Ruth Walker: Relations between Mother and Daughter hit Defcon 1 during a tour of filming locations across Manhattan

Published on Friday 21 November 2008 12:34

I WOULD LOVE to say we bonded in Bloomingdale's. That we made a connection in Macy's and found a new understanding for each other on Fifth Avenue. But, to be perfectly frank, my recent, meticulously planned, much mentioned trip to New York with The Teenager, which should have been all about retail therapy, has left me needing therapy instead.

Perhaps it had something to do with her singular lack of enthusiasm. "There's the Empire State Building," I'd say excitedly. "Radio City Hall, Grand Central Station. Ooh, look, the Chrysler Building!"

"Yeah, well," she would retort, "they're just buildings. We have buildings in Scotland too, you know."

Just taking the map out to get our bearings would be enough to have her recoiling in embarrassment. "Mum! We look like tourists!" – the last word spat out with the kind of venom normally reserved for annoying little boys or people who just don't get American boy band the Jonas Brothers.

I would find myself sharing secrets from my past over brunch; she would say: "If you think I'm going to tell you anything, you're delusional."

Perhaps she was right. How else could I explain my continued determination to ensure the sullen so-and-so had a good time? I'd traipse tirelessly around scruffy shops which were hawking an indecent amount of tartan and flimsy T-shirts that would fall apart after the second wash. Then the moment I'd spot a store I was vaguely interested in I'd be treated to a chorus of "This shop's crap. Why are we here, anyway? Can we go now?"

At one point I drew attention to the fact that she hadn't thanked me for the trip. She grimaced and mouthed: "Thank-yoooo," the kind of way my mother might mouth "cancer" following an inquiry after the old lady next door to a friend they haven't seen for a while; as if gratitude was somehow fatal and if you said it out loud you might get it for real.

(Ingratitude turned out to be a theme of the week. The only friend I brought a gift home for – I won't name them for fear of shaming their mother, who surely brought them up to have better manners – said, as I placed it in front of them, "What? Is that it?")

Relations between Mother and Daughter hit Defcon 1 during a TV tour of filming locations across Manhattan. As we rounded the corner to see the apartment where the Friends lived in West Village, the tour guide launched into a solo rendition of the show's theme tune. I turned to The Teenager with a smile and was met with the kind of withering look that can only come from a 15-year-old girl who has perfected it to an art form during long, unsupervised afternoons in front of the mirror; the kind of look that says: "You are sooo stupid and unbelievably uncool, I can't believe I am even breathing the same oxygen as you."

Fortunately for us (and for NYPD, who would have had to clear up the mess), the atmosphere thawed eventually. We loved the dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History and the breathtaking view from the top of the Rockefeller Centre. We had a hoot at the Hallowe'en decorations lining the steps of Brooklyn's brownstones, and the massive, three-storey M&Ms store on Times Square finally brought a smile to The Teenager's face. She even took her camera out and started taking pictures of it, like a real tourist. Now how uncool is that?!