“Sometimes the spell may last past what you can see”

Our lesson in Relief Society yesterday was about the words we speak and how much power they can have. It reminded me of a song from the musical Into the Woods called “Children Will Listen.” I first saw that musical when I was eleven or twelve and I still love it. Steven Sondheim is great.

Anyway, the lesson topic also reminded me of something my dad told me when I was eleven that had a huge impact on the way I lived the remainder of my childhood. He probably wouldn't remember saying it and would laugh at how much thought I applied to his flippant statement.

I was working in the yard with my dad. Our house sits on a corner and every day the junior high school kids would walk past our house on their way to and from school. Dad felt like they threw a bunch of trash in our yard and he hated cleaning up after them. He casually said, “I hate teenagers.” I asked him, “Why?” I don’t remember all his reasons but I do remember him saying, “I didn’t even like myself as a teenager.”

I now realize Dad says things simply to amuse himself and many times just to be contrary, but back then I thought to myself, “Uh oh, I’m going to be a teenager someday and I don’t want Dad to hate me.”

I decided right then and there that I was not going to be a typical teenager. I wasn’t going to do anything that would make my dad think I was anything like those Junior High School kids that made him so angry.

My older brother wasn’t the best example of a typical teenager, so naturally I took my “what not to be” cues from characters on television sitcoms. I was not going to obsess about boys like Mallory Keaton. If Denise Huxtable came home on weekends after curfew I was not going to do that. If DJ Tanner skipped school to get an autograph from Stacey Q I wasn’t going to do that either. I certainly wasn’t going to dress the way she did. I wasn’t going to wear makeup, I wasn’t going to crimp my hair, and I was not going to get my ears pierced.

I was a VERY boring teenager.

I kind of feel like I missed out on a lot of the late 80’s and early 90’s. I can’t sing along to New Kids on the Block. I can’t quote lines from The Breakfast Club and I never owned a Caboodle.

This kind of explains why I didn’t start embracing pop culture and having fun with it until I was in college. And why a lot of my childhood friends thought I was weird.

I didn’t completely dismiss the culture of my childhood. I can sing along to just about every song on Madonna’s “Immaculate Collection.” I’m not ashamed to admit Girls Just Want to Have Fun is in my VHS library. However, I still don’t wear a lot of makeup and my ears remain unpierced.