No PDAs. . .or Else!
We women over (and way over) 40 remember that back in the olden days, public displays of affection were absolutely verboten in the hallowed hallways of the school. And that meant no holding hands, hugging or, God forbid, kissing. I once got caught kissing my boyfriend in the stairway and was sent to the Principal’s office to be reprimanded and warned that another such offense would carry serious, serious consequences. It was a little over the top and kind of silly, and I assumed that today the standards had loosened up a bit. Oh yes they have.
Gary and I have been watching “Friday Night Lights”, our latest TV series obsession, which shows kids in a Texas high school making out in the school with impunity and sometimes on the verge of actually swabbing each others throats. And poor stupid me really believed it was an over-the-top exaggeration. Have things loosened up that much? Where the hell have I been?
Now it’s everything goes. Forget about the rules we lived with before. Today, there seem to be almost no constraints on what kind of physical contact is allowed. . .short of actual BJs in the hallways. I’m hoping. So I started thinking, what else is happening now that we couldn’t have imagined back then?
Well, for one thing, everyone has a smart phone, so forget about passing notes. How 20th century. Now they pass nude pictures of each other. Isn’t that sweet?
If we were lucky back then we might have a calculator – which was considered cheating. Can you imagine these kids now actually adding/subtracting/dividing/multiplying without electronic assistance?
Remember waiting for your older brother to get off the phone so you could talk with your best bud? Or asking Dad for the keys to the car? (They have their own cars now, thank you very much.) And you would never ask your mother to talk to your teacher about giving you a better grade – how embarrassing. Yet today, Bobby’s mommy has a duty to demand he get a passing grade from his college professor – and they usually concede.
Finally, how about girls deciding that oral sex is way less intimate than actual intercourse? Girls have always been pushed to have sex with the promise/threat that not doing so would make them less attractive. But we always had some reciprocation, no? There was at least an attempt at foreplay. Now, girls do all the work and get nothing in return.
Maybe what they need is a really good course on negotiation.
PS. For those who didn’t notice, that’s renowned journalist, Sy Hersch, kissing me.
Tags: high school, public displays of affection, sexual attitudes, teenagers, women over 40, women over 50
The children today don’t even KNOW what going out and playing with friends until the street lights come on. They just sit @ home & use social networks. My grandson even has a cell, which has had for years. Hes only 11! we, as parents need to creep their webpages to see what tgeyre doing. Theres no calls from concerned neighbors when our kids are misbehaving. Hell-do we even know their behavior? Girls thinking that bj’s are NOT sex because they’re still “virgins”. I shiver & cringe because I’m raising a 16 (nearly 17) year old girl. It’s outright frightening. Pda’s used to be a big no-no in school. Yes, Lu, it’s just accepted as the “norm”. I pray every day that my little girl is making good choices. I ask you all to pray for all the children of “today” who have no idea of what childhood means. I think not.