'We become adolescents when the words that adults exchange with one another become intelligible it us; intelligible, but of not interest because we longer care whether peace reigns in the house or not. Now we are able to follow the ins and outs of family rows and to foresee their course and how long they will last; and we are are not afraid of them any more, doors slam ad we do not jump. The house is no longer what it was for us before, it is no longer the point from which we look out on the rest of the universe, it is a place where - by chance - we eat and live: we eat quickly, lending our inattentive ear to the adults' conversation - a conversation which is intelligible to us but which strikes us as useless; eat and quickly escape to our rooms so that we don't have to listen to their useless conversation, and we are able to be perfectly happy even if the adults around us are arguing and sulking day in day out. The things that matter to us no longer happen within the walls of our house but outside, in the street and at school; we feel that we cannot be happy if the other children at school look down on us in any way. We would do anything to escape their contempt; and we do anything.'
Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, p.121.
