Tag: teenager

Period Parties

Published on January 14, 2020

Parents painting town red for daughters’ first menstrual moment

Biologically speaking, it’s never good news to discover blood exiting one’s body — and few girls would argue that getting their first period was a serendipitous splash o’ sunshine. In fact, reactions tend to range from embarrassed to freaked out to horrified.

But some moms are attempting to give the un-fun female phenomenon, um, a rosy glow by throwing their daughters “period parties.” Chronicled everywhere from the Washington Post to Parents magazine recently, the celebrations include crimson-hued treats like red velvet cake and occasionally, according to the BBC, a pin-the-tampon-on-the-vagina game. Comedian Bert Kreischer insists that his daughter’s Los Angeles friends all named their menstrual cycles at period parties; his progeny named hers “Jason” since it arrived on Friday the 13th.

I asked my friends if they’d ever thrown or attended such a fête. You know, like a bat mitzvah or quinceañera … but bodily fluid specific.

‘Unpregnant’: Born of Political Rage

Published on September 17, 2019

Talking with Authors of New Abortion Road-Trip Comedy Novel

It was 2011, and writer Jenni Hendriks was in her car, creeping through Los Angeles traffic, when a news story on NPR enraged her. South Dakota was imposing a 72-hour waiting period for any residents seeking an abortion — and that was in a state, mind you, where there was only one clinic providing the service in the first place.

“I just thought, these women are already driving hundreds of miles to get access to this! I was super pissed off,” said Hendriks. She called her writing partner Ted Caplan and blurted, “I know what we’re writing next! It’s a road trip — a road trip with your best friend.”

And so they did. This month, HarperTeen publishes their book Unpregnant, the fresh, funny adventure tale of Missouri high school valedictorian Veronica, who is Ivy League bound when she finds herself disastrously pregnant. Horrified that her life (and perfect image) will be derailed, she opts to secretly travel 994 miles to the closest place she can get a legal abortion without parental consent: at a clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. To do so, she needs the help of Bailey, the school’s turquoise-haired, combat-boot-clad freak — who happens to be Veronica’s ex-best friend. Along their way, odd couple Veronica and Bailey pinball hilariously from pawn shops to strip dives, facing down cows, ferrets, and Planned Parenthood protesters.

Dress Codes Unzipped: Are School Policies Sexist?

Published on June 29, 2016

In a nation locked like longhorns in contentious battles over abortion, immigration, and assault weapons … can anyone really still be bickering over spaghetti straps?

Mais, oui, my friends. The struggle is real.

From Guilford, Connecticut, to Lynchburg, Virginia, to Helena, Montana, junior high and high school dress codes are being criticized — and even reevaluated this summer — as students and parents decry outdated policies as unrealistic, ambiguously enforced, and deeply sexist.

Trying to regulate teen wardrobes is a fool’s errand. Most everyone agrees that students should be clothed; beyond that, it gets tricky. Boys’ dress codes tend toward “Don’t promote drinking, drug use, gangs, violence, or racism,” while girls’ codes imply “Don’t … be sexy”: no short shorts, low-cut tops, bare midriffs, thin-strapped tanks, or exposed bra straps.

Most disturbing is the reason given for the girls’ rules: Their “provocative” clothing is “distracting” to other students in the learning environment.

Road Hazards: Driving with My Teen

Published on August 28, 2014

Like you, I’m a spiritual person given to pondering the great unanswerable questions of life. Like this little existential mystery:

Why in Saab’s name are 15-year-olds allowed to operate moving vehicles on public roadways?

I can think of no good reason why a person who still drops food from his mouth with stunning regularity — and alarming nonchalance — should be permitted to propel a half-ton, motorized murder machine through cityscapes occupied by innocent and unsuspecting humans.

It ain’t right.

So it’s only natural that I lurch into a sudden brace-for-impact stance when my son is driving and we are careening down a freeway off-ramp at rush hour into a snarl of ghastly gridlock.

“Mom, really? Can you not do this?” the giant child says, dramatically mimicking my dashboard death grip.

“Very well,” I say, calmly. “But what you didn’t see is that I stopped myself from screaming, ‘PLEASE, GOD, DON’T LET ME DIE IN AN UNDERPASS!’ So … that’s something.”

I fear for his safety, sure. And that of his fellow motorists. But it’s more than that. It’s bigger. From the first time he operated a wheeled vehicle — the Elmo lawn mower that helped him take his first steps, his fudgy feet flap-slap-flapping the ground as he pushed that thing from couch to kitchen and back again (boy, I hope he doesn’t read this) — I’ve been scared by what it signifies.

Teenage Summer Views

Published on July 4, 2013

I asked my 14-year-old son to write my column this week because he was “bored” and couldn’t think of anything to do with his summer besides parking himself in front of back-to-back episodes of Ancient Aliens on The History Channel. Yes, it’s really him, and not me pretending to be him. Kid has a sarcastic side; not sure where he gets it.

Hi. Judging by my one-word lead, you probably know that this is not Starshine. My name is Stone, and I am Ms. Roshell’s oldest son. This column will not, for a change, make fun of Christians, vegans, or any other thing my mom is not.

If that’s what you’re into, you’d best stop reading now and check back a couple of weeks when my mom will probably write a column that straddles the line between raunchy humor and uncomfortableness, as usual. This column, however, will discuss a few things my mom doesn’t talk about and will not mention vaginas or flossing. Or vagina flossing, for that matter.

You may be wondering, “Why is Starshine making her son do her work for her?” Well, I’m not sure either, but the reason I accepted her offer was because she told me the only way I could get a glimpse at a TV before 8 p.m. was to bang out a column for her. And of course, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Tweens 'Dating' Tweens

Published on May 13, 2010

I always thought kids hated to practice. It’s an easy assumption to make if you’ve ever plunked down payments for piano lessons, then had to beg, badger, and bribe your kids to crack the “Teaching Little Fingers” songbook just once a damn week.

I’ve recently realized, though, there are some things kids love to practice. In fact, they spend much of their childhoods willingly rehearsing for life as a grown-up. They practice parenting by caring for baby dolls. They practice working by donning plastic stethoscopes and lugging toy briefcases around the house.

And when they hit sixth grade, it turns out, they practice dating. My son has informed me that suddenly, and on an almost daily basis, girls are “asking him out.”

I try not to snicker, but the semantics alone amuse. Out … where? It’s a funny proposition for a child whose notion of “going out” still means hopping on his bike and cruising the cul-de-sac to spy on neighborhood cats.

“Where, um, do they want you to go?” I inquired the first time he told me.

“I don’t know,” he replied dubiously. “So I said, ‘No, thanks.'”

He has since informed me that “going out” simply means you like someone. “Not regular ‘like,’ but sixth-grade ‘like,'” he explained. “It means, ‘I’m attracted to you.'”

Fall From Cool

Published on February 25, 2010

They said it would come, but I didn’t believe them. They told me that one day my children would find me uncool. And worse than uncool: an utter, ego-shrinking embarrassment.

Me. The mom with the killer iPod song list. The mom who considers French fries a vegetable. Embarrassing? It didn’t seem likely.

Then we attended a school concert last week, and when I erupted in my trademark rock-show howl of “oowwwww!”, followed by a passionate shriek of “woo woo!”, I glanced over at my 11-year-old son. And there it was.

The Eye Roll.

It wasn’t a subtle eye roll, either. In fact, it was so exaggerated I thought he might tear an ocular tendon and have to spend the rest of his life staring at the back of his own skull. But then, perhaps this was his goal. At least he wouldn’t have to see his newly ridiculous mother rocking out.

Fortunately, he needn’t wallow solo in such shame. Seems the sentiment strikes all adolescents.

“My son’s greatest mortification comes from when I try out the latest teen speak,” a friend of mine confessed. “He once told me, ‘Moms who drive Volvos are not allowed to say, ‘Fo’ shizzle!'”

Rent’s Price of Admission

Published on March 5, 2009

Dirty needles. Cross dressers. Pole dancing. Just another day in the high-school auditorium.

After 12 years of rocking and shocking Broadway, the hit musical Rent is exploding onto high-school stages across America. The New York Times reports that more than 40 schools plan to stage the rock opera this spring. But some parents and principals are squeamish over the show’s racy content, and productions in California, Texas, and West Virginia have been canceled.

The play is actually Rent: School Edition, a somewhat milder version of the original. The profanity has been cut — but the provocative plot remains in tact.

Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and three Tony Awards, Rent is Jonathan Larson’s turn-of-the-21st-Century take on the classic opera La Bohème. It tracks a year in the life of a loose-knit clan of starving artists grappling with poverty, disease, and romance in New York’s East Village.

In La Bohème, the heroine is a frail seamstress suffering from consumption; in Rent, she’s a smack-addicted go-go dancer with HIV. If that’s not enough to get a parent’s trousers in a twist, there are (gasp) gay, bisexual, and transvestite characters.

Just Say 'Know' to Teen Sex

Published on January 8, 2009

Grown-ups spend a lot of time worrying that the next generation is sexually stupid. “Today’s teens,” the cries begin, and they end with the words “wild,” “in such a hurry,” or “setting themselves up for heartache …”

They’re not unfounded, these accusations. But they were true of us, too. And they were true of our mothers, grandmothers, and — sorry for the mental image — great-grandmothers. Sex is like driving. Before you slide into the driver’s seat and take your foot off that brake, you don’t really know anything useful about it. And the education can be terrifying.

My friends learned the hard way. “I didn’t anticipate how emotionally overwhelming the experience would be,” said one.

“I wish I’d been better educated about STDs,” confessed another.

Me? My first time was slow and sweet, passionate and perfect — until my mother walked in on us. Wish I were kidding.

Do You Have to Like Your Kids?

Published on May 29, 2008

Parents aren’t supposed to say this out loud, but… we don’t always like our kids.