Young Chicks to Mother Hens
This was going to be a ‘fluff’ piece – not that I write fluff pieces you understand – but it was going to be a lighthearted look at how we transition from girlhood to womanhood and leave behind the best of our years for the world of the ‘grown ups’. If, indeed, one considers girlhood the best of our years. Certainly, the female plumbing worked a little better back then, and meaningful decisions centred around what colour lipstick to wear to get us noticed in Biology class.
But then something happened.
Maybe it was the "OMG!, I know!!" messages flying back and forth on Twitter recently on how much ‘faster’ young women are today – and I don’t mean in the 100 meter dash Linford Christie kind of way – or it could have been the insightful piece “You Are So Much More Than Pretty" I caught over at Cecily Kellog’s house, Uppercase Woman, which included the poetry slam by Katie Makkai “Pretty”.
Or it could simply be the UK’s impending Mothering Sunday on 3rd April 2011 which got me thinking, “How do we go from being Young Hot Chicks to Mother Hens?”
Whatever the influence, I recently looked at my soon to be 16-year-old daughter, and thought, I was that girl. Moreover, I was that girl only yesterday – if we are happy to accept that yesterday was 33 years ago. In speaking with girlfriends, sisters, mothers and grandmothers, guess what? - we all feel the same way. We don’t feel inside that we have changed but we know it to be true. For instance, I always jump a little when someone calls me Ma’am. Holy Moley, when did I turn into a Ma’am? And when did I start saying Holey Moley?
While my daughter and her friends would argue they are not ‘carefree’, what with exams looming and all, and the mystery of what Robert and Clara were doing behind the bike sheds for 2 hours still to be solved, she and they do embody that illusive flush of youth and are at the pinnacle of their powers; of roads not yet taken. With every “Oh, Mummy” and rolling of eyes skywards, I often think (very spitefully):
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