When Did Our Girls Get So Sassy?
Okay, so, I love the sass. Big fan. Seriously, can’t get enough.
Huge eye-roller. I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t know my exact eye color when I was growing up for this exact reason, but I feel at some point between my teen-angsty mid-nineties youth and now we have gone wildly astray.
It’s like our girls have lost that boundary between sassy and outright disrespect. They also do not care at all about the consequences. I mean, maybe they care a little, but so many are completely okay with taking the punishment for the crimes they’ve committed.
The care level is too inconsequential for my taste.
Maybe that’s the issue more than the sass.
But the sass is strong, my friends. The sass is strong. I started noticing it at age 9. AGE NINE!
When it first started rearing its ugly head, I was mystified. My husband was dropping the hammer and I was sitting there bewildered. Telling him to stop punishing our child and let me see how this played out. I wanted to know where this could go because I didn’t quite know what I was dealing with.
I’m a Girl Scout leader. It wasn’t until I started sharing with other parents what I was experiencing (the outbursts from nowhere, the sudden tears, the eruptions over NOTHING) that I realized we didn’t have what I feared was a mental health issue. It was simply hormones.
Hormones I was prepared to deal with. Not at age 9, but I knew it would happen. Fearful about mental health disruptions in a juvenile? I was terrified. Make no mistake. I see a therapist and have my own mental health struggles. That’s why I was terrified. I know the struggle. I didn’t want my daughter to experience what I have experienced.
But when did we decide sass was appropriate all of the time? When did sass become as causal as a tight smile? I’m here to say this generation needs to learn discernment. Because I’ll be damned if I let sass go down without a fight. If we use it too liberally, it won’t mean anything. I can’t be having that.
My daughter’s friend likes to sass me. A lot. At first, it was cute. A couple of clever zingers. I was impressed. This kid’s sharp, I thought. Then, it morphed into something entirely different. Now she’s too comfortable. Now she thinks we’re friends or something. Um, no. I actually had to snap her back into place recently during one sassy session.
She was not amused.
To be clear: anyone who is 40 years old should not be friends with a tween/teenage child. If you find out someone is trying to do such a thing, please alert the proper authorities.
Tween/Teen sass is just for kids who lack emotional regulation, in my humble opinion.
Let’s leave the sass where it belongs. Within our own age demographic.
About Heather
(So, my web designer says I needed to include a bio, though I find this task silly because, if you’re here, you know me.)
I’m a writer. It’s what I do. It’s a cathartic mechanism when I need release from my anxiety. I’ve had blogs in the past; I’ve taken them down, but I never stopped writing. I simply can’t. My notes app is forever long as it’s filled with pages and pages of different topics. Sometimes I just write a few sentences. Sometimes I write paragraphs.
Recently, I've been writing long essays. My friends and others I hold dear have coaxed me into sharing my work again.
So that's what I'm doing, you wicked, pushy people. LOL
I have no desire to see my writing be anything more than an opportunity to share what I love doing most. I have no interest in this blog reaching the masses.
I thought it would be fun to call it My Spicy Disaster because that's often how I feel. A complete mess of epic proportion. So join me, if you'd like, and let's pretend we're not sitting amongst the chaos crying, but laughing instead.
Or maybe we do cry sometimes, but then wipe our tears and remember one person’s disaster is another person’s … well, who the hell knows …