Last night, my homegirls and I were at our old High School’s football game. It was fun and I don’t even like football like that. While we were enjoying the game, we noticed a young sister, maybe 17 with a terrible foul mouth. And not foul like “I’m cursing in conversation with my friends”. She’s standing up, cursing at the wind in commentary about everything from how bad our team was (but she seemed to be for our side and we won by a whole lot) to how bad the cheerleaders and drill team were. Now everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but there’s a time and place for everything. A crowded stadium full of families isn’t that time or that place. My friend checked her on it, which made her none too happy. We left soon after. I’m sure she thought she ran us off, but we were ready to go.
Once upon a time, I was a teenage girl. It’s a difficult period, whether we grown women want to admit it or not. You’re on the threshold of being a woman or at least you want to believe you are, but you’re not quite there. You’re jockeying for attention from the boys that you claim you’re not into, (Because you like older guys. That’s what’s cool.) You’re trying to define yourself in any way you can.
What do we do to help them figure it out? The girl from last night definitely defined herself. It was obvious to me that she needed some attention. If she was getting positive attention elsewhere, I doubt she’d have been verbally assaulting every extracurricular activity at the school. There’s also a little correction involved. Sometimes I can’t stand my job. Sorry, it’s true. I feel like I’m bogged down with paperwork and data and meetings – all things that I could care less about. But one gift is the chance to pull a young lady to the side and tell her “Look, mama, ladies don’t act like that,” and then help her figure some things out. I feel like that’s more important than any English lesson I’ll teach, because whether they’re fighting or cussing or being the schoolwide joke, it has to do with self worth. I don’t say that to pat myself on the back; I don’t need that at this point in my life. What I’m saying is that kids respond to interaction. Sometimes they’re just looking for someone to pay attention.
At the circus, people pay attention to the lady on the tightrope just like they do the clown. The only difference is that one garners respect and the other gets laughed at. We have to teach girls not to be the clowns. We have to teach boys that too, but in their teenage years, they boys follow the girls lead -to a certain degree. In my classroom experience, if the girls are about business, the boys are too. Why? They want the girls to take them seriously! It’s a cheap trickle down effect, but whatever works. More importantly, they way our children behave and how they feel like they ‘have’ to act is in direct correlation to how they perceive themselves. And perception is directly linked to how others perceive them.
