The vision of the bus came to me when I was walking down Sixth street in Austin, Texas when a friend came to visit and I was showing her the sights. If you haven’t been to Austin then you won’t know that this street makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Mayberry and Vegas look like Disneyland. There was something so blatant about the hunt for sex on this street that it brought out a maternal/Gloria Steinem/bus driver part of myself that I hadn’t previously known.
I saw the boys boozing it up in the bars and CLEARLY wanting one thing and the girls acting/drinking/dancing on stripper poles like they only wanted that one thing too and yet, I could see in some of their eyes, their laughs, their self-consciousness, and body language,that they were likely wanting MORE than just sex. The problem, I think, is if I say I want x and I really want y and the next day after x is over and then I want y and then I am surprised that he isn’t up for y. Or, when I give x hoping that means it will make him y me.I just want everyone to be on the same page and to be making choices they are happy with.
As I walked down Sixth Street I didn’t judge. I understand why college boys are doing shots and hunting for sex on a Friday night in Austin, Texas. I get it. I just felt sad when I walked by these clubs and looked into the windows to see an 18 year old college girls dancing on stripper poles at an ordinary night club, where they weren’t even working or getting paid for their antics, ( even if I didn’t blame I did wonder if their parents had learned about Sixth street before signing their children up to attend University of Texas. Because let me tell you if I had children and they were considering U of T, Sixth street would be the deal breaker for me. Yes, I am a hard-ass imaginary parent).
What I decided that night in Austin is that I needed a bus and that I needed to paint it bright pink and cover it with glitter and marabou and I would call it The Pink Cosmo, Cupcake, and Marabou Self-Esteem Express. I would fill the bus with cupcakes, Cosmos and beautiful shoes. I would have songs that girls love to dance to blaring from the buses impressive sound system. Then I would drive the bus up and down the streets where “Girls Go Wild” like in New Orleans, Ft. Lauderdale or wherever it is that college age kids go on spring break and drink to excess and make choices that they would not otherwise make if they weren’t drinking huge vats of Long Island Iced Teas. I would tempt the girls on the bus with promises of free shoes, cupcakes, Cosmos and iPhones .
Once the party-girls were on the bus and the doors were closed and their seat belts were on, I would whisk them away to a self-esteem seminar and FAR-FAR-FAR away from “Coyote Ugly”(nothing good can happen at a bar that is named, according to the Urban Dictionary for a “A situation encountered after a night of consuming alcohol whereby a person, usually male, wakes the next morning in a strange bed with a sexual partner from the previous evening who is completely physically undesirable and sleeping on the man’s arm. The hapless male would rather gnaw off his own arm than wake the woman and have to face the ills of his intoxicated choices the previous evening. Originating from a phenomena whereby a coyote captured in a jaw trap will chew off its own leg to escape certain death.”) There would be lots of gift bags from Sephora and Juicy Couture and trays of cupcakes to distract them until they arrived at the self-esteem express boot camp of self-love.
There is no morality or religious overtones to my Pink Cosmo, Cupcake and Marabou Self-Esteem Express. I am all for a cocktail or two and I am certainly a fan of sex. However, I am not a fan of people engaging in behavior that they wouldn’t do if they felt better about themselves or if they had drank less.
Maybe I am just old and antiquated and all of the young girls of today are Samanthas and they don’t really want love and they just want no-strings sex and they all have somehow magically overridden biology or hormones or cultural myths that have long made women more prone to craving commitment after sex than men. It could be and if that is the case I will keep my pink bus in the garage and rent it out for Bachelorette parties or for groups of ladies on their way to Chippendales.
That said, every time I see a group of adolescent girls I have the strongest urge to go up to them and tell them how beautiful they are and how awful adolescence is and how not to spend all their time on guys but to study and know their worth and love themselves. This is one of many reasons why it is best if I stay away from “Forever 21”. I have never actually done it but every time I see them I am tempted. I just wish that they had some idea how beautiful they are. I want to stop them and tell them that this will pass and things will get better and they will be loved and happy and successful and that all will be well. And I want to tell them that nothing gets better from sleeping with guys you don’t like or from drinking Jell-O shots and that I wish someone had told me that when I was young. Yet I know my well meaning attempts at acknowledgem
ent would be met with eye-rolling, “whatever” and judgments about me being wackadoo, so I bite my tongue.
I wish the Pink Cosmo, Cupcake and Marabou Self-Esteem Express would have come for me the night when I was 17 and Billy Blonde-hair talked me into too many shots of tequila and then talked me into having sex with him by reading me his CV of past conquests. He had had sex with the Who’s-who of my high school and that, paired with the tequila shots, made sex with him seem like a good idea even though everything about it felt so very wrong. I wish that I could, in my Pink Cosmo, Cupcake and Marabou Self-esteem Express, travel back in time and save myself from that moment. I wish that the me of today could go to the me of 16 and tell myself that I didn’t even like Billy Blonde-hair and how bad the sex was going to be and how much better I would feel if I just would walk away. Sadly I can’t do that. However every time I see a young girl on the border of a Billy Blonde-hair moment I want to give her a place on my imaginary pink bus and transport her to a self-esteem seminar in which she is taught to see her real beauty and value and give her a cupcake along with a life-lesson.
I am so glad I am not a teenager anymore. What a painful time of life. BTW, my son went to UT. I have no idea if he wandered down
6th. Probably did but he had a girlfriend then who is now his wife so maybe he wasn't one of those guys you see.
I will help ice the cupcakes.
All aboard…
That big pink bus is the greatest idea ever. And bonus, you could turn it into a big ol' reality show. Ka-Ching!
I am happy to report that in all my time on 6th Street, during my UT days, I never wrapped myself around a pole. I was much too shy, but I do know the girls you're talking about, and they definitely need a little La Belette Rouge and that bus.
Fabulous post
I do believe I am 'a hard-ass imaginary parent' myself.. I know I worried myself silly when my eldest niece was in her young teens.. I think your bus idea is fabulous!! haha not sure it would work.. but you're certainly looking out for them.. actually i've never heard of this.. girls dancing on stripper poles [except when they are actually strippers of course].. that's just got to be nasty with alcohol in the mix..
What a great post and what a fabulous idea!
I want to help you run that bus!
We could also analyze Sex and the city to show them how, for the most part of the series, the girls are not happy and in fact spend most of their time looking for Mr. Right (except Samantha, of course), talking about several Mr. wrongs, finding Mr. Right, losing Mr. Right and so on and so forth.
I can imagine the sound of Pink's "stupid girls" coming out of its windows, and I would make compulsory read at the booty camp Simone de Beauvoir's "la femme rompue". Too radical? Ok, forget de Beauvoir
You could even start the bus before, to rally against Barbie, and get 6 years old to go to a "Girl power" summer camp somewhere. I would send Zoe!
I was an hard ass friend, I used to shout at them shout at them if they so much as kissed a guy in a drunken moment.
I have to admit I was predatory. I was a use and abuse type of girl – there are probably a few guys who still hate me beyond!
I wanted to sit around listening to music and reading Satre and Genet – hence the predatory nature. I'm still appalled/amused by the sexual encounters of bars, dancing and short skirts. The pink bus is a fabulous idea xxx
I am sharing this post with my almost 13 year old daughter who is experiencing her first "love…."
I've been telling her these things. Daughters tend not to believe their mothers. I bet you will help!
And a Grand Big WooF! to that post!!!!
I, also, see young girls and really see their beauty, whether or not it fits in with "the ideal" and wish to take them aside and warn them against all that I experienced.
Sigh.
I shall be your foot massager on the bus after they get done with all the heels.
XuXu
http://www.frenchshelter.blogspot.com
I'll make the cosmo's!
What an awesome post! I am sure at some point in our lives when any of us look back … there is a moment or possibly two …etc..etc.. that we would rather forget. And Yes, I too sometimes want to say to young girls – how short life is – and to enjoy it, not to worry about meeting Mr. wonderful at this time in their lives … learn to be independent, self providing so that they are n a position to choose their own path. Then, I think we are the result of our experiences – and although like the Billy Blonde ones – we could all have done without … we may not be the wonderful Women we are today! But if you ever do that bus … count me in!
I wish there had been such a bus when I was fourteen – twenty-two. A lovely idea. And I also wish that it wasn't such a necessary-sounding thing.
I know I'm going to sound like a prude here….but the young girls copy the message they see from how celebrities dress, and what is shown in movies and TV shows.
So much that was considered "night club" wear is now mainstream style. For instance 5" heels used to be considered stripper shoes.
And now we even have Martha Stewart demonstrating that a stripper pole is good exercise. I mean if Martha says it's OK…then… ;D
I agree with Sher…it reminds me of a South Park episode where all the girls were imitating Paris Hilton…sigh…
I'm so there. I'll bring sprinkles.
It was a revelation to me the day I looked around and saw youth as beautiful in and of itself. I wish there'd been a pink bus for me instead of the gun metal gray E Type Jaguar.
You are a genius
Is the pink bus the way to protect girls from their fragile egos? If it is, someone should make it happen, asap.
Why are they so damn vulnerable?
I was verrrrrrrrry careful about x and y as a teenager. I don't know why. There was no pink bus.
This whole post is depressing (that's okay, some things just are). I try to limit my fears and concerns to the people I know and love, because it is overwhelming to contemplate the enormity of this type of wide-wide spread problem.
by the way, you have been leaving me incredibly supportive comments and they are my paycheck. i value them!
Amen. A thousand times.
And we'll be there to decorate the interior in all manner of fun things!
Excellent post Miss LBR, thank you.
tp
Your post shows cleary why it is soo gooooood to be over 20, over 30 and even over 40 (TBC). Self esteem, knowing what I want, my vision of myself – all this developed after my 20ies – and there was no sign of your pink bus, of course, not even a grey one – in which we could have learned to love ourselves as we were, back then in the 70s. Heaven thanks for one straight Mom and Dad who kept me from too bad experiences – but Heaven thanks as well for the experiences who made me be what I am today….. ( I'd like to show the girls how to look pretty withouth tons and tons of makeup and glitter and false lashes and stuff)
I've noticed that behavior too and, in my case, don't get it (probably the result of growing up as, and remaining, a hard-core geek who wanted a degree, publications and a briefcase far more than any boy). I keep wondering "don't they have anything else they want in life?"
and maybe part of the remedy is better societal messages about what life can have in store for girls (like, curing cancer instead of looking HOTT in stripper shoes).
Then again, I'm a geeky old flat shoe wearing fogey so what do I know about "kids these days"?
I so wish you would send this to a paper as an editorial…I could not agree more.
Whew, now let me say good morning LBR, I hope you are well!
You would not find me on that street, ever, because I find it way too depressing, always did, but I sure would love to see that bus and be invited in!
I don't think it is a bad idea at all,,,could be the next reality show, the one that is really of some value, not about eating worms and bad mouthing each other…can you tell I am so not into this aspect of our culture….well, enough ranting! Lovely post and most creative idea I have ever heard. I think you should pitch it to the Police Department or some such place…
XOXOX
I am so glad I am not alone in this. I tell G that this is sometimes what makes me feel so old at 25! I see women just a few years younger and want to shake them (knowing that at that age if I try and tell them how wonderful they are it would be pointless). However the saddest to me are the girls who are in their pre-teens and younger teens and I just want to sit them aside and say that this will get better. One day they are going to look in the mirror and like themselves, I promise. One day they are going to realize that time in their life was pretty much bullshit.
I wish I was in L.A. so we could paint a bus together!
Hugs!
Kalee
I was going to say all kinds of things about your great bus idea but then "Billy Blonde-hair" made me laugh out loud and forget. I have known a few guys (including one borderline whom you know quite a lot about) who use or try to use their sexual CV as a seduction tool. What's that about? How does that work? I need to understand that.
Me too. To everything. If you need another bus driver, I'm there.
Linda: Me too. BEing a teenager sucks. I am so glad that is behind me. And if your son never went there I am sure he knows of it. Congrats on having a great son who survived UofT!
KT: Thank you for being a part of the team!
Sara Louise: It would be a great idea for a reality show only the producers would want it to be exploitive. It would be great if it could if it was done right.
Have you seen 6th street lately? Wowza. More bars per square foot then I have ever seen before. Texas knows how to party BIG.
Julie@beingRUBY: Thank you!
I think if we tempt them with PLENTY of treats that they will get on the bus. WHether they will hear the message that they are beautiful, worthy, smart and deserve love–that is a different matter.
Marcela: Thank you!!! I would be delighted to have you on the team and I think Simone de Beauvoir should definitely be part of the boot camp. And, YES, PLEASE, to your brilliant idea of deconstructing Sex and the City. Seriously, this has only ever been a fantasy but in hearing all of your comments there is a part of me that feels like this could really happen. I am likely not the gal to do it—-but the world does need idea people.;-)
Yes! I love the idea of the under-six bus. We could take it to ToysRUs and The American Doll Store. Brilliant!
Make Do Style: I wish I had been your friend then. I didn't really find Sartre and Genet until I was 18 and there had already been a damage done.
giggles: Tell your 13 year old daughter that she has a VIP seat on my bus and that she is soooooo beautiful, smart and extraordinary. I just know it.
French Shelte: Thank you! Hooray!!!!Another member of the team. I am off to order a vat of peppermint foot cream for the foot massages.
Lola Sharp : Perfect! Thank you for that! Can you make mine a double?:-))
Sophia: Thank you so much! It would be so great if they could just really and truly see themselves. That would be so great. And I so agree with you that we learn something from our bad experiences and they do make us the people we are—especially if we learn from those experiences and don't keep repeating the mistake. It is so sad to see women my age still making the mistakes I made when I was 16.
I am putting you on the staff list for the Pink Cosmo, Cupcake,and Marabou Self-Esteem Express. Thank you!!!
Jennifer: I wish that these buses weren't necessary and since they are, I wish that every girl had access to one.
Sher: You don't sound like a prude. You are right. I do think it is harder to do anything about the media and than it is to question the media and help young girls questions the media.
Are you serious????? Martha Stewart is pole dancing??? My head is going to explode!!!!;-)
Marcela: She is right. But we can't stop Paris Hilton from being Paris Hilton but we could build a pink bus.
Sal; Fantastic!
susan: Thank you, sweet you! I wish there had been a pink bus for all of us. WE all deserve to have someone see our beauty.
up and down town: I do think that it the bus does protect their egos and their "drive to be loved". I think that is why they are there and I think that the bus would be a way to take them to where they really are trying to go. In turning to boys, at that age, girls are often looking for validation of their beauty, worth and lovableness. The bus could validate all of those things.
When I was young I gave away a lot of x hoping it would give me y. It never worked and only made me feel less y-able.
I LOVE your art work and it has been getting better and better and I hope that you will soon do a post for me. I would LOVE it!!!
thepreppyprincess; Thank you, gorgeous! I am delighted that you are part of the team.:-)
Châtelaine: I am putting you in charge of makeup lessons at the self-esteem seminar!
And, you are so right 30's was so much better than 20's and I am finding the 40's to be better still. I wouldn't go back to being 18 for anything.
Artful Lawyer: I think being a hard-core geek is a pretty good way to get through the teenage years. I went for the popular clique and it was hell. I think I would have gone for geek but my parents did a pretty good job of convincing me I was stupid so I turned to boys as a place of validation. That is not a good way to seek validation.
Yes, we need to make searching for a cure to Cancer much HOTTER than stripper heels. Can I count on you to teach the course at the Self-Esteem workshop?
MrsLittleJeans: Thank you! Maybe I will send it out and see if any magazine/newspaper would be interested. It would be nice to publish this. I wish all young girls knew that we feel this way about them—that we care.
We would need to get the pink bus funded by someone with a lot of money. Maybe Oprah? It would take a lot of treats to get them on the bus.
Kalee: I wish you were in L.A. too. We could work on the bus and you could be in charge of the pre-teen division of The Pink Cosmo, Cupcake and Marabou Self-Esteem Express. The pre-teen girls can be so sweet and so vulnerable. I saw a documentary about how brutal pre-teen bulling can be and it was horrifying. It broke my heart.
WendyB: I am glad you think it is a great idea and delighted that "Billy Blonde-hair" made you laugh. It took me a long time to come up with the perfect name for him and "Billy Blonde-hair" suits him perfectly. I think that the CV-seduction routine is about proving that other women who are important have seen him as attractive and so maybe that will make him more attractive too. It is a VERY strange technique and Billy Blonde-hair is the only guy who ever tried it on me. I hate admitting that it worked on me.
Deja Pseu: Thank you, yes, I will put you down as a driver. Hopefully we can have more than one bus.
I so love this post!! How I wish I had read something like this when I was in college…
I'm with Mrs. Little Jeans. This needs to be an editorial somewhere.
Sign me up for cupcake duty, too. I make a mean red velvet one.
love,
Kirie
Kirie: Thank you for signing up for cupcake duty! We will need LOTS of cupcakes.
Any idea on where you would send such a piece? I would love to share this piece with a broader audience. That would be fantastic.
so, this has been stuck in my brain – as any good post ought to be. ultimately, if there were a way to profit from good self-esteem, it would be wildly supported. however, low self-esteem drives consumerism.
what do we do?
editor: So it has to be education based. Not for profit. That said, have you seen Jamie Oliver and his attempt to change the food in the schools into something close to being healthful? That is on ABC and the show is doing well and making money. And think how much money would be lost if AMericans stopped eating processed foods?
But you are so right, magazines/cosmetics/ and almost all retailers benefit from our feeling bad about ourselves. The media and corporate America would be hurt in their pocket book by a country that has self-esteem. As I type that I am stunned by the sickness of that truth. It reminds me of the "Corn syrup is good for you commercials." I cannot believe that ad exists. Are you kidding me? Are we back in the 1950's and there are ads about how doctors recommend smoking. Sorry, I got off topic.
I wish I knew what to do. I think my pink bus fantasy comes from feeling so sad and depressed and impotent about what is going on and feeling that I would like to make a difference but I don't know how.
This is good. I'm in!
I wish someone had done this for me when I was 16. No sex involved, but man I was worth so much more than I thought I was.
More than anything, this post made me think even more about my blog post idea for the day, and all about "Life not being fair". First of all, it is not fair that you are not a mom, because I can't imagine a better one on the planet. EVER. I feel angry right now towards the parents of kids like these. Kids really do not start out badly. It is bad, incompetent, horrible parenting that is learned behavior. For example: The other day this woman was screaming (at the store) at her child who was obviously tired, or hungry, or bored or all three. It was after 9 pm at night,and this child should have been curled up hearing a story ready for bed, not shopping for party favors. She was behaving like you would expect for a child to behave if they were bored, tired or hungry at 4 or 5 years old. She wasn't minding and she was getting the old: "I'm gonna count to three and you had better get over here and be quiet ! " Speech that somehow became a popular form of feigned discipline within the past decade and a half. I kept thinking, "Lady, that kid is gonna get killed one day when you tell her to stop running the first time because she will be hit by a car or have something else awful happen, thinking the whole time she had until after counts "two and three" to actually listen to you." This is the start of how these young women end up wrapped around poles. I am convinced of it.
You are such a beautiful human being inside and out to think of these kids and care so much, and we love you for it. xxoo
Love to have found your blog. I too am a Chicago transplant, living in LA, missing Chicago, wondering that I am doing here.
Great blog.
http://www.rosiecampbell.net
Belette, rembember when you asked did I remember being taught anything by my parents?
Well, now that I think of it… My mum always said, there is no way my daughters are ever going to over drink and get used by guys… So, my sister and I got used to eat with wine and have cocktails at home…
I have to admit it worked… (ok… will have to go tell her it did…)
Also, we were always told we were smart and beautiful… That didn't keep the sex at bay, but at least our choices were a bit smarter than most of our friends'… And we were also taught that we had to use protection because no one else was going to do that for us… No unwanted pregnacies, no STD's…
You just made me look at my parents in a different light…
Much love! XXX
hm…. I am totally for cupcakes… : )
What a great post LBR and what a fabulous idea the pink bus is… such a difficult minefield to negotiate being a teenage girl in this day and age and many would be be a lot happier I feel if they had you as their mentor….
You know, you could get sponsors. It would be possible. But more important maybe just to remind everyone what the problem is.
Fab-You-Luss!
XO
A.
And this is precisely why I am "opening" Aunt Steph University! (AuntSteph.com)
With 38 nieces and nephews, I KNOW how upsetting it is to watch them make stupid decisions that will haunt them forever. If no one stepped up already, may I drive the bus for you???
BTW…I think this is a viable idea, for real! Count me in!
xo
Very wonderful post!
I have a number of those regrets. Wish that bus had come round every time I had a bad thought about myself as I was growing up. Ugh, the stupid things you do only to look back and wonder at yourself. Then again would I rather look back at a spotless past? Or at mistakes I've learned from?…
Great idea, btw, reminds me of the Dove real beauty campaign. Love those ads.
the world needs more women like you and perhaps that is something you can do with your new shingle–somehow helps these misbegotten young women from doing what they shouldn't…. it is so sad.
but that bus is something quite special!
Hey! It seems everyone wants in on the pink bus. Is there room for me. I'm content to just eat. My baking skills suck anyway. I'm good at cleaning up though.
Belette, you should use this post to write a Young Adult book. And the title is perfect.
I always worry my daughter will make the poor choices I did growing up. Write the book so I can give her a copy! xx
I think this post is essentially about hope, that nuture can triumph over nature.
I am not sure it will ever happen but at least your idea would help empower some of those girls who have not once ever been told they are beautiful and do not need to sleep with every bloody Tom Dick & Harry to validate their worth.
Like many girls with emotionally arid mothers I tended to do this but have raised my own to have a far far greater sense of what they are and can achieve.
Sadly one of the contributuing factors to this was to send them to a girls school which takes a great deal of temptation away.
I do think that the hunter instict in men is so inate that they will forever view women as meat, but just occasionally they might grow up to see that novelty only brings short term gain, and that greater benifits can be derived from monogamy.
This reminded me of many moments I wish I could re-live—a different way than how they happened. Ugh. Very stirring.
Am I supposed to solve for x?
My wife and I are lucky in that our 17-year old has a pretty good head on her shoulders. She may be an odd one (her mother's fault) but I can't ever see her engaging in such lunacy.
Booze can be good. The opposite (or same, if that's your gig) can be good. But mix 'em up to this extent, don't be surprised if you wake up an unhappy camper.
Plus come on, young people, the music they play in bars is generally garbage. Don't these whipper snappers dig the Beethoven?
You are an inspiration, lovely Belette. The world would be a whole lot better under your guidance. Love and bright wishes, dear one. xx
Miss Cavendish: Fantastic!
Gillian: It would be so nice if every girl knew their real worth.
Country Mouse:Thank you, sweet You! For sure life is not fair. I wish it were otherwise. I wish that little girl that you spoke of had a mother who was responsive to her needs—I wish everyone did. When we have our basic needs met we learn that we matter. When we don't we learn that we don't matter. No one should feel that they don't matter.
rosi: Lovely to meet you!!! Thank you! I hope you share some of the things that you are liking about L.A. I would love to hear from another Chicago transplant.
Lena : Soooo cool. I love that I helped you see your parents differently. I would love to hear what your mom has to say when you tell her she did something right!;-) My Mom would be shocked if she ever heard me say that.
It must have been wonderful to have been told you were smart and beautiful. I NEVER heard that. However once my Father died my mother started to tell me I was both. It was a little late as I was in my early 30's by that point the damage had been done.
Savvy Gal : Who isn't?;-)
Semi Expat: I do wish that all young girls could have a mentor during that difficult time. What a different world it would be.
LPC: Come on Dove and Oprah, show me the money! Buses aren't cheap!;-)
I do think that it would make a difference if young girls really knew how much we care about them.
Anna Lefler: No, you are.:-)
Stephanie: You are down for bus driver #2. We will need a lot of drivers as we are going to need a lot of buses!
Cheryl: Thank you. It would be so great if every time a girl was about to make a self-destructive decision that the pink bus would pull up. Well, at least as a metaphor. I do think we can learn a lot from our mistakes—sadly not everyone does.
linda: Thank you!!! Very kind praise indeed!
Angie: No one has volunteered for clean up. The job is yours.
Josephine: Really? Do you really think it would make a good book? I am going to give it some thought and see if I can expand it.
indigo16 :Huh, you're right. I must believe that there is hope; I really do. I know that children who have had even the most difficult childhoods who have one or two positive experiences outside the home can develop resilience.
I think this post is essentially about hope, that nuture can triumph over nature.
It would be so nice of such a bus could exists and if self-esteem development courses were part of school curriculums.
If I had girls I would have definitely sent them to all girl schools. I have done a lot of reading about the positive impact of single sex education and I am a big believer in it. I know I would have benefitted from it.
Thank you so much for your very thoughtful comment!
enc : I do wonder what kind of person I would be I would have been picked up by the Pink Cosmo, Cupcake and Marabou Self-Esteem Express. It is so sad to look back and see the times when we didn't value ourselves as we should have.
Randal: I feel pretty sure that you know what x is. If you didn't you wouldn't have a 17-year old.;-)
You two have clearly done a great job with her. You should be proud.
I cannot imagine what kind of world it would be if the youngsters went to bars and listened to Beethoven. Wait…oh, yes I can. It would be the 1800's.
Carol Anne: Thank you, but I assure you I am not one to be guiding the world. All I want is for every pre-teen, teen and college age girl to undergo self-esteem seminars. Golly, when I put it that way I see that I am really bossy!;-)
Oh for a Time Machine.
This is a great post. x
I'll take a cupcake. AND a big pink bus!!!
I like the stream-of-consciousness style of this post. There's so much in it, it's packed. And the honesty. The beautiful honesty…
The truth is that I was a teenage virgin. My husband was, too. I was a college virgin, too.
We abstained from sex by choice. We waited until we were married. Not only because we were taught that (we are LDS/Mormon, it is our "Law of Chastity"), but I internalized it to the point of living it.
I have no regrets that I was a teenage virgin. Or college virgin. I hope my children are the same.
My only regrets would be that I kissed too many boys that didn't even deserve **that** (sigh). And I bawled over breaking up with them when instead, I should've been reading/writing/laughing more. (double sigh)
hought provoking and very very true.
Thanks for posting.
regards…..Al.
Jan: Thank you! I am glad you liked it!
Maggie May: Comin' right up!
Terresa: I so appreciate you sharing a little about your regrets. I think it is important to see there are many ways we can betray ourselves both big and small, whether a kiss or sex.
Alistai: Lovely to meet you! Thank you for your comment and for following my blog!!:-)
You can add me to the baking, icing, and bus driving crew. Fabulous post.
We want the pink bus! Not just for teenagers. Women of all ages do/wear/say/drink things they wouldn't if they weren't feeling low and trying to get some positivee male attention. I've been dating the same guy for 3 years now, so I don't know if I'm prone to it anymore, but if we broke up I'm sure I'd find out pretty quickly, and then the smart, mature part of my brain would be desperately looking, silently begging for that big pink bus to come around the corner and save me from an embarrassing and possibly dangerous mistake.
PS: On the back, there should be a sign that says "Self Esteem or Bust."