Any standard text on adolescence will no doubt talk about how important it is for teenagers to find their own identity and how one of the ways that they do this is to try very hard not to be like their parents. Big boy, it seems is a classic case, rejecting everything he thinks I stand for and identifying instead with a mish-mash of cultures which one might broadly define as youth/street/black/working class.

He doesn’t quite look or sound like Ali G, but he tries hard to give the impression that he comes from da ghetto; except that in his case, da ghetto is in the heart of a leafy conservation area.

In order to maintain his street cred (rather old fashioned term, that) big boy is determined to speak, dress and behave in ways which to my ears just make him sound thick and thuggish. Take tonight’s conversation in the car on the way for a pizza.

“Look Mum, there’s a Staff. I wanna Staff. Can we go Battersea and ‘ave a look?”

I look out of the car window and see two young men walking a fearsome-looking Staffordshire bull terrier.

“Number one, we’re not getting a dog. Number two, if we were it wouldn’t be one of those things. Did you read in the paper today that a twelve-year old boy was savaged by one of those and nearly lost an arm?”

“Yeah, well ‘e must ‘ave been buggin’ it or somefin.’”

“No, he was playing football.”

“Well, I fink ver buff (transl. “I think they’re nice”). Why can’t we ‘ave one?”

“Why are you so determined to make yourself look like a thug?”

“Mum Man! I ain’t trying to be a fug. Why are you so determined to be a posh snob?”

“I’m neither posh nor a snob,” I retort, feeling somewhat offended. “I just try to speak clearly.”

“Yeah, like on the answering machine. That’s embarrassing.” At which point big boy and bro proceed to imitate my voice as they reel off our home phone number, my mobile and the machine’s message. They appear to be doing passable imitations of the Queen.

And, where he might have failed to acquire a nasty, brutish kind of dog, big boy has succeeded in acquiring a nasty, brutish haircut. For some time now he has been getting Number Ones at the local barbers. It really upsets me because he’s got the most beautiful curly hair and I cannot understand why he feels the need to shave it off.

These days he looks very like one of those skinhead youths that my hippy friends and I used to run away from back in the 1970s. All that’s missing are the braces and Doctor Martens. You can see why old ladies might be frightened when they see big boy and his similarly coiffed mates lumbering along the road. Even bro’s got in on the act though his cut is more Gareth Gates than bovver boy, thank goodness.

The strangest thing though is to hear him talk His voice is quite deep and manly now but he seems to feel that if he doesn’t drop his ‘h’s or pronounce ‘th’ as ‘f’, he isn’t being manly at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. Then there are the words and phrases which probably come from a ghetto somewhere in North America but which sound very alien coming from the mouth of a middle class white teenager in a London suburb. Witness the following:

Me: “What are you doing today?”

BB: “Goin’ West End wiv Joe. Ven kotchin’ at Joe’s crib.”

Me: “Sorry?”

BB: “Goin’ West End ven goin’ Joe’s.”

Me: “Can you be back by six thirty please?”

BB: “Seven firty.”

Me: “Six thirty. We’re going for a pizza tonight, remember?”

BB: “Izzit?”

Me: “Yes. I’ve booked a table for seven o’clock. Dad’s going to meet us there.”

BB: “Izzit?”

Me: “‘Is he?’ Not ‘Is it?’ and please don’t be late.”

BB: “Mum Man! Stop hassling me. I’ve got my phone. I’ll be back in free hours.”

I realise that much as I hate it and wish that my boy spoke the Queen’s English with Received Pronunciation, I don’t really have the right to correct him. Language is always changing, we live in a multi-cultural society, he’s from a new generation and the way I speak is no better than the way that big boy does. Izzit?

Rebecca Misell lives in London with her two sons aged 11 & 13.

NEXT INSTALMENT: THURSDAY 5 SEPTEMBER