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Dear Dr. Ozzy,
My daughter has an enormous nose. I’m not going to lie: it’s huge (although she has always looked beautiful to me). She says it’s ruining her social life, and now she wants a nose job for her 14th birthday, which I’m told is normal these days. Advice?
There are a lot of people who’ll tell you that bullying makes you stronger and that you’ve gotta learn to take it if you want to get on in the world. The trouble is, though, when you’re being called “big nose” five hundred times a day at school because you’ve got Mount Everest stuck to your face, that ain’t very fucking helpful. Like everything, the people who are so sure you’ve got to put up with it don’t have to handle the problem themselves. And kids can be incredibly cruel, y’know? Not only that, but things you get teased for a school can mess you up for the rest of your life. To this day, I’m still very insecure about my dyslexia, because I was brought up being told that I was stupid. So look: people get birth-marks and other harmless stuff removed all the time because of the way they look. It’s no different with a giant conk. Buy her the nose job.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My 10-year-old daughter borrowed my iPad without asking and found an explicit photograph of me and my girlfriend on it (I’m recently divorced from her mum). Now she won’t speak to me—and I’m terrified of what my ex-wife is going to do. Help!
Adopt the brace position and prepare for bollocking of a lifetime—and to be honest with you, I ain’t exactly overflowing with sympathy. I mean, I’m useless when it comes to iThis and iThat, but it doesn’t take a fucking genius to realise that you need to set a password before leaving a computer lying around, especially if there are kids in the house. Mind you, taking those dirty pictures in the first place wasn’t a very clever idea, either: you’re the one who’s supposed to warning your kids about “sexting,” not the other way around. The divorce only makes things worse, ’cos your daughter was probably feeling weird and insecure about your new relationship to begin with. When she can finally look you in the eye again, you need to have a heart-to-heart. And while you ain’t by any means in the clear yourself, you need to explain to her that some things are private, and that she can’t look at your stuff without permission. Point out to her that when she gets older, she’ll expect you to give her some personal space, too.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I suspect that my 15-year-old son is partaking in a bit of the old “sweet leaf”—ie, ca
Here’s what I always tell myself: we were all kids once, and when we were worried about being caught doing anything bad, we’d lie. When my father gave me the, “If I ever catch you smoking cigarettes…” lecture, I still did it, but under wraps, so he wouldn’t find out. So don’t be militant about the drugs. Just come clean with your son, lay your cards on the table. Say, “Look, I know about the pot, and I’m worried.” Tell them that unlike the dickhead who’s been selling them weed, you love them unconditionally, and you’re the best friend they’ll ever have. It’s better to be cool with your kids than put up a brick wall, otherwise they’ll just go sneaking around behind your back.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
I recently discovered that my 13-year-old daughter has been text-messaging racy photographs of herself to her boyfriend—“sexting,” as it’s known. What on earth should I do?
Get everyone in a room together—you, your daughter, your daughter’s father, the boyfriend, the boyfriend’s parents—and deliver a category-five bollocking. Ram it home to them how stupid it is. Then make absolutely sure that all copies of those pictures are destroyed. The thing you need to make clear is that you aren’t angry with them so much for exploring their bodies—kids have always played “doctors and nurses”—but because when you press “send” on a phone or a computer, you lose control of that image forever. All it takes is for some idiot to pick up the boyfriend’s phone and forward the picture, and it could have gone around the world twice in a few hours—and ended up on the kind of websites you don’t even want to believe exist. That’s not even to mention the embarrassment she’d suffer if any of her classmates got hold of it.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My teenage son has started to spend hours alone in his bedroom, and when I go in there to clean, I notice crusty stains on the carpet. How can I tell him to use a tissue?
Ask him if he’s been making any Airfix planes recently, because you’re finding glue all over the place. Then tell him very nicely that you don’t mind him making Airfix planes—it’s normal at his age—but if he spills any more glue, he really should use a tissue, because it’s only polite. With any luck he’ll be so embarrassed, he’ll never dirty the carpet again.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My 25-year-old daughter lives alone in London and has started to go out on Internet dates. Is this safe? How can I get her to meet a man the old-fashioned way—ie, offline?
The Internet makes me glad I’ve got attention deficit disorder, ’cos otherwise I’d be as glued to the screen as everyone else, getting up to no good. But the truth is, times have changed, and I’ve heard a lot of stories about people meeting the love of their lives online—so it can’t be all bad. Besides, what’s worse, arranging dates on the computer, or getting picked up in bars? The only thing I’d say to your daughter is, “Look, a guy can tell you anything he wants to online, so don’t believe everything you read. Plus, most guys want a bonk, not a wife.” Bearing that in mind, I hope she finds the right bloke.
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
My son has taking up smoking to impress a new girlfriend. How can I get him to stop?
I made the same mistake myself. I took some chick from Digbeth to the pictures when I was 14, and brought along five cigarettes and a pe
Dear Dr. Ozzy:
Like you, I’m covered in tattoos, but now my beautiful 17-year-old daughter wants to get one done. I’m trying to talk her out of it, because I hate the way tattoos look on young girls, but I feel like a hypocrite. Please help.
The trouble with tattoos is, they’re addictive. I’ve known girls who start out with a little flower on their ankle, and three months later, they’ve got an entire battle scene across their arse. When my own daughter got tattoos, I said to her, “Look, fashions come and fashions go, and one day you might end up resenting what you did to your body when you were young.” It’s one think being young and beautiful with a tattoo, and another thing when you’re a grandma with a floppy old dagger on your arm. I mean, there are times when even I wake up and look at the smiley face I drew on my knee and think, “What did I do that for?” They hurt like crazy, too, when you first get ’em done. To me, though, the best thing to point out to your daughter is that tattoos just aren’t that special anymore: everyone has ’em. If she wants to be really ahead of the pack, she’d be better off investing her money in one of those laser removal companies. They’re go