My Electric Youth

Tonight, I am thinking ahead to when Maya and Kayla are older, and they reach the age when their dad and I will no longer be the most important people in their lives. It's so early on when their peers will have the only opinions that really matter. No matter what I say, it will not heal Maya's wounds when her best friend stops calling because she doesn't fit in with her new clique, or make Kayla feel any better when the boy she likes asks another girl to the dance.

I'm not sure why I'm planning for them to be socially awkward. I guess it's because I was. This train of thought came from a funny place: I downloaded some music from my childhood, and I am now sitting here, listening to Debbie Gibson and being transported to a time when nothing — nothing — was more important than being cool. And I was not cool.

I always had friends, and they were good friends. We had great fun together and supported each other, and now I can see how much more value that had — quality vs. quantity. My friends were quality; it wasn't that I wanted other friends. I just wanted myself — and them — to be part of the romanticized "cool kids." I know. I sound like an '80s movie. And I realize now that pretty much everyone feels like they were in an '80s movie.

Looking back, I can see exactly what I did wrong. I never put myself out there and got involved in things. I wasn't a member of the cheer squad, not because those girls didn't like me, but because I never tried out. I didn't do sports. I didn't join clubs. I have never, ever, played on a team for anything. It just never occurred to me that I could do any of those things. (I'll go ahead and defend myself here with a little disclaimer: I didn't like P.E. because running triggered my asthma, and I assumed any sort of sport would be just like P.E.) So I didn't have the sort of built-in friendships and social practice that comes from being part of a team.

I wasn't very outgoing with kids my age, either. I would talk the ear off an adult, no problem, but I was painfully shy with my peers. I was precocious, and I didn't really fit in well with the kids my age, who were a grade behind, or the older kids that I was in classes with.

I had my music, of course, but even in a choir or the cast of a show, singing is sort of individual activity for me. (Whether that's a bad thing is a topic for a whole other discussion.)

In short, being a kid sucks for everyone, but it definitely felt like it sucked more for me than it did for most. And that was really, really important at the time.

Now? Totally irrelevant. That social currency those popular kids had deflated to almost nothing pretty much instantly after graduation. Why? Because it was in my imagination. Those popular girls are my friends now. They never weren't. They weren't excluding me through any malice — they were just close with who they were close with. And the very strangest thing about all of that was realizing that I unintentionally excluded people, too. There were people who wanted to be my friend, who didn't think I liked them. What? That's crazy.

I hope that I can use my experience to help make Maya and Kayla's youth a little less torturous. Doesn't every parent hope that? Truthfully, I think that will happen anyway. After all, I think they are the most beautiful and wonderful girls in the world, so surely everyone else will have the same opinion, right? Just in case, though, I want to get them involved — and not just in individual activities like dance or music or tennis or bowling, but team activities like soccer.

Of course, no matter how popular and well-ajdusted they are, being a kid will still suck. And somehow, hearing that their social standing in middle school won't matter once they're adults probably won't give them much comfort. Besides, I'm sure they'll discount any advice I try to offer as out-of-touch.

"Mom, you just don't understand!"

Actually, honey, I understand better than you think.