Mean Girls & Queen Bees

Next month I’ll be attending the annual BlogHer conference again and I’ll be doing something that I haven’t previously done at the past six I have attended. I’ll be moderating a session. In the past I have been a speaker on several topics. Women of color and marketing, media, culture, self-reflection, parenting, and writing about our children. Speaking at conferences isn’t a difficult thing for me and most of the time I don’t spend a great deal of effort into the preparation for speaking simply because, as a seasoned speaker for education, I can get a topic 5 minutes before going on stage to take a microphone and then just do it. I don’t have many talents in life, but speaking on a whim is one of them. It has lead to great opportunities for me do speak nationally on creating change in our schools but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it takes actually doing the work in a school first.

Several years ago when I worked as a literacy coach our building team worked really well and decided to set standards for ourselves if we ever expected student achievement to change. Isn’t that the way it’s done? If you want other people to do better, then you have to do better. We set some non-negotiable items for how we would teach writing and this was when I first became a writer. I wrote in front of my students as they wrote. If I assigned a topic and they had to spend 45 minutes writing about it, then I would pull out my transparency sheets, put them on the overhead, grab a marker, and go for it. Nothing says pressure like 30 students watching you as you write on the big screen in front of them, but I did it aloud so they could hear my thought process as I wrote. The beauty of the overhead marker is that it wipes off easily, much easier than writing in pen or pencil. Unfortunately, the downside is that I would be covered with marker stains on my fingertips by the end of the day. It sounded something like this.

What I want to say here is that the author gave me a character…scratch that, showed me a character…no, they unfolded a character before me that I liked. No, liked isn’t the right word. I connected with her and she taught me something about herself because she was … ummm … she was vulnerable and that is brave to me because I don’t like being vulnerable because it seems weak.

Then, I would write out my sentence using the best possible word and my students would sometimes shout out words to me that were, as I called them “Ten Dollar Words” because they were sophisticated and beautiful.

Ooooohhhh-weeeeeee, that’s a Ten Dollar Word, Stacy! Somebody clap for that child because she is smart. She is a WRITER.

Suffice to say, I had an interesting way of teaching. It’s the other thing I knew I was good at in life. So, there’s two. Speaking in front of people and teaching.

I’m good at working with teenagers, specifically girls. Not that the boys don’t listen to me, but they seem an easier breed and a tad less complicated for me as I still have two teenage sons for practice. Let me tell you, that youngest one gives me as much practice as possible. He is definitely the one who toes the line and pushes my buttons and argues about everything and I mean EVERYTHING. It’s like he almost dares himself to find out what my limit is.

Is this the line? Is this the line? Is this the line?

Yesterday, we debated about the blinds in the kitchen and which way they should go. I’m pretty calm with him as we debate these things but honestly, he picks the most mundane things to test me on and I just know that he’s finding out how to do this so I go with it or else how will he learn? I probably have way more patience with him than I did the other children because he is, for all intents and purposes, an only child at this point. Everyone else is living on their own and independent. One teenager in the house is a far cry from a houseful of kids under ten so I am a different mom now than I was ten years ago.

Teenage girls are a different story altogether. Mallory’s teen years weren’t terribly bad and if I were honest I would admit that she gave me a run for my money when she was in 7th grade. That was the year she started trading clothes with her friends (and they were less than modest) and trying new things with her hair (there is one school picture that we just don’t talk about so we pretend like it doesn’t exist) and she tried out the commodity of sassing me back (this didn’t last long because I’m a strong personality and this carried over to my parenting or when I would ask her Are you crazy talking to me like that because you must be crazy. I am not having you talk to me like that, girl, you better back off and then all was well). In truth, Mallory was the easiest to “break” in that she couldn’t even lie very well because she repeated my questions back to me.

Mallory, did you take my silver hoop earrings off my dresser?

Your silver hoop earrings? Off your dresser?

Yes, those are the ones. Stop lying. Go get them. I’m not playing with you.

And that was that. But her most annoying attribute during that time was that she perfected the look that said You are the DUMBEST person on the planet, mom. The dumbest. No one is dumber or more annoying or more stupid than you.

Overall, parenting her during that time was fairly smooth but we spent entirely too much time together for her taste because that year, when she was in 7th grade, I was also her teacher. She was a student in my class (and the only child I ever got to instruct in the classroom) and we navigated our way through that with some bumps along the way. Luckily, I didn’t have to contend with much of the technological issues with her as “cell phone” and “bullying” wasn’t in our vocabulary back then. My children have all spent much of their free time at home with family where we could affect their lives with greater influence as to our values and beliefs. But there was a nasty incident when a bunch of other 7th grade girls were being mean to one in particular and started a notebook where they wrote mean things about her. That led to the signing of a petition that they all hated her and wanted her to leave school and when I found out that my daughter signed it, all hell broke loose. Not only was I her mom but I taught this other student as well and it rocked me to my core that I was somehow involved in this. I never considered my child a bully and I still don’t think that’s the proper word for what she did. Mallory went along with everyone and was compliant and yes, in my eyes, she was culpable for making this girl feel hated. Bullying has multiple layers and players and occurs in the spaces that we, as adults, don’t inhabit, both physically and emotionally.

I did what I assumed was my only option: I drove Mallory over to the girl’s house and sat with her mother and put it all out on the table. We can’t discuss what we can’t confess, right? So, I held her hand and helped her confess and ask forgiveness and I refused to make excuses for her. Both of my roles had to be present because I couldn’t untangle them and I was a teacher and a mother in those moments. Where does one end and other begin? I couldn’t answer that at the time. That’s a hard place to be in but we didn’t get out of it without getting into some dark places about feeling liked and loved and accepted.

Certainly, there were tears and apologies and she felt like I was forcing her to be friends with this other girl, but I believe that unless you are willing to agree to your own part in bullying you can’t come out the other side a better person who might consider your own humanity and how you’re willing to treat people better than before.

All that was to say that this moderating I will be doing will be so up my alley that I can hardly stand it:

Being a Mobile Role Model, brought to you by LG Mobile and their TextEd Council

Mobile technology has been a huge boon to parents, bringing both convenience and peace of mind. When used properly and responsibly, mobile phones can provide many positive benefits including opening the lines of communication. That being said, it is also one more tool that can be mis-used, by parents and kids alike.  Recent research conducted by LG Mobile Phones found that adults are more comfortable than ever using mobile phone technology, yet very few believe their children engage in harmful mobile phone behaviors – such as texting while driving and sexting.  Yet, LG’s research has shown that parents also engage in these questionable behaviors.  To help parents address the risks of mobile phone misuse among teens, and how their own behavior could impact their children, LG Mobile Phones launched a comprehensive initiative called LG Text Ed. Providing insight into the complexities of contemporary parenting in the new mobile reality, blogger and middle school administrator Kelly Wickham will moderate a discussion with Rosalind Wiseman, LG Text Ed Advisory Council member and author of the seminal work on raising daughters in today’s world, Queen Bees and Wannabes, the basis of the movie “Mean Girls”. Joining them both will be a teenage BlogHer, to give you a 360 degree perspective on how tweens, teens and adults can all educate themselves on the dangers of mobile phone misuse, discover strategies to help prevent potential problems and learn how to model positive behavior to their children and their peers.

I had a really hard time last week reading my regular blogs because they were just filled with internet drama that I can’t possibly comment on being that I have all this important stuff in my own life that I’m doing. I wouldn’t comment on it openly because, you know what? No one would like what I have to say and then there would be more hurt feelings and I just don’t have time for that. My life is parenting and education and schools. I’m too busy in the work to get involved in the sideshow. Indeed, I do have to act professionally in my job and my parenting and, to be honest, I didn’t even realize there was a choice about it. As I skimmed the writing of my friends I just shook my head and turned my attentions back to the families I help serve. Then, this opportunity came up and I couldn’t have been more happy to have it.

The book cover doesn’t exactly thrill me because (wait for it…) it’s so homogenous and there are no girls of color. You know I’ll bring this up in my session as I moderate.

Teaching isn’t all gone for me now that I moved to the Dark Side. I make it in the classroom often and have taught lessons when my teachers want release time to do the important work of educating students. I work with the mean girls and the bullies and all the incredibly enormous crap that comes with it in my real life career (as opposed to my internet career?) in the great hopes that the kids I get to affect will sidestep harmful behaviors, stop all the navel-gazing, and learn to give back naturally as a part of who they become as healthy adults. As beautiful and sophisticated women who mind their own. Often, I tell them this in a more succinct manner: You do you. I want them to be bright and compassionate and figure out the best way to give back without it being a manufactured Kumbaya moment that fades as soon as they step back. Watching them gain confidence in things makes me realize how much these kids have to say and I want them to write it and make it their truth and share that writing.

Maybe, in the process, they can use Ten Dollar Words as they do that.