Saige will be turning 12 next week, and as such she wanted to have her annual sleep over with friends. And so we did that last night. Saige’s friends have different opinions on how a sleepover should go than previous children I have raised. These girls did not really want a bonfire to roast things over. They weren’t really impressed by my expansive collection of cards and games and sort of blank stared at my suggestion of crafts. Saige said mom can’t you just drop us off at Target for a couple hours? Uhhhh drop off 6 girls for 2 hours? No. But I will take you, give you 45 minutes and I will go across the store to get a few groceries and things I’m out of. Deal? YES! I was never worried that they would get kidnapped, because if you let 6 girls go in Target, you can hear them from anyplace in the store. And I swear to you, at no point were they in danger, you’d be insane to mess with this group of girls. I’ll explain why in a minute.
They did good in Target, barely asked me to purchase anything, treated themselves to Starbucks (a first for Saige who discovered she really doesn’t like coffee), and were done and on time for my checkout. They asked to eat at McDonald’s - which was completely fine by me. I even brought Jim home a quarter pounder which made him happy too. Quincy took Harper to the high school musical to watch Jo, who is the donkey in a performance of Shrek.
I hear a lot about how kids today are different than when we were growing up. I spend a lot of my time with kids - my own and other people’s. This is absolutely 100% correct. It is not all bad, kids today are not bad. I would say they are somewhat entitled. They are a group of people who have been handed a device that puts the entire world at their fingertips. You want to know something? Five seconds and you have all the knowledge you could ever want. You want something? You order it and it comes to your doorstep in a day or so. You want to compare your something to someone else’s? You pull up their profile and automatically can see what they have, where they bought it, how old it is. You think a boy might like you? You don’t have to wait for him to say so- you pick up your phone, snap him and ask. If he says no, at least you don’t have to look at him while he’s saying it. They have zero secrets. They put everything online for everyone to see. You’re mad? You throw it out there for the entire class to know “I’m pissed at my mom, at my sister, at little Janey who said this or that to me.” It sort of makes them brave in a way, but it also never stops. Saige knew who was mad that she didn’t invite them over last night 5 seconds into her party. She was upset about it, and it was a conversation with the ones who were invited. I told her it didn’t matter if they were mad, She can’t do anything about their feelings. They will get over it. But will they? They will immerse themselves in the drama all weekend and yank her along with them. If I let it go on. And that is the problem, so many hand their kids phones and don’t pay enough attention to what they are saying to each other. Myself included at times. Luckily, my kids seem to mostly be the ones laughing about it, but I have noticed they also at times are the ones who aren’t laughing. And it never, ever stops unless you as a parent say turn the phone off. No phones after 9 pm. Etc.
when we got home, Saige tried to prank her friends by telling them there was a man in the woods behind the house. These girls, rather than screaming and being scared, put on their shoes, marched outside to demand an explanation of why he would be trespassing. What? I told them y’all are the girls who are killed in the horror movie. They laughed at me. I would never have put on shoes and marched into the dark! I’m 100% sure we spent an entire night being terrified of a ghost in a window of a friend’s basement, only to find in the morning it was a blop of paint that was dropped when the house was painted. If we had been braver, perhaps we could have just looked closer? Oh hell no! These kids are definitely different than we were!
One thing that hasn’t changed- they squealed and laughed and ate themselves silly until 3 when I told Saige it was time to watch a movie or something.
I hope they had fun. I hope they made memories that they will carry into adulthood. I hope they see me in the grocery store and laugh about my inability to understand what they are taking about. I hope when they grow up, they are still friends like I am with the people I grew up with. Lifelong friends are the best friends. (Dusty - I’m sorry we froze your bra, Adreinne- I’m sorry we put your hand in warm water to try to make you pee your pants, Sally- I am still convinced you were moving the ouija board thingy, Kristy - you are still not light as a feather or stiff as a board, Jennifer - my mom is still mad that your mom let us watch Poltergeist (I never told her about watching the Blie Lagoon) and to all the moms who put up with us, I’m sorry we made fun of your nighttime attire, squealed all night long and roared with laughter when you told us to go to bed).
No comments:
Post a Comment