When I was a tweenager, excited/nervous/curious/scared about all the things that would happen when I got my period, I read Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret. My mother claims one day, when I was eight or nine, I walked halfway down the stairs with the book clutched in my hands, spotted her and said with all the passion possible at such an age, “I love this book!” … Then promptly ran back upstairs to continue reading it.
There wasn’t much public conversation, or much in the way of place or space to speak of such things. But now … Look at this Facebook status update from a young gal I know.
Well, whom am I to say what’s right or wrong? I can only state that I observe things today to seem a bit different than when I was but a tweenage girl, cusping onto and into puberty. Personally, I can’t even imagine saying/believing/publicly claiming association with a similar perspective in those early days of my pubescence. How utterly different an environment it is for today’s teens as it was for me. Teenager-ness is still teenager-ness. But the environment is quite different, I’d say. Not better/worse/right/wrong, just different.
