Girltalk

This week my teenage daughter and I spent the day with a dear friend and her family. We had tea together, hiked, ate ice cream, talked, laughed, and it was quite lovely.🍦☕️ Particularly during such a haul of self-isolating. She herself has three daughters younger than mine. We reminisced over what life was like when we were teens, compared to life today. Though we also just wanted to fit in, belong, be part of something, it was a different, more intense kind of longing. And since our parents did not grow up here, for us it meant internalizing a lot. We laughed because we survived it, but in telling these tales to my daughter, it gave me pause.🤔

Two thoughts formulated from this. Firstly, what was normal North American living -- going out, dating, hanging with friends at night -- was illicit in our homes. Especially for girls. We hid so much. Crying into our pillow one minute, then being called down to the kitchen to help make roti the next. Shaken up from a fight the night before -- because a guy said something awful and insulting -- we knew that if we told someone at home, rather than having that outrage justified, and our feelings validated, WE would be the ones in trouble, for wearing that outfit, or going to that place, or looking at the guy. Which leads to my second thought.☝🏽On some level, we AGREED with that thinking. We tolerated so much from the outside world because we rarely pondered if something was right or wrong. If it was wrong in our parent’s eyes, it was wrong in ours. If we were in trouble, treated unfairly, or broken-hearted we deserved it. Because our parents believed we were dabbling in a life that we had no business in. Just. Stay. Home. Undoubtedly, a sense of shame and hiding was born from that. On some level, we had drunk the kool-aid.🤷🏻‍♀️

More interesting is that our friend’s lovely mom joined us later, and we talked about some of this. She said things were just so different then, and there was so much they, as parents, didn’t know about North American living. She is right. And our parents did an amazing job, for look at our resilience today -- unmatched, except by theirs. But today we can look at our children, our teens with much less criticism. We understand their social needs and emotional threshold. Mental health is a thing. Ultimately, change is what leads to growth, and it floors me what understanding, empathetic, and loving grandmothers our moms make.🦋 The winners in all this are the kids of today. They receive the best of every generation before them. And it is much deserved. ♥️

For this, I am entirely grateful.🙏🏽