Letters to the Editor
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Samlor
I think you should get the book for your daughter. But I'm not a parent I just remember VERY vividly being 15 years old. Glad that's over!!
The book seems like real life Judy Blume.
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I printed out the essays for my son
He's 15. I thought the essays were great, hopefully he'll enjoy them as well, and gain insight into his female schoolmates.
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Samlor
Hi Samlor,
Sorry I'm late on this but I just wanted to chime in as someone who has read every single one of the essays in the book: I absolutely think it would be appropriate, though I should also confess that since I'm not yet a mom, I see the question from the perspective of the 15-year-old more than the parent.
There are certainly essays about touchy subjects: eating disorders, cutting, sexuality, etc. But they are dealt with with immense maturity and are not at all salacious or glamorized. There are no celebrations of hurtful behavior here. There is nothing more distressing than the kind of stuff that I read when I was a teenager (in Judy Blume, or Go Ask Alice, for example). It's also remarkable how many of the essays resonate in their absolute ordinariness: worries about mother-daughter relationships, essays about music, and sports, and body image, and friends.
I really can't say enough about what a gorgeous book this is, and would highly recommend that you read it yourself. It's the kind of book that I might actually have wanted to give my mom at some point in my teenage years.
Also, please feel free to email me if you read it and disagree with my assessment (I don't want to steer anyone in the wrong direction, but in this case I don't think I am).
Best, Rebecca Traister
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Screech, Zack and Kelly's inner monologues
"My So-Called Life" was invoked in the introduction to these four essays. I was in tenth grade when the MSCL characters were in tenth grade. I am the same age as Claire Danes. I was a nerd with curly hair like that nerd with curly hair. This show was praised for its verisimilitude, and realistic it was. I did not watch it regularly because I did not like it. I did not like it because the characters were cliches in a much more insidious way than were the characters on "Saved By The Bell", i.e. they were cliches in the exact same way that most teenagers, and, mutatis mutandis, most adults, are themselves already cliches. I will even go as far as to say that the nerd character from MSCL was actually MORE of a cliche than Screech from SBTB because he was presented as being three-dimensional. Screech was certainly thinking the same thoughts as the MSCL nerd as Zack and Slater riffed on him: fuck these guys, they don't understand my pain...The nerd exterior, as well as the Claire Danes exterior, are precisely propped up by the kind of banal hopes & dreams & inner pain kind of voiceover that, although in appearance "profound & personal", are in reality just the boring flipside of the boring outside. These essays continue in that vein: they are the commodified "inner" versions of the commodified "visible" teenage girl stereotypes that we all know so well, not the vulgar SBTB stereotypes but the more dangerous "I'm more complicated than I look" stereotypes a la "American Beauty". There must be some teenage girls out there who are writing more original essays than these, essays about something other than boys, divorce, status, friendships...we are all pathetically tied to these stupid narcissistic worries and concerns - I just as much as the "grinding" girl - but that doesn't mean we have to consecrate them by writing about them.
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Ohhhh, the grinding
Reminds me of when I was a teacher chaperoning a school dance with my fellow colleague.
Apparantly we were wholly oblivious to a few girls who were giving lap dances in the middle of the dance floor, since we only saw the jumping gyrating kids on the edges of the huddle.
Neh. That girl did ok in my class. She was a nice if, I guess, sort of needy kid.
We had a little chat after class when one of the other students brought up the lap dancing. Y'know "What's with giving lap dances at Sadie Hawkins? You trying to be ghetto?"
A bit of blushing and head hanging. "Well, it was fun."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, it's fun but you just gotta take a minute to think about why you do things sometimes, and if those reasons are about loving yourself, or wanting other people to like you so you don't have to like you."
She got it. It was cool.
This Eliza girl sounds like she likes herself enough. She's choosing for her own enjoyment, not for someone else's pleasure.
At the end of the day I think that's the difference between some big senior publicly pawing a sophomore, and two silly teenagers publicly pawing each other.
Because, really? Teengers are ALWAYS going to be pawing at each other. We draw lines, we can talk to them about dangers and understanding motivations, and what is simply inappropriate because no one wants to be forced to sit facing a guy with a girl on his lap as he fumbles around with his hand up her shirt while I'm trying on shoes in the ga-damn cramped shoe store with nowhere else to look or sit, and the shoes I came in on had a broken heel so good lord just put your hand in your pocket for a minute, wouldja? No one needs to see that. Go grappling for her tits in the backseat of a car like a normal teenager. So there are those lessons, and boundaries that teenagers ought to be apprised of. Do not do private things in public places...like a shoe store. It's icky.
Teenagers grabbing each other at parties, with scads of other people around, and music thumping? Yeah, that makes sense. Something about teenagers who need to make their sexuality, their sexual awareness public. This is old news. There's no shutting that down entirely. That's what teenagers do. So long as parents can maybe communicate that old ladies like me would like to try on shoes in peace without watching you discover second base, and without getting an inadvertent peep show from your gum-snapping girlfriend who is, I guess, ok with her shirt being hiked up for the rest of the shoeless masses.