Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit. You can read her blog here at Modestly Yours. M had brought me a books review from the local newspaper on it some weeks ago and I reserved it from the library. According to the review I am actually surprised that any library would be allowed to buy this book since the review itself made reference to the fact that the book points out some highly innapropriate links on the ALA website directed at teen sexuality. The books also brings up some things that I have always agreed with but never really considered them as going against society. For example, I am always against co-ed bathrooms. I hate those Bratz dolls that look like hookers. And I do not think that young girls clothing should be something from a Pussycat Dolls video. (See how with it I am since I didn't say Britney Spears?) I also don't think that any of these thoughts make me a conservative in the ugly sense of the word. So to sum it up I think the book's main ideas revolve around girl power without throwing sex in as a necessity. That's not really a bad thing in my book.

The girls on my street who are in middle school seem to represent this ideal in a great and refreshing way. The other day two eighth graders were running aroundthe cul de sac pretending to be at Arlington Park or something since one of them had a hobby horse in her hand and they were running laps. Or they could've been reenacting the Godfather for all I know. I think for the most part that they are being raised well and level-headed considering all the junk that is on tv and the radio these days. "These days" really meaning the last 20 years.

The episodes that Ms. Shalit mentions in her book have been going on since I was in high school in the 90s and before. I can remember weird stuff going on back then and the stuff doesn't seem to change. I just know for a fact that even if I was 13 in 2007 I would never ever want to go to a co-ed sleepover. I think my attitude towards boys would be no different today than it was 19 years ago...thinking they were gross.

I think that looking back I was very lucky to have the friends that I had in high school. I was very lucky to attend a magnet school where most of us didn't have time or the desire to be side-tracked by eighteen year-old boys. Sure there were cute boys, but I never could date any of them because in my opinion knowing someone when they're 13 and squirrely kind of makes a weird first impression no matter what they looked like at 18. Sure sex was on the menu for lots of people that I went to school with, but many of us had fathers who would threaten any sort of bad behavior with discussions involving shotgun use. The shotgun luckily never showed its face and I was much more inclined to study since everyone else was doing it. Positive peer pressure if you like... Maybe dad should have followed me to college.

All of this doesn't mean that I'm going to start having a bunch of babies and covering my hair (although those scarves the Orthodox girls wear are so rockin).