Making a connection with a teenage girl
I went shopping with my niece the other day. This does not sound
like such a momentous occasion in itself, but it was a landmark. It
was the first time I’d ever done it.
Making a connection with a teenage girl
I went shopping with my niece the other day. This does not sound like such a momentous occasion in itself, but it was a landmark. It was the first time I’d ever done it.
It was also the first time I’d had an outing with a teenage girl since…well, since I was a teenage girl.
What you have to understand is that girls are in short supply in my family. I was the oldest of four and the only girl. Of course, when I got married and had my own children, I desperately wanted a girl. So what did I get? Two boys.
Of course, I would not trade my sons for anything – they are wonderful.But I did feel that it was time for me to connect with some girl power in the family.
So I had promised my niece a while ago that we would do something …well, girly. Unfortunately, I let some months slip by before I made good on the promise.
I called her. She is 13, and of course, she has a cell phone. She was gracious enough to consent to lunch and shopping with me.
“Don’t worry, Auntie Kathy,” she said when I apologized for not calling her sooner. “I’ve been busy.”
Busy? How busy can a 13-year-old be?
At any rate, as the time of our date grew near, I began to panic. What in the world was I going to say to a 13-year-old girl?
I have lots of experience talking to teenage boys. Basically we talk about iPods, video games and movies. Occasionally this is broken up by discussion of something funny someone has seen on YouTube. Believe it or not, that is usually plenty of conversation for them.
But a girl …I would have to think of things a girl would like to talk about.
This expedition was really meant as a way to get to know my niece a little better. In a very short time, she had transformed herself from a little girl to a beautiful, young lady. Even though we live only about 20 miles apart, I really didn’t know this new, more grown-up Cailin.
I really had no idea what her interests were – simply boys and fashion? Or something more?
The first thing I noticed when I picked her up from her friend’s house was the color of her lips, sort of a bright tulip red. “Nice lipstick,” I said. “Oh thanks, it was my friend’s,” she said. I’m sure her mother would not have approved, but I didn’t say anything.
We went off to Capitola Mall (mostly because I couldn’t think of anything else to do) and besides, I wanted to look for a sweater. I asked her what she wanted to do. “It doesn’t matter,” she said sweetly, texting like mad on her cell phone.
Oddly enough, she wasn’t that interested in shopping, although she did help me with the sweater project. (I mentioned this aberration to her mother later on; “Oh, she’s like that sometimes,” is all she said.)
But Cailin seemed content enough to trail in my wake, cell phone in hand.
During the course of the afternoon, I did find out some things about her. She loves to read, and we both love the “Twilight” books. She wants to be an actress when she grows up. And she used to have a pet rat, which she thought was the coolest pet ever.
We had lunch, and then it was time to go home. I asked her if we could do it again sometime. “Well, I’m going to be busy until school is out,” she said. We made a tentative date for June.
It wasn’t so hard to talk to a 13-year-old girl after all. In fact, it was just fine.
