I was recently asked questions I have been waiting to answer for a long, long time. I didn’t realize it until the glorious moment arrived.
“Jess, what’s up with your generation? I notice a hardness about you guys. You’re all tough, take-no-shit kind of people. How did you get like that? I want to know!”
Well, Jennifer— I completely adore you and thank you for asking.
Jennifer was born in 1989 —the year I graduated from the eighth grade and made my way into high school. Let me enlighten you on how and why we’re such savages, Baby Girl. This will be fun!!
Bobbing for apples… ever heard of it?
We bobbed for apples in the same rusty metal tub as our fellow 20 classmates. Some kids submerged their whole G-d damn heads in an attempt to stick their plaque-covered teeth into an apple with other pupils’ bite marks. It’s ingrained in my mind forever and I couldn’t have been older than 7 years old. But— I never got Covid doing that shit!! —Immunity booster numero uno! Who knew such a vile, raucous activity could be so beneficial to our future?
I dislike oral hygiene outside of the bathroom. There I said it!
Now I’m not talking wooden toothpicks after a steak, no. But for me— It’s a hard NOPE to roam the homestead or (holy fucking shit) be seen in public with a modern-day flosser or an actual piece of floss. Something about people seeing me clean my teeth triggers me. Want to know why? Swish and spit! If my memory serves me, once a month in elementary school we would each sit at our desks as our teachers distributed small Dixie cups with a pump or two of disgusting-tasting fluoride rinse. We would each start swishing at the same time. Cheeks inflate, deflate, inflate, deflate, while watching the clock, trying desperately not to bust up and out laughing. It was humiliating to me to do a private bathroom task in front of the whole class. So, I guess that’s why I have an aversion to oral hygiene outside of my own bathroom. We were publicly humiliated, no big deal.
I was a latchkey kid. I was off the bus and home around 4 pm with plenty of time to kill before Rick and Laurie got home. I’d watch Threes Company or M.A.S.H. and eat two bowls of Special K with way too much sugar just in time to ruin dinner. Life was good. I didn’t have a worry in the world.
Things were easy then, but you wouldn’t believe the horseshit we had to endure and set straight for you!!
I apologize if I sound bitter, I am. During my 7th-grade year, we were riding the bus to school one morning, and our driver, (I guess) thought he was being cool by letting a couple of the seniors on our route drink wine coolers. I didn’t give a shit about the kids drinking, but it became a problem when the bus driver started drinking them as well.
Not wanting to be a square, I kept my mouth shut at the time and told my dad later that evening. Other kids on the bus did the same and the bus driver was not driving the following morning. I never saw him again actually.
I deemed myself lucky though considering in my 5th-grade year, there was a bus driver on another route who wouldn’t let girls off the bus without kissing him first. (Ewww, David!)
Some of us were fighting off men well before we were ready and the glorified teen pregnancy phenomenon was in full bloom just as we got the hang of managing our menstrual periods. I had a nursery in my high school for the mom’s finishing school. The universe even surprised us with a whole baby-making genre— the R&B music craze. I still love some Mary J!!
We had no internet so we hung out and drank alcohol a lot. If we wanted to find something out we had to go to the library. Dewey Decimal System, ever heard of it?!? I know you have not!
Women my age grew up sneaking to planned parenthood for their first pap smears and free condoms. We were always taught, “The man puts the penis in the vagina.”
‘Why? Where? When?’
I’m changing that paradigm for my children. THE WOMAN puts the penis in the vagina. I teach my son it isn’t up to him. Ever. Even if at first it seems groovy, she can change her mind at any time and he should expect her to. Teen feelings are big and plentiful. I teach both my children the same despite being opposite genders and I will support whoever they love providing the relationship is a healthy, loving one.
We had to figure stuff out on our own, with no help. Now look at you youngsters with all the answers at your fingertips.
I could go on forever about it, but I think you get the gist. I may seem jaded or disgruntled even, but I’m not. I have a sense of humor, dark humor specifically and I’m not easily offended which is more than I can say for so many Millennials and most Gen Z.
If you’re easily offended, you’d better hightail it off this site before I hurt your feelings.
-JD
