Getting older does have its rougher moments and, frankly, the fact that my waist now measures the same as my hips once did does not exactly fill my little heart with delight. However, not even the possibility of reversing an inexorable progress from curvy to matronly would tempt me to be a teenager again, especially on Valentine's Day, writes Breda O'Brien
Just remembering all those agonised longings for shiny, red satin cards of unmitigated tackiness is nearly enough to send me searching for my Janis Ian cassette. I almost wore it out in a vain attempt to reassure myself that I was not the only one to fail this elementary test of social acceptability. It did not help that Janis whinges about discovering the truth "at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens". I was all of 12 when that particular observation hit me. Be young again? No, thanks. Much nicer to wake up on Valentine's Day as a married woman with all of that angst left behind.
My middle-aged smugness was punctured somewhat, though, while leafing through one of my parenting books. It's called Kid Co-operation - how to stop yelling, nagging and pleading, and get kids to co-operate. (We of the post-smacking generation need all the help we can get.) The author, Elizabeth Pantley, describes the eagerness with which parents hoover up parenting tips at her course, and the resistance she encounters when she tells people that looking after their marriage must be their first priority. The response of one woman, Evelyn, typifies many of the mothers' feelings, many of whom are nodding their heads as she speaks. She tells Elizabeth that since she works part-time, has three pre-schoolers and does all of her own cooking, housework and washing, she has no energy left to "work on her marriage".
Elizabeth then pounces; "Evelyn, how would you like to have three pre-schoolers, work part-time, do all your own housework, cooking and washing, and do it all as a single parent? Because if you take care of everything else, and neglect your marriage, that's what could happen." Suddenly, all the women who had been nodding assent to Evelyn's comment were looking at Elizabeth with wide eyes. The idea that their marriage could be in jeopardy hit them very hard, given that until that moment it had been at the very bottom of their priority list. Elizabeth also notes that she now had the attention of several fathers who until then had seemed lost in their own thoughts. I bet she did.
If you think that a bucket of cold water is bad enough, an email list to which I am subscribed has been buzzing about a book by psychologist and marital researcher Shirley Glass. Again, with that American propensity for providing a summary of the book in the title, it's called Not Just Friends - protect your marriage from infidelity and heal the trauma of betrayal.
She contends that it is not necessary to be sexually involved with someone in order to do significant damage to a marriage. She says that it is "good people", peers who are in good marriages, who are most likely to fall into what she calls emotional infidelity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the workplace is where you are most likely to find someone with whom you start a relationship which amounts to cheating on your spouse.
She lists several signs that show a relationship has crossed the line from "platonic to passionate". The first is sharing more of your emotional self with a co-worker of the opposite sex than you do with a spouse. The real red flag here is when you start sharing your marital dissatisfactions with that sympathetic ear. The second is deception, such as not mentioning that you meet every day for coffee. The third is sexual chemistry, without appropriate boundaries.
And guess what, she pinpoints the "child-centred marriage" as a primary culprit. Parents with dual careers and limited time often collude to give what time they have to the children. Their bond is built on co-parenting, and they don't make time for themselves. Of course, it is not just in dual-career homes that this danger arises. Today, the parent in the home can shoulder so much that she or he is just as exhausted as the parent outside.
It is one of life's nasty little ironies that good people who want to give their children the very best often unwittingly undermine their own relationship.
Stephen Covey uses a metaphor of making deposits in an emotional bank account. People who are rich in their relationship often believe that they can go on making withdrawals indefinitely. The fact that they have a strong foundation to their relationship, based first on shared values and deep affection, can make them complacent. They assume that their commitment to their children is a bond which will sustain them, and that it will not matter if they put their own relationship on hold for a few years when the children are at their most demanding. But no one can go on making withdrawals on shared capital forever without also replenishing it.
Luckily, it is not all bad news. All the researchers seem to agree that the strong relationship which made people complacent in the first place can still provide the raw materials for renewing your bond. One funny, engaging - and yes, romantic - book on the subject of bringing the closeness back to your relationship is Love Life for Parents - how to have kids and a sex life, too, by David and Claudia Arp.
Perhaps you share my depression at being informed that just as you are congratulating yourself on being model parents, that you are in danger of neglecting the primary shelter for your children, which is a stable and nourishing marital relationship.
Just when the angst of your own teenage years seems safely in the past, the spectre of a rather more devastating angst caused by a failed relationship looms.
One compensation, perhaps, is that investing time in your marriage carries its own rewards, undreamt of in your teens. It can be as simple as following the Arps' suggestion, that if you only have a minute to spare, spend it in a kiss.
Who knows, it might help us to finally confirm that ole Janis was wrong. Love is definitely meant for more than beauty queens.