Thursday last, and I’m in the waiting room of Highgate Group Practice, an unshowy, old-ish building and thus free from the soaring glass walls of the Whittington Wing. It’s like most GP waiting rooms: a few chairs, children’s toys littering the floor, plain white walls, maybe one or two small windows, and a wall-mounted rack of slightly-out-of-date magazines.

I leaf through the Observer Music Monthly’s June edition, which is here for some reason, separated from the rest of the newspaper. I decide that the reason is for me to write about it a whole month later.

It is a Teenager Special, with a feature on new upcoming bands, all of whom have members under 20. There’s also a gaggle of teenage Guest Editors, and the usual pieces on what they’re into, what they’re wearing, and what makes them tick. Myspace, mobiles, types of jeans. Their spotty photos are lined up on the contents page. Some parts of it seem a little patronising, others could even be voyeuristic in the Bill Wyman sense. They are there not for who they are, but for how old they are.

In the case of columnist Paul Morley, it’s an opportunity for a doting father’s indulgence, like the firms who allow a Bring Your Children To Work day. He lets teenager Maddy Morley (relation) take over his space to talk about how she resents sharing her favourite band, The Arcade Fire, with lots of people old enough to be her dad. Including her actual dad.

Actually, author Neil Gaiman has recently been letting his near-teen daughter – another Maddy who gets on well with her father – take over his popular blog, too. So, if in doubt, call your daughter Maddy.

It’s certainly interesting to get the perspectives, but I can’t help thinking in the case of the Observer that the filters of the adult territory can’t help but be ultimately in place. These are teenagers very much aware that they are out of their own world, and must tell the older adults what they want to hear, at least to a certain extent. Some adults are best friends with their children, but others prefer to keep the adults at bay. Says one of the teenage editors, confessing to the obscene slang he uses with his friends, ‘There’s the fact that my Dad might read this and I really don’t want him knowing what I’m saying.’

I’d be interested in the more undeniably predatory side of the teenager’s place in the music industry. Articles from teenagers who have had relationships or affairs with musicians, agents, managers, DJs, or indeed other music journalists, all of whom were old enough to be their fathers. On one page: ‘My Teenage Daughter Writes’. On the other: ‘My Teenage Girlfriend Writes.’

But I think such matters would be out of place for a Sunday supplement. Something about the day of the week and the tradition of the format imbues Sunday newspapers with a kind of laid-back cosiness, even when they say they’re tackling ‘issues’. The Observer is The Guardian in slippers.

Many teenagers are baffling, volatile fountains of sprawling chaos and unfettered unease, and the full horror of what some think about and what some get up to will never quite fit into any newspaper report. Even the News Of The World’s expose on MP Mark Oaten drew the line at describing what it was he actually got up to with his rent boys. They wanted to know, but not know. It’s why I think fiction and drama are far better spotlights for such darker corners. To tell the less printable truth, you need the distance of fiction.

Or comedy. I’m reminded of a sketch from A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. Hugh Laurie is making avuncular banter with a teenage boy at the door, who’s doing Trick Or Treat at Halloween.

Hugh: So. You fond of football, young shaver-snapper?
Boy: Yeah.
Hugh: Do you fancy Arsenal this year?
Boy: No way. I quite fancy my sister though.

Today it is my friend Emma Jackson’s birthday: 29 today. She was in the best teenage band of the 90s, Kenickie. Happy Birthday, Emma.