When I was 13, I ran away to the circus  

When I was 13, I ran away to the circus. Actually, I didn't run - I sauntered the 200m or so down to a field on our farm where, every Sunday at 2pm, the Flying Squirrels Motorbike Circus honed its flying and squirrely ways.

Oily teenage boys donned helmets and Jackie Chan shoes and ramped motorbikes through hoops of fire. And in the eczema shade of a gum tree, I greased my face with theatre paint, practised walking in clown shoes, breathing through a plastic nose and detonating fake bombs out of suitcases.

My parents signed indemnity forms, convinced that four hours of outdoor adventure was better for us than hours of listening to gossip on the party line. Who would have thought the village hairdresser was on drugs, had killed three husbands, once bit the head off a snake, and had an affair with Boris Becker before fleeing Joburg for Camperdown? I thought she seemed quite nice.

And even after witnessing one of our shows, in which boys with lower-grade maths ramped bikes over 12 volunteers - the back wheel of one hovering ominously close to my womanhood - my parents smiled proudly and bought us all Spar- Letta. You could say I was lucky.

Not so the 16-year-old who recently won a court battle to "divorce" her parents. The teen claimed her father was strict and controlling, and wouldn't let her have a cellphone, leave the house unchaperoned, or read books of her choice. She said he had hit her after an argument. He, meanwhile, said he was trying to keep his daughter away from "bad elements".

It's a sad state of affairs. The girl, who will live with a host family and see her parents for a couple of hours a week, will lose her biological family. The parents, seemingly unwilling to compromise, will lose their daughter.

But I have a solution that would not only give the girl the freedom she craves, but would broaden her horizons, give her a good tan, and perhaps even enable her to speak whale.

Yachting.

There seems to be a growing trend among teenage girls to run away to sea. I can't say I ever considered it. A run-in with a gang of swarthy blue bottles on Addington Beach and the ensuing humiliation of being peed on by my brother put paid to any love I might have had for the great blue yonder.

But in recent years, a clutch of young girls seem to think it rather fun to circumnavigate the world - alone. I can see them now in their Ed Hardy T-shirts: "So, like, Candy, what are you doing this weekend? We're, like, hanging out at McDonald's and then going over to Stacey's to paint our nails and watch Twilight," a landlubber friend will say. "Naaah, I'll give it a skip," Candy replies, adjusting her shoulder parrot. "I'm thinking about sailing to Mowahfurtsburkerner tomorrow, and then taking in the sights of Wagersyurgenner before heading to the Strait of Nivolopokopolis."

One Dutch girl - 14-year-old Laura Dekker - is so barely out of braces she has been taken into state custody to prevent her from embarking on her proposed round-the-world voyage. However, other older teens have succeeded. In May 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe. Sixteen-year-old American Abby Sutherland tried, but was forced to give up after her yacht became crippled in a storm and she had to be rescued by French sailors (which, in my book, is a perfectly good reason to get into trouble).

One has to wonder why teenage girls are suddenly swopping solid ground and Justin Bieber duvets for lonely nights bobbing in the ocean with only a whiskered catfish and bean sprouts for company. Besides wind, what else is driving them?

Perhaps it's a desire to be a pioneer; a need to prove that while they don't have beards, peg legs and Keith Richards hairdos, their abilities at sea are equal to those of men. Maybe they just like sushi. Or, maybe - just maybe - the girls in question seek a year or two unencumbered by rules and parents; a place where they can tan topless, mix martinis and - with their satellite link-ups - text to their hearts' content.

Probably not. But what is certain is that these girls land themselves more admiration than a "naughty clown" in a motorbike circus. I just ended up being stoned to near-death by over-sugared kids, and on Monday mornings I returned to school with welts and green eyebrows.

And the teenage girl who divorced her parents? While she might be justified in striking out on her own, steering her own ship by her own power, her family has now been set adrift. And out there, in the bad and good elements, things will never be quite the same.