10.23.2014

Pretty (Happy, Nice) Girls

Smiling, happy girls backstage at Chloe, Paris Fashion Week Spring 2015 via Her New Tribe

I've been on a client shoot all week teaming with pretty girls (and guys). The group is also smart, funny, insanely talented, interesting, creative, and, most important, supremely nice.

The experience feels timely, as Audrey and I have been spending a lot of time lately talking about mean girls, cliques, and how to survive the general social nightmare that is tweenhood. She knows how she feels, how she wishes it would be, but she's having a hard time navigating it.

I just keep reminding her that the adults she admires most now were probably not the ones setting the world on fire in junior high, and that it never (every) pays to be (or be friends with) the mean girls.

I try to drill in to her every day that being kind and thoughtful and happy (or as happy as an angsty pre-teen can be) is the best brand of cool.

Wish me luck.

2 comments:

Lakshmi said...

The best people in the world are also the kindest. Really! :) I am 100% sure she gets that.

Lakshmi

Betsy said...

I've worked with teenagers for over two decades, and just like adults there are good and bad. There are SO MANY AWESOME TEENAGERS out there! Just like,"Working mom manages to set consistent boundaries and produces productive children" isn't a headline neither is, "Teenage girls do good work in community and treat each other with decency" isn't news, either.

Mean girls are doing what they know or what they feel like they need to do. Middle school is hard, and if you extend some compassion to your whole family (because you are in it together!) you will make it. It's just a tough age.

Hugs and love to all of you! I love tweens and teens especially much, and they need a lot of extra love. In turn, so do their parents. :)