’ll feel great after accomplishing it and it will probably please your parents immensely. You are young and this is the time to explore every healthy activity you can (even if it sounds too childish or too girly) to figure out what you are interested in.

Auntie will not reply privately to any query. Please send concise queries to: auntieagni@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 18th, 2017