Teen Trends-Speed

I just finished reading Jeremy Greenburg’s “Teen Trends: What’s Changed since 1980,” and it’s hilarious. I love it when we can poke fun at our teen selves at the same time that we are keeping our own teens humble by reminding them that “cool” is completely relative. My kids can’t believe that big hair was ever “like totally awesome” or that guys actually wore shorts that hit above the knee. Just like I never would have believed the kids would embrace The Beatles bowl cut (Justin Bieber) or the hair sported by Edward Scissorhands (Robert Pattinson). For the most part I try to go with the flow when it comes to letting my kids find fashion that let’s them fit in. I hate it when that includes buying a $25 belt made out of a seat belt (apparently it’s cool to wear car parts), but it’s really the money that bugs me—not the trend.


But I am sad that some of today’s trends show how much growing up is speeding up. At the rate we’re going, ten year olds will be starting careers and families a few generations from now. Our kids are getting gypped out of their childhoods and our teenagers have rushed past making dumb innocent mistakes and moved to making huge life-changing ones. The only girls I knew in the 1980’s who got pregnant in High School were on television shows. Greenburg points to Prom wear as a reflection of the lack of decency in teens today. “Today teenage girls have used the hard-fought gains by women in the upper echelons of business and politics to liberate themselves from the shackles of decency. When a teenager posts her prom pics online, people can’t view them without first clicking an agreement that they’re over 18.” I remember years of innocent dating, complete with hamburgers at drive in restaurants and holding hands while skating around in circles to songs by Blondie. It was fun. I wish more teens realized what they miss out on by being so anxious to grow up.

Sadly, the trend of plunging headfirst into adult situations isn’t limited to dating. I remember playing video games at the local burger joint where a joystick moved a little wedge of cheese with an eye would gobble up dots and ghosts. Today’s games are considered “lame” if they don’t have a high body count or if the blood doesn’t splatter the TV screen realistically. Again, I’m not sure why a twelve year old needs to be fantasizing about warfare. He can’t understand the complicated nature of war, the consequences, or the costs—he only thinks it’s fun and any vet can tell you that war is anything but.

I know wishing wistfully for times past won’t change anything. I fight to raise G-rated kids every day in a R-rated world and I don’t feel like I’m holding any ground. I could cut them off from the world, unplug everything electronic, quit my job and home-school them, but that’s not practical and it doesn’t really solve anything anyway. We have to find ways to show them that growing up is something that can wait until they’re at least eighteen because childhood is fun. If they really understood that, deep in their bones, then they would be far less anxious to wear lingerie instead of clothing and, in turn, their date would be less inclined to think he needed to peel it off.

Teens are never going to read this and, if for some reason they do, then they’ll label me a crazy old woman who just doesn’t know anything. And they’re right. The older I get the more I realize that I really have a lot to learn, but I enjoy learning it a little bit at a time. There is beauty in taking life slowly.