About the Girls

 Being Sixteen 

It's
Never been easy
Sixteening.
Reading Shakespeare,
Searching for meaning; 
Playing different roles
For everyone you've met
Wanting all the applause
You can get.

Feeling guilty
For deeds not done:
Trying to connect
With anyone:
Searching for words
With crystal clear meaning:
Never been easy
Sixteening.

A head that's full
Of new dreams each week,
Like treetops that trap
Morning mist off a creek:
Pushing out feelers
And pulling them in:
Trying to be yourself
While still fitting in:
Standing tall
When your heart's bleeding:
Never been easy
Sixteening

(Source:http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm376822.html via tictactoe1.blogspot)

I recently enjoyed listening to a series of daily, 15-minute programmes on BBC Radio 4 called 'About the Girls'. You can click here to listen. Teenage girls from all over the country talked about becoming young women, life online, education, friendship and sex and consent. The latter was particularly eye-opening and made me reflect on just how much thing had changed from when I was a teenager. I felt quite dismayed at the pressures girls now find themselves confronting. I suppose every generation thinks that, but despite all the teenage angst I certainly experienced, I feel lucky that I never had to encounter the curse of social media at that age. 

Our phone was a big, heavy, red, plastic thing that sat at the bottom of the stairs in cold hall. If I wanted to have a private (or long) conversation I had to wait until my parents were not around. Even then, my dad used to scrutinise every paper telephone bill to see exactly which numbers had been dialled and for how long. 

Away from home, calls to boyfriends were made from telephone boxes that smelt of pee and stale cigarette smoke. There was, of course, no texting, and any written message was sent on a postcard or in a letter. 

'Selfies' were unheard of and indeed photos had to be snapped with cameras that had films, which were then developed and printed at the chemist, or taken in photo booths as the one above. I look at that picture now, taken on a school trip to London and at a service station half way up the M1, and marvel at how carefree we all seem and how individual we were. If I could give advice to my teenage self now at the age of 70, with the benefit of hindsight, what would I say I wonder?  

This is what former First Lady Michelle Obama would have said:

"If I could give my younger self just one piece of advice, it would be this: Stop being so afraid! That’s really what strikes me when I look back – the sheer amount of time I spent tangled up in fears and doubts that were entirely of my own creation. I was afraid of not knowing the answer in class and looking stupid, or worried about what some boy thought of me, or wondering whether the other girls liked my clothes or my hair, or angsting about some offhand comment someone made to me in the lunchroom."

Click here  to find out about 'Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self' - a book of letters written by various celebrities. 

Writing prompts:

•  Write a letter to your sixteen-year-old self. 
•  Make a list of all the fears, doubts and anxieties you had at 16. Then make a list of those you think current 16-year-olds have. How do the lists compare?
• Write about how you "tried (or try) to be yourself while still fitting in."