Friday, March 8, 2013

Mean Girls

I am really tired of mean girls.  You can say what you want about boys, but you don’t usually hear the phrase ‘mean boys’ when you think about how boys treat other boys.  Girls, well girls are just different that way.  For crying out loud they even made a movie, and a sequel, ‘Mean Girls’.  Of course they weren’t cinematic masterpieces, but you get the idea.  GIRLS.CAN.BE.MEAN.

I am a mother to a 16 year old girl.  She is bright, she is cute, she is fun-loving.  She can also be a typical teenage girl that can be annoying sometimes, BUT that doesn’t give her peers the right to be MEAN to her.  As a parent, I have told my kids (more times than I can count), TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED. PERIOD.  It doesn’t matter what they do to you, say to you, say ABOUT you, TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED.  That means if you wouldn’t want someone to ask you ‘why are you wearing THOSE pants?’, then don’t ask someone ‘why are you wearing THOSE pants?’.  If you know it would hurt your feelings if people planned an event (and you weren’t invited) and they talked about it in front of you, then don’t do it either.  And the list goes on and on and on.

Now, my youngest daughter is NOT perfect.  BUT she is also not overly sensitive, so when she comes home upset, I take it seriously.  And today, I’m home and she came home upset.  The reason?  MEAN GIRLS.  One in particular.  There always has to be AT LEAST one in the group right?  I should interject that Annika’s BFF’s family moved out of state last summer, so this year has been a bit of a challenge, again.  BUT, she is involved with a great group of kids in a local youth group and most of them were in the recent high school musical together, they spend a fair amount of time together  Like, I said, a great group of girls, but there happens to be one that likes to push Annika’s buttons, ALL.THE.TIME.  Well this one, I have taken to calling her ‘Annika’s nemesis’ in my head, well she is just MEAN and I’m blogging right now so that I don’t pick up the phone and call her mother and chew her out for what a mean daughter she has  BECAUSE again, I’m trying to follow my own mantra of TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED and so I am typing fast and furious instead of dialing and yelling.

Again, I know my child is not perfect.  BUT I know that my child is also warm and open and loving and has a killer sense of humor.   I know my child has an over-developed empathy gene due to all of the crap she has had to endure her short 16 year life.  I know that she is not one to be pushed around and that she definitely advocates for herself (again she has had to grow up in this area MUCH faster than most kids her age, again due to circumstances of life).  BUT there is nothing that makes her deserve to be on the opposite side of her nemesis.  I will give you some examples:

Example 1:  Nemesis tells Annika, “I’m so pretty that I can get any boy that I want, it is a good thing that you are smart or you wouldn’t get anyone’.

Example 2:  Nemesis and several other girls have planned to go away together on Spring Break.  Annika had heard some rumblings of this trip, but she figured it was one of those things and even though she was disappointed she wasn’t invited (because it of course feels like EVERYONE else IS invited), she took it in stride.  THEN, last week, Nemesis brings it up IN FRONT OF ANNIKA, and begins bragging about what fun they are all going to have on their Spring Break trip.  Again, there was no reason for her to bring this up in front of her, it was just plain RUDE.  Nemesis then shrugs it off saying, oh well it is only for upper classmen, oh uhm, guess what, NOT.  One of the invited girls is Annika’s age and someone that she happens to spend a lot of time with.  RUDE.

Example 3:  Nemesis brings up today to Annika that she and 8 other girls are going to a play tomorrow night but Annika isn’t invited.  WHY??????  Why would she do that?  MEAN GIRLS.

I could go on and on with examples like this.

I could give the girl benefit of the doubt that maybe she is from a difficult home and she is just acting out on someone she sees as a weak link.  BUT, guess what??  This is a girl whose family I know goes to church, a family who is very ‘front and center’ in the Christian community.  They are a very nice family, so WHY does Nemesis think Annika has no feelings and that it is ok to do this, over and over and over?  Why doesn’t this girl treat others like she would like to be treated??

Again, I know my daughter isn’t perfect and I am sure that she annoys Nemesis at times because I know she gets attention from boys (they consider her one of the boys—she has no desire to have a boyfriend right now, so she is easy for the boys to hang out with), I know she gets attention from teachers (at a recent conference, all of her teachers told us how much they enjoy her and her humor and wit), so maybe that is why??  Maybe?  For now, I’m just really tired of MEAN GIRLS.  I want high school to be over so we can move into new territory and leave those days behind.

Ok, I’m done….and I promise I won’t call anyone’s Mom and chew them out.  Promise.

1 comment:

  1. Ughhh. How awful. This nemesis is probably just threatened by Annika's confidence and wit. Still so unnecessary. Glad Annika has you as her mama to defend her!

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