Some days I feel like I am getting really old and catch myself sounding just like my mother – not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, my mom is a very wise woman indeed... It's just a bit surreal when I hear the words coming out of my mouth.
It would seem that the older I get (and I'm not even 30 yet), the more clear things become. Advice I was given at 13 now seems like common sense, although at the time I resisted it with every ounce of my tie-dye wearing, teenaged being. My brother's (seemingly overprotective at the time) actions felt as if they were purposely engineered to ruin my life (can you get more over-dramatic?) – now I am thankful for all the times he banned me from dating his friends or tattle-taled to my mom about the shortness of my skirt. You see I now know that no one understands a teenage boy quite like another teenage boy.
When my dad threw a fit on finding out that his 15-year old had been invited as a date to a wedding by a 21-year old... I stomped my feet and slammed cupboard doors and cried until my mascara ran all the way to villa de sulk. I was thinking 'wow! a cute older man wants me to be his date and I get to wear a pretty dress'. My dad was thinking 'there are not enough shotguns in the world for this cradle-snatching weirdo'. And he was right.
You may be wondering why I've decided to indulge this particular walk down memory lane today? Well, it's because I need to vent, I need to debrief, I need to come to terms with what I just did...
Which was to send a pretty long laundry list of grown-up advice to my 16-year old cousin.
Why did I do it? Mainly because sixteen just aint as sweet as it used to be. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. Huh?! Have you seen what the kids (yes, I just said the kids in the same tone that my grandpa used to) type on Mxit and Facebook and Twitter these days? It's equivalent (and often worse) than phrases that used to appear, scrawled in khoki pen, on the walls of school bathrooms by the naughty 'smoked behind the bike sheds' and (gasp!) dyed their hair students.
I only really figured out what 'I love you' meant in my twenties and even then I proceeded with caution. These days 'I love you, baby', 'I can't live without you', 'You're the love of my life' seem to be the norm for two-week old relationships between 14-year olds. Blows my mind! From a bra burning perspective I'm simply horrified at the fact that the boys are cooler, more aloof and as non-committal as ever while it's the girls (yip, the women of tomorrow) that are putting it all out there xxxxx (kisses) and o-o-o (hugs) all over the place in cyberspace.
Somebody needs to do a refresher course at schools on men being hunters, the thrill of the chase, pursuing a challenge. Not usually a fan of playing games I think that girls need to at least have a game plan. No, scratch that. They shouldn't even be in the game at 14. Yip, I know I sound like the biggest kill joy since they discovered that smoking is actually bad for you, but what can I say? I believe in love, I believe in romance, I believe in getting married once.
I picked up enough emotional baggage between my first real boyfriend at the age of 18 and meeting my hubby at the age of 24. I don't even want to think about how much baggage the next generation is going to accumulate if they start running the gauntlet at 14-years old!
What I can say is this...
The next generation is going to make a boat load of therapists very (ka-ching) happy.
It would seem that the older I get (and I'm not even 30 yet), the more clear things become. Advice I was given at 13 now seems like common sense, although at the time I resisted it with every ounce of my tie-dye wearing, teenaged being. My brother's (seemingly overprotective at the time) actions felt as if they were purposely engineered to ruin my life (can you get more over-dramatic?) – now I am thankful for all the times he banned me from dating his friends or tattle-taled to my mom about the shortness of my skirt. You see I now know that no one understands a teenage boy quite like another teenage boy.
When my dad threw a fit on finding out that his 15-year old had been invited as a date to a wedding by a 21-year old... I stomped my feet and slammed cupboard doors and cried until my mascara ran all the way to villa de sulk. I was thinking 'wow! a cute older man wants me to be his date and I get to wear a pretty dress'. My dad was thinking 'there are not enough shotguns in the world for this cradle-snatching weirdo'. And he was right.
You may be wondering why I've decided to indulge this particular walk down memory lane today? Well, it's because I need to vent, I need to debrief, I need to come to terms with what I just did...
Which was to send a pretty long laundry list of grown-up advice to my 16-year old cousin.
Why did I do it? Mainly because sixteen just aint as sweet as it used to be. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. Huh?! Have you seen what the kids (yes, I just said the kids in the same tone that my grandpa used to) type on Mxit and Facebook and Twitter these days? It's equivalent (and often worse) than phrases that used to appear, scrawled in khoki pen, on the walls of school bathrooms by the naughty 'smoked behind the bike sheds' and (gasp!) dyed their hair students.
I only really figured out what 'I love you' meant in my twenties and even then I proceeded with caution. These days 'I love you, baby', 'I can't live without you', 'You're the love of my life' seem to be the norm for two-week old relationships between 14-year olds. Blows my mind! From a bra burning perspective I'm simply horrified at the fact that the boys are cooler, more aloof and as non-committal as ever while it's the girls (yip, the women of tomorrow) that are putting it all out there xxxxx (kisses) and o-o-o (hugs) all over the place in cyberspace.
Somebody needs to do a refresher course at schools on men being hunters, the thrill of the chase, pursuing a challenge. Not usually a fan of playing games I think that girls need to at least have a game plan. No, scratch that. They shouldn't even be in the game at 14. Yip, I know I sound like the biggest kill joy since they discovered that smoking is actually bad for you, but what can I say? I believe in love, I believe in romance, I believe in getting married once.
I picked up enough emotional baggage between my first real boyfriend at the age of 18 and meeting my hubby at the age of 24. I don't even want to think about how much baggage the next generation is going to accumulate if they start running the gauntlet at 14-years old!
What I can say is this...
The next generation is going to make a boat load of therapists very (ka-ching) happy.
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