Aimee's thoughts:
When you find out that you're having a girl, one of your first thoughts is to skip ahead to the teenage years. Visions of piercings, arguments, skimpy clothing and late nights waiting up all come to mind. Compared to teenaged boys, who really just tend to get stroppy and eat a lot of mashed potatoes (at least, that's what my brother did), teenage girls are a nightmare.

But is this really what teens are like, or is it the worst-case scenario that springs to mind? Surely there are a lot of girls out there that care about things, like getting good grades and climate change and such. They're harder to find since they're not usually crowded around outside the Chicken Delight after school.

Obviously, a bit of research was required... where better to do this than at the annual Girlguiding UK BIG GIG 2006 pop concert? This is how I found myself in a stadium with 11,000 teenage girls.

It wasn't entirely research-motivated. Part of my job (the one I get paid for) was to work behind the scenes to report on the concert. But really, I'm there to scope out the state of the typical British teenage girl, and try to determine what we'll one day be up against.

Walking towards the stadium, the first thing that struck me was the colour. It was less a gaggle of giggling individual concert-goers than a seething pink wave. Pink shirts, pink skirts, pink flags and, more than anything else, pink bunny ears. Someone made a lot of money selling bunny ears that day. Pink is probably the most unthreatening colour, but in that quantity, it can be a little terrifying.

The next thing that struck me, upon entering the stadium, was the sound. It literally struck me. Like an untested military riot dispersal weapon. Hidden somewhere in their pink purses, each girl produced a whistle blower. Actually, I think it was a combination whistle/glowstick. The sound of 11,000 girls alternating between screaming and blowing their whistles was deafening, especially when the only difference between the screaming and the whistling was the little trilly ball that comes with the whistle.

A screaming, whistling pink wave can be frightening, akin to the wave that destroyed New York in Deep Impact. The energy it produces is incredible and unstoppable. But you know what? If you look at the girls individually, they're not so bad. They're really just silly more than anything. A single pink girl with bunny ears and a whistle is quite cute, though perhaps slightly annoying. They care more about glittery things than getting tattoos and sneaking out of the house. They probably still have teddy bears on their beds and keep diaries of the boys they'd like to kiss. All of this is manageable - a little sickly, like eating candy floss all day, but manageable.

And what will Kevin and I do if we end up with a more difficult teen? We've already got a plan. During her most awkward year, we're going to take our whole family on an around the world sailing trip. If a year living on a ship with her parents, doing hard labour as a first mate doesn't knock the sauciness out of her and give her some serious respect for the world, nothing will. And she can't say we didn't warn her.