Not too long ago, my oldest daughter informed me that she wanted to be called “Em” and not Emily, and anytime I made a mistake and called her Emily she corrected me, “Its EM, mom,” in a reprimanding tone. I wanted to reply, as I recall, when I ( I, being the operative word) gave birth to you, I named you EMILY, but before I said anything, I remembered the day when I was a teenager and wanted to be called “Liz” instead of Liza, and it took my father five years of me correcting him before he would call me “Liz”. By that time, I was heading off to college and realized Liza was a much cooler name because there were way too many people named “Liz” and I went back to being called Liza (although my father still called me “Liz”). With that in mind, I made the effort to call her Em and even correct myself if I started to say Emily, just so she wouldn’t have to correct me.
As if changing her name was not enough, she began making other changes. I knew a time would come when she would go from being a girl to an adolescent, but I did not realize that time would come so quickly. Just few weeks ago when we were in the car going to soccer practice my water bottle fell out of the cup holder onto the floor between my seat and hers and when I leaned over to pick it up I noticed she had shaved her legs. Alarmed, I asked her about it, and she replied nonchalantly, “I started shaving my legs months ago when I was in the play. I did not like how my legs looked all hairy in that poodle skirt I had to wear, so I shaved them. And by the way, most girls are shaving by sixth grade.”
I guess she told me. I should not have been too surprised about the shaving, because she already had a razor, since she had started shaving her underarms about a year ago. It was just that I had never suggested she should start shaving her legs. All I could say was, “That’s great!” I wanted to sound supportive and not squash her confidence in her decision making. Secretly, I was impressed because she started shaving on her own. I never figured things out on my own. I always felt like the late bloomer. My mother never bought me a razor and it wasn’t until a visit to my older cousins’ house in Colorado at age twelve that I got my first razor. At that point, a shave was long overdue! I am glad Emily did not wait for her cousins to tell her about shaving, besides the fact they are mostly boys, she is the oldest of all them.
So, just as quickly as she changed her name, she had begun shaving her legs. What could happen next? I did not want whatever it was to come as a surprise so I decided to keep a close eye on her and watch for other changes. Here is what I have found. In her move from elementary school to middle school, she has turned in her
Tiger Beat and
Bop magazines for more “sophisticated” magazines like
Teen Vogue and
Seventeen. She has traded watching movies like “High School Musical” and “Ice Princess” for more “mature” films like “Disturbia” and “John Tucker Must Die”, whoever “John Tucker” is and why he must die I don’t know? And her music, no more requests for Disney’s greatest hits, Hilary Duff or The Jonas Brothers, she is all over Paula DeAnda, Fergie, Fall Out Boy and Kayne West. Radio Disney is out and KIIS FM is in!
All of the sudden the list is getting longer. I can’t keep up with her and all of her changes. But here’s the latest— MTV. I don’t know when it happened? I don’t know when she stopped watching Disney Channel and started watching MTV. I never watch MTV. How did she even find that channel? I don’t even think I know what channel it is? (After some research, asking Em, I found out its channel 49. She told me she read about MTV shows in her magazines, so that is how she got hooked.) Before MTV, all I used to hear about was “Hannah Montana” and “Drake and Josh” and I remember thinking to myself will this ever end? Well, it has, because now she is watching “The Hills”, “My Super Sweet Sixteen” and some show about “MTV Cribs” and that’s not the kind my toddler sleeps in. I am now considering canceling cable.
Once again, just as I am getting worked up about her watching these shows, I remind myself, I was there once too. I went from watching “The Love Boat” and “Chips” to watching “Miami Vice” and “Friday Night Videos” (the pre-MTV era). I remember how my father referred to it as “trash” and “too mature” for a my age. And back then, I remember telling my father I would never tell my children what they could or could not watch. I certainly would not be like my father with my own children.
Okay, so we all go through it, the changes. I went through it, my daughter is going through it and my other three children will go through it. The transition from childhood to pre-teen. So now I am at that point where I need to figure out what is age appropriate and how to guide her through the next phase of her life before the teen years, but most importantly I need to keep tuning in the way I have been and being aware of these changes, because ignorance is not bliss when your child is growing up. Noticing the little changes are important, because if I miss those, then bam, I could be facing a drastic changes.
And just as I was considering all of this, I remembered another factor in all of this change— The siblings grow up faster “rule”. Emily, being my first, had only PBS as a toddler, by the time I had child number two, number two watched PBS for a short while before tuning into Disney with her older sister. By my third, there was no PBS, just Disney. So here’s the real question, does that mean my seventeen month old will start with MTV? If that is true, the cable is gone tomorrow!
