“Mom, you just don’t understand- People DO care”

It’s hard for parents to get their head around the fact that yes, we are in high school and yes, we care how we look and yes, it is a big damn deal!

High school is enough stress with all the work and trying to keep up good grades for university. When you throw looks and little high school dramas into the picture it gets a WHOLE lot worse. Teenage girls, we stress on things, and we often find a way to hate every single part of our body for one reason or another. When we finally avoid the problem of our looks, something else happens based on a social group or what not. Any given situation regarding anything in high school, even the little things, makes us feel like absolute crap. Then we go home and are all moody and pissed off because of all the stuff that happened at school. When we explain it to our parents, it never has the same impact on them.

A typical situation would involve this:
“What is wrong?” “Nothing” “How was your day at school?” “Awful.” “How come?” “Mom, I had the worst day ever at school. The group of people who I normally sit with at lunch, decided that they were gonna go out for lunch and then there wasn’t enough room in the car, so I had to sit with these other people and they were just talking bad about all these other people. Then when I got up to leave I tripped and fell and they all laughed at me.” “What’s so bad about that? It’s fine. I’m sure they will all forget about it by tomorrow morning.”

WRONG! IT’S HIGH SCHOOL NO ONE FORGETS ABOUT ANYTHING.

I can still recall things that happened in grade 9 that I thought were hilarious at someone else’s expense. Everything matters, even the little things: from what kind of nail polish you wear, lip gloss colour, hair cut, shoes, how you wear the uniform or what you eat for lunch.

EVERYTHING MATTERS. EVERYTHING IS A BIG DEAL. EVERYONE CARES.