There is a reunion this weekend of folks who went to Cedar Bluff Middle School back in the 70's. I really wish I could have gone to that. My back issues prevent me from traveling right now. However, just the thought of that time in my life started me thinking about how different things are now.
I was talking to a friend of mine last night who has an adopted teen daughter and she is worried about the girl giving out too much personal information on the internet. It's a scary situation.
When I was a young teen, I was too shy to even approach a boy in school, much less give out personal information of any kind. Holding hands with a boy was considered significant, and kissing one in the hallway of the high school was about as daring as it got, at least to my innocent eyes.
I knew one girl who got pregnant as a teenager, that I went to school with. ONE.
When my daughter was in high school, every year she would tell us about a girl in one of her classes who was pregnant. Sometimes more than one. And we're talking about a good school in a nice neighborhood!
Alesia also had boys asking her to have sex in the back of the classrooms. Apparently this is not that uncommon now. (She reported to us that she said NO, of course..)
Michael has a girl who keeps sending him texts, who has a little crush on him. He finds it terribly embarrassing and off-putting.
One of Michael's friends is "dating" a girl and wants to talk about "the relationship" all the time, with Michael, which he does NOT want to discuss. He finds the whole thing exasperating.
All kids are different, of course. With Michael, I don't have any filters on his internet usage. I trust him. I know I don't have to worry about him. With Alesia, I tried to monitor and police her, but it didn't do much good. She always figured a way around everything.
Is it just me, or does it seem like now the GIRLS are more hormonally-insane teenagers than the BOYS?!
Wow.
I know of two girls who were adopted from Russia who got pregnant while still teens.
However, I am not talking just about girls who were adopted, either. It's most teenaged girls, at least that I know about.
I got Alesia a subscription to Seventeen Magazine a couple of years ago and it still comes to the house. She's not here to get it and won't give me a forwarding address. So I offered to give it to the teen daughter of a friend of mine. She emailed back that she wouldn't allow that in her house because of the sexually explicit articles.When she described the articles I was horrified.
Wow. When I was in 8th grade we ALL read that magazine and it was perfectly OK.
I've been listening to Michael's favorite radio station in the car, and I am constantly irritated by the sexually explicit song lyrics, and a lot of cursing in the songs. Not ALL the songs are like that, but a lot are. I switch the station when I hear something offensive.
Movies are filled with sex and violence that makes the movies I liked in high school look like Winnie the Pooh in comparison.
We listened to records on the stereo. We thought hanging out at Swenson's or Godfather's Pizza was cool. We went to the movies, in theatres. We went roller skating and water skiing. We never played video games. We didn't text - we talked on the phone. We didn't [any of us] have computers.
It's a whole new world, folks.
