THE GRIEF OF BEING IGNORED BY YOUR TEEN!

Debbi Marco, 46, remembers being her son's favourite person. Not any more...

-  DEBBI MARCO

Sitting in the dentist's waiting room with my son Sam, 14, about to get his braces fitted, I wanted to offer some comforting words. But as I reached for his hand, he fixed me with such an icy stare, I swear I felt the temperature drop.

'Don't talk to me in public,' he mouthed, before turning back to his phone, and I'll admit that in that moment, I think I died inside. What had happened to my baby boy, my firstborn, the light of my life who had worshipped the ground I walked on? Because Sam wasn't always this grumpy teen resisting my attempts to interact with him in public.

As a baby, born in December 2010, he was a squishy ball of adorableness, sleeping for hours in my arms. In the early days, although he loved my husband Matt too, of course, when he was tired only Mummy would do. And as the years passed and he became an energetic preschooler, his doe-eyed love for me intensified.