Parents beware, failing to act your age is embarrassing, innit?

MUMS sporting underwear that’s visible above the back of their jeans and generally dressing like their kids are among the biggest embarrassments to children, and any parent who litters their language with “innit”, “cool”, “sick”, “phat” or “awesome” is also sailing very close to the wind. Living with teens can be an exercise in treading on eggshells at the best of times, but these crimes constitute serious colonisation of their territory.

While children don’t mind us trying to understand them (so long as we don’t want to talk about it too often), they draw the line at us joining in by mimicking the words they consider their own and cringe when we adopt their style of dressing, according to research carried out by Online Opinions. It’s not just teens themselves whose toes curl in embarrassment when their parents try to “get down with the kids” in these ways. Other adults also roll their eyes at the spectacle.

Some parents, and we’re generally talking mums here, just don’t seem to hear that loud noise in the head when they attempt to leave the house in a very mini playsuit and tiger-print leggings. “You’re not going out in that, are you?” used to be said by distraught parents, worried by the high hemline worn by their daughters. Now it’s as likely to be used by a mortified teen whose mother has lost all idea of what’s age-appropriate.

Madonna might think she’s being “cool” when she steps out with 14-year-old Lourdes in a very similar mix and match of black Lycra and leather, but half of the adults surveyed said they sympathised with any teenager whose mother is trying to recapture her own youth via her child’s.

A poll of words parents should on no account use is topped by “innit”, with “chillax” (calm down), “wicked”, “awesome” and “whatever” also on the list of vocabulary that really shouldn’t by used by anyone beyond school leaving age. The language thing is easy to understand, as it’s part of the rarefied code of teen culture, and adults too often compound their crime by using the word in the wrong context, making themselves appear even more idiotic.

Sometimes the young can be far too hard on their parents, though. Being a mass of acne and complexes can lead to fascist behaviour such as demanding that a parent closes all windows while driving so there’s no chance of the teen’s friends hearing you driving through the streets listening to Rod Stewart. Similarly, you may be forbidden to hum, laugh loudly or listen to The Archers when they have friends in the house. Basically, you are not really allowed to draw attention to yourself. One mum I know had to change three times before an outfit was deemed inoffensive enough for the big drop-off at university.

“Young people tend to think they invented everything, but a word like cool has been around since the 1920s, part of the Jazz Age,” says Clive Upton, Professor of Modern English Language at Leeds University. “Young people in the north-east think they coined the world ‘mortaled’ for drunk, but it’s actually a Victorian word from Scotland. Of course each generation does come up with its own new additions to the language, and older people need to be sensitive to the fact that the young want to make their own mark and the adults shouldn’t trample all over them. Nor should they think that these newer words mean the English language is going to pot.”