But here’s the funny thing. People think my life is perfect because I’m a famous pop star. And sure, life’s different. I basically live in five-star hotels. I know how to drive, but I don’t have a car because I spend most of my life being chauffeured around in limousines. I support my mother with my earnings and haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since I was ten (a tutor toured with us until my sixteenth birthday, when I took the GED and was pronounced a high school graduate). I don’t have to worry about being popular, and I don’t have to apply to colleges (even though I kind of want to go to one someday), because I’ve already made gabillions of dollars.

But just like most other teenagers, I fight with my mom. All the time.

No, scratch that. Not all the time. I can’t even find her most of the time. Most of the time, she’s out getting her nails done or her hair dyed or her face poked and prodded, or she’s meeting with publicists and lawyers and trying to sign endorsement deals for cosmetics or jeans or books or whatever she happens to be into that week.

And you have to actually be able to locate someone in order to fight with them, don’t you? Sometimes I think I’d prefer the constant fighting, because at least it would mean I’d get to talk with her.

You name it, we’ve argued about it. My hair. My complete lack of days off (“Slacking off isn’t going to win you another Grammy,” she always says.) My slutty stage outfits. Even boys. Not that there are boys to fight about. Contrary to what the tabloids say, I’ve never even had a real first kiss. Really, I’m utterly, pathetically clueless when it comes to guys (despite several kissing scenes in music videos and the few movies I’ve starred in). But Mom is always insisting that I have to act like I have all sorts of experience.

“Girls look up to you,” she says. “They want to be you. No one aspires to be innocent anymore. And the second they find out you are, well, they’ll think you’re a loser.”

Thanks, Mom.

Sure, fame, fans, money and all the other perks of being a pop star make some things easier. And yeah, it’s awesome to be called “the next pop queen” by Entertainment Weekly and “America’s favorite teenager” by Teen Vogue. But I’m alone all the time, I don’t have any friends, I haven’t had a decent conversation with my own mother in more than two years. And a boyfriend? Forget it.

Who’d want a life like that?