I admire big boy's independence. He likes to go out and about. He lives to shop. On weekends I rarely see him. Last Saturday was fairly typical: I'm eating breakfast when I hear a loud thumping noise on the stairs. Big boy sweeps into the kitchen, a baby-faced behemoth, wearing boxer shorts and a duvet.

"Want some breakfast?" I offer.

Big boy grunts, sticks his head in the fridge and reaches for the remains of a Chinese take-away which he slurps up noisily.

"What are you up to today?"

"I'm going Camden wiv Josh, then I'm going West End wiv Josh and Dave."

"Yes, but what are you going to do there?"

"Shopping. Can I have £20.00 please?"

"What for?"

"I need a jumper. I've only got free jumpers. The uvvers don't fit."

I do quick memory check of his wardrobe, figure he's probably right and hand over the money.

"Can I have my pocket money please?"

I hand over £5.00 and he disappears upstairs to get dressed. Minutes later, he's headed for the door.

"Can I have £5.00 please?"

"I just gave you your pocket money."

"I need money for lunch and the bus."

I negotiate him down to £2.50 and he's gone. All day. Shopping.

Coming from a generation which eschewed materialism and fashion, or at least pretended to, big boy's consumerism, his obsession with shopping, style and labels never ceases to amaze me. But let's face it, his generation think people like me are really weird. The other morning, for example, big boy's posse were gathering in the kitchen, preparing for the long march to school.

"Oh my Gosh, look at your phone!" exclaimed one of the mates as I packed my mobile into my work bag.

"What about it?"

"It's SO big."

"Not really," I reply. "Anyway, it does what it's supposed to do."

"It's embarrassing," chips in big boy.

"How can a phone be embarrassing?" I ask.

"It's rubbish," says another mate, pointing to a picture in the Argos catalogue (big boy's favourite bed-time reading, by the way). "You wanna get one of these."

"How much does that cost?"

"'Bout eighty or a hundred," says big boy.

"But what does it do that mine can't?"

"You can play loads of games on it."

"I don't play games."

"Yeah but it's not embarrassing like yours," repeats big boy.

Now I recall those TV adverts about embarrassing phones. Clearly, I'm missing the point. Like my trainers. They cost thirty quid. Big boy's cost more than double that and they were a bargain, apparently. Then there's my car. It works. It gets me from A to B. Big boy, however, would feel far happier if it was a BMW or an Audi something or other that is currently the coolest car on the planet. It's embarrassing, obviously.

"And why does it have to be brown?" moans big boy. Then there's the computer, too old and slow ("why can't we get broadband, it's only £25.00 per month"), and digital TV ("there's loads more channels") and DVD ("it costs the same as video, you know").

The worst thing, though, in big boy's book, is my job. He cannot understand why I seem to work so hard and earn so little, especially as this affects the amount of pocket money he gets. The concept of doing something because you enjoy it or because it's worthwhile is completely alien to him. He thinks I should work in the City though I've told him repeatedly that I'd hate it and be completely useless at it.

Having grudgingly accepted that his Mum will never cut it as a high-flyer with a top brokerage house, he came up with a more modest plan the other day for me to boost my meagre income: take over his recently abandoned paper round. The paper round tired him out you see, and although he had no objection to sleeping through his lessons at school, it interfered with those weekend shopping trips.

"You can earn £15.00 a week you know," says big boy. "Twenty if you do the weekends."

"Thanks very much for the offer but I can't see me doing that somehow."

"No, come to think of it, maybe it's a bad idea," agrees big boy.

And I know why - Mum going round the 'hood delivering newspapers? Embarrassing!

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

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