In this week's Atlantic Monthly, Caitlin Flanagan worries about teenage girls. Again.
Two divergent cultural tracks regarding girls and sexuality have
developed in this country. At one extreme, in not-insignificant
numbers, you have evangelical Christians who have decided to demand
that their children—and in particular their daughters—remain virgins
until marriage. Until very recently, this would not have even needed to
be put into words; it was the shared assumption of most Americans, and
everything in the culture—from mainstream entertainment to religious
doctrine to the most casual remarks passed from mother to
daughter—supported it. But by now it is a minority opinion, and so the
evangelicals have created a vast, explicit, and (from the outside,
anyway) somewhat unseemly culture to communicate the goal to the
teenagers of the community. At Purity Balls, fathers pledge themselves to the protection of their daughters’ virginity; True Love Waits
campaigns carry the message from teens to teens; abstinence-only
education programs flourish in parts of the country where there are
high numbers of evangelicals, because of the value they place on
virginity.At the other extreme—with very little middle ground—are girls
growing up with scant direction or guidance about their sexual lives,
other than the most clinical. Is it any wonder that so many girls are
binge-drinking and reporting, quite candidly, that this kind of
drinking is a necessary part of their preparation for sexual activity?
Unlike the girls of my era, who looked forward to sex, not as a
physical pleasure (although it would—eventually—become that for most of
us), but as a way of becoming ever closer to our boyfriends, these
girls are preparing themselves for acts and experiences that are
frightening, embarrassing, uncomfortable at best, painful at worst.
These girls aren’t embracing sex, all evidence to the contrary. They’re
terrified of it.
Fears of girls gone bad isn't a new concern for Flanagan. Back in 2006, she had a long column about girls giving out blow jobs.
Flanagan isn't alone in her concerns over the lost innocence of teenage girls.The gossip websites are buzzing about a YouTube video with eight year old girls dancing to Beyonce. My sister called me last week, because her 11-year old daughter watched Glee on Hulu at a playdate, which meant that she had to explain what the word, "virginity" meant. A new blog, Marketing, Media and Childhood, looks at how the media sexualizes our children and exposes them to excessive commercialism.
How concerned are you?
Apt. 11d 
I suppose it’s easy for me to say, not having kids, but I’m completely unconcerned. Any concern I might have about something Flanagan says would be that someone might take her seriously. She’s consistently shown herself to be person with a very poor relationship with evidence and argument, and seems to me to be someone who should be ignored rather than engaged. I also wish she’d not project her rather unpleasant ideas about sex on everyone else. Moral panic, complete with largely imagined stories about the past, is never a very edifying form of discourse, and Flanagan is one of the worst.
(And shouldn’t an 11 year old have at least a fairly good idea of what “virginity” means anyway? I’d think that was a basic part of literacy.)
LikeLike
I am more concerned that an 11 year old has no idea what virginity means– children that age are close to or already dealing with menstruation and should know as much as possible about their bodies and sexuality.
Also, if Flanagan had done much research on things like Kinsey’s work or other studies done in past decades, she would see that we have always preached a very different message about chastity and marriage than we have practiced. It’s been decades in American life since there was an expectation that every bride was or should be a virgin.
Finally, as a mother of daughters and teacher in a girls’ school, I do think there is cause for concern regarding over-sexualization in media and popular culture and over-commercialization of childhood in general. But do I think stimulating moral panics about rainbow parties and rampant binge drinking is the most productive way to deal with these issues? Absolutely not. There is a middle ground, despite what Flanagan thinks, and parents need to be involved in staking out that middle ground for their children, even if it means they have to talk about “icky” things like sex and alcohol.
LikeLike
I’m not that concerned about my own daughter, as I consider our family as having the best of red and blue: two-parent family with faithful and loving parents, good father/daughter relationship, strong religious faith, daughter with a sense of a bright future. Girls from families like that don’t usually go wrong.
LikeLike
Girls from families like that don’t usually go wrong.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
LikeLike
You could have also gone with Patty Hearst.
LikeLike
I’m not concerned, and I have three girls. I read Flanagan’s piece last night. I thought her comparisons and examples stretched so much to make an overgeneralized point, that I found the piece largely unreadable.
The stuff girls do now is no different than what they did before — they just have Facebook and YouTube and Twitter to record it.
Thank God I’ve already grown up.
LikeLike
After that episode of Glee, which I watched with my daughter, I focused a bit on Finn, who felt he’d made a mistake. She has already had the puberty talk at school…. Oh wait, I forgot that she didn’t go. I’ve been talking about it with her, and she also got the lowdown from the other girls and now understands that (hetero) sex involves penises. That’s a huge turnoff for her these days!
I haven’t read what Flanagan said, but if she says there’s no middle ground, that is complete and utter bullshit. She’s constructing an argument based on a fallacy, and like Matt says, she should probably be ignored.
LikeLike
I don’t think the Palin family has too many blue characteristics. I never got the sense that those children saw bright futures for themselves. Even if their parents were ambitious, their peers surely are not.
LikeLike
That episode of glee was about high school girls giving up the virginity, right? That was the whole plot the show, I think. Yeah, my ten year old boy isn’t ready for that yet. Not by a long shot. That’s why he only watches Cartoon Network, the History Channel and American Idol.
I’m not in the world of teenagers yet. So, I have no idea what teenage girls are up to.
LikeLike
“Girls from families like that don’t usually go wrong.”
Let’s say “permanently wrong.” We can manage a few temporary detours. If you have a good family standing behind you, you can get back on the right road eventually, but if you don’t, there’s nobody to haul you out of the ditch.
I’m having a rather trying morning right now, so not much time, but I’ll note that the current model is to have to kiss a whole lot of frogs to get to Prince Charming.
LikeLike
I’ve got three girls, and the part of that that worried me the most was “fathers pledge themselves to the protection of their daughters’ virginity.” The mind reels . . .
I have my own views on the importance of sex and relationships, which probably lean closer to the first “cultural track” than the second, but why the heck should I be worried that other people have different views of the value of sex than I do? I will teach my values, and the Raggirls will either (hopefully) agree, or else decide on a different value system.
People liking crappy (to me) bagels means its harder for me to find the good ones. People liking crappy (to me) TV shows means that the ones I liked got canceled. People having crappy (to me) sexual relationships doesn’t bother me at all, as long as they don’t insist that I participate.
LikeLike
The stuff girls do now is no different than what they did before — they just have Facebook and YouTube and Twitter to record it.
Interesting, and I agree to a certain extent. However, recording it seems to promote it in one way at least by raising the peer pressure bar a bit. I think this happens with insulting, coarse language. This also relates to Ragtime’s wish for her girls to choose her values, but with the ever increasing encroachment of “other” values I think it will be less likely. Peer pressure, folks.
Let me just say that my daughter’s middle school girlfriends posing for their FB profile pics in bikinis or lounging in skimpy pajamas on their bed is unsettling. By high school, the pics show guys groping breasts.
LikeLike
“I’ve got three girls, and the part of that that worried me the most was “fathers pledge themselves to the protection of their daughters’ virginity.””
I believe there’s research that says that having a strong relationship with a father is extremely beneficial to girls. As I recall, absent fathers correlate with early sexual experimentation. It may squick you out, but the psychology of it is that girls who lack positive paternal attention will go looking for love in all the wrong places at an early age. I really should look this up, but I even remember something about the lack of a father at home being associated with early puberty in girls.
“Let me just say that my daughter’s middle school girlfriends posing for their FB profile pics in bikinis or lounging in skimpy pajamas on their bed is unsettling. By high school, the pics show guys groping breasts.”
What a bummer at their Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
LikeLike
The real underlying problem is that the overall culture has become more misogynistic over the last 20 or 30 years – women are objectified and seen in terms of male sexual desire probably more than ever. This is the long term psychic cost I worry about with my daughters. Sex and the City worries me far more than 15 year olds giving blow jobs (BTW, Miranda July’s film “Me, you and everyone we know” demonstrates the mundane reality of teenage sexuality in comparison to these excitable moral panic articles).
LikeLike
I believe there’s research that says that having a strong relationship with a father is extremely beneficial to girls.
Oh, I’m all in favor of strong relationships with fathers and stable marriages and all that. I’m just picturing Dad opening the door for little Jenny’s date with a bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
LikeLike
Speaking as a heterosexual male, whatever is being objectified in Sex in the City, it is not male sexual desire. I’ve watched some pretty stupid TV because of an attractive female lead, but SinC is completely unwatchable.
LikeLike
I’m just picturing Dad opening the door for little Jenny’s date with a bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
From my experience, a half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort makes a far more frightening combination with the shotgun.
LikeLike
Although we go to an evangelical church, we don’t actually spend much time in the evangelical subculture, so Purity Balls are outside my ken. But I have to say, I find the attitude of my Northeast neighbors, who find the idea of 50-something men getting blowjobs from office interns less offensive than these Purity Balls, very odd. I feel like most people are not leading the examined life.
LikeLike
Are you thinking of someone specific, y81? I can’t imagine parents anywhere not finding exploitation of very young women by men in power much more offensive than purity balls.
But purity balls do seem based on the idea that daughters’ sexuality somehow belongs to their fathers, at least until they are married. I do find that pretty creepy.
LikeLike
“I’m just picturing Dad opening the door for little Jenny’s date with a bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other.”
Are you familiar with Rodney Atkins’ “Cleaning This Gun”? The youtube comments suggest that this method is more common in real life than you might think.
There’s another copy here and more comments:
I like the one from the young woman whose dad is a fan of the song and tells her gentleman callers, “I’m not afraid to go back to jail.”
Nobody mentions a Bible, just the shotgun.
LikeLike
You could have also gone with Patty Hearst.
That’s a job for the other blog.
LikeLike
Four daughters here, and yes, my wife and I are very concerned. Not so much because of the outlandish and minority behavioral which Flanagan is determined to transform into a hideous trend–even if rainbow parties and the like really did become popular, we think we have a close enough attachment to our children and their friends to be able to ward off such ugliness. No, what we’re considered about is exactly what Gaspard said:
The real underlying problem is that the overall culture has become more misogynistic over the last 20 or 30 years–women are objectified and seen in terms of male sexual desire probably more than ever. This is the long term psychic cost I worry about with my daughters. Sex and the City worries me far more than 15 year olds giving blow jobs.
I couldn’t agree more. Anyone who doesn’t think that we live in a profoundly pornographic culture, and who doubts that the marketing for such pornographic imagery and expectations has no cost on the image of young women, probably doesn’t spend much time around them. Even Wendell Berry, the farmer who lives out in the sticks of Kentucky, can tell you that what it’s all about these days is telling girls that they’re commodities–and the more sexually available to male buyers they can make themselves, the better.
LikeLike
I don’t necessarily think someone having sex should be classified as a “girl gone wrong.” I think a statement like this, demonizing sex and those who may give in to perfectly normal biological urges contributes to the mixed messages we send about sex.
I have three daughters- 18, 16 and 12. We’ve been talking about sex since the oldest was in kindergarten. All three know that sexuality involves a lot more than various sexual acts. We talk about how it can change a relationship, change a life, how there can be possible consequences good and bad, and try to educate them to make the best choices possible.
As previous comments have pointed out, I don’t think the mixed message thing is anything new. Flannigan is guilty of the same thing most parents are, thinking her children/generation are the first to experience something.
LikeLike
Mother of two daughters and we’ve raised our kids in the sizeable middle between the two extremes this columnist insists are all that’s really out there. And our girls have a fair bit of company in a style of upbringing that’s pretty candid about the facts of life and the choices that exist.
They’re even pretty vocal feminists. (Yes, I am chuffed about that!) But what’s most important is that we’ve been raising them to base their decisions on thoughtful consideration of information they receive and values they understand are important. We talk openly and frankly about a lot of issues that I know some people won’t bring up with their own children which is a real shame.
Most importantly, they’re understanding that validation doesn’t come from some other guy: whether that’s dad or the boy at school or what have you. Sadly, in both the extremes that the article focuses on, that seems to be where direction and opportunity for young women lie — in the men who seek to control them for whatever reasons.
LikeLike
“Most importantly, they’re understanding that validation doesn’t come from some other guy: whether that’s dad or the boy at school or what have you. Sadly, in both the extremes that the article focuses on, that seems to be where direction and opportunity for young women lie — in the men who seek to control them for whatever reasons.”
I don’t know that it’s realistic to expect anybody (particularly teenage girls) to be Randian/Nietzschean superheroes, indifferent to peer and parental influence, making life choices ina space beyond good and evil. We’re a lot more vulnerable to our peer environments than that. Do you notice how in a certain social class, everybody started gardening (or wanting to garden) at the same time?
I’ve been a big fan of Howard Glasser for some years now and I’m really into positive reinforcement in parenting and teaching. What I’ve learned from Glasser is that there is no escape from reinforcement, that we are all the time reinforcing behaviors. The question is not, do I reinforce, but which behaviors am I reinforcing?
LikeLike
I don’t know that it’s realistic to expect anybody (particularly teenage girls) to be Randian/Nietzschean superheroes, indifferent to peer and parental influence, making life choices ina space beyond good and evil. We’re a lot more vulnerable to our peer environments than that.
I think I would have to take Amy’s side here. I mean, obviously, there is great value in open and serious communication with one’s children, right from the beginning; without it, it’s less likely that they’ll be able to develop as strong, independent, moral decision-makers. That is absolutely what Melissa and I are striving for. But seriously, a lot of the time, people–especially young people–are not going to be that strong, especially when on the opposite side is not just peer pressure, but the whole untameable, inviting, multimedia, commercial world. So we also think about what we allow our daughters to do, and what we allow into the house, by way of, as Amy says, reinforcement. A message is always being sent; is it a message which protects, strengthens, provides security? Or a message which just says “Good luck kids, you’re on your own?”
LikeLike
As the mother of sons, I have a lot of hope for other people’s daughters. My older son married his high school girlfriend; they are both finishing their college degrees within the next 12 months and are raising their two kids (age 3 years and age 7 months). My younger son is only 20 and not yet involved with a woman, but ridicules the stereotypes and objectification he sees on tv and in some books.
Teaching our sons about sexuality and equality is just as important as teaching our daughters.
LikeLike
Here’s a long quote from a 2007 post on the influence of social environment on obesity:
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004417.html
“Appearing in the July 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a study coauthored by Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler of UC San Diego suggests that obesity is “socially contagious,” spreading from person to person in a social network.
“The study – the first to examine this phenomenon – finds that if one person becomes obese, those closely connected to them have a greater chance of becoming obese themselves. Surprisingly, the greatest effect is seen not among people sharing the same genes or the same household but among friends.
“If a person you consider a friend becomes obese, the researchers found, your own chances of becoming obese go up 57 percent. Among mutual friends, the effect is even stronger, with chances increasing 171 percent.
“Christakis and Fowler also looked at the influence of siblings, spouses and neighbors. Among siblings, if one becomes obese, the likelihood for the other to become obese increases 40 percent; among spouses, 37 percent. There was no effect among neighbors, unless they were also friends.”
LikeLike
If we’re gonna talk about moral panic, it’s probably time to call Tim.
LikeLike
Do you have a floodlight with a ‘T’ insert?
LikeLike
“The question is not, do I reinforce, but which behaviors am I reinforcing?”
Indeed. Though I don’t think that “a message which protects, strengthens, provides security? Or a message which just says ‘Good luck kids, you’re on your own?'” are the only two options.
In lieu of an actual Burkean appearance, I will link to his thoughts on a previous Flanagan/sex brouhaha. I’ve been googling around for something similar from the Jazz Age (even if sex was, famously, invented in 1963), but haven’t found a really choice one yet. Sexual Reckonings: Southern Girls in a Troubling Age attempts, as far as I can tell from excerpts, to address these questions for the 1920-60 period.
Searching on animal+dances and ragtime produced this dandy paragraph, “Dance halls and public dancing were condemned as “paths to hell,” that would lead a young girl to ruin. Traditional minded moralists and clergy bewailed the unchaperoned mixing of the sexes, the ubiquitous presence of alcohol and the shocking vulgarity of the new dances that were appearing across the country. …” That fallen age was pre-WWI.
LikeLike
Well, I don’t think that any responsible parent is sending their kids out into the ether alone and without support. And I have seen some girls who appear to be entirely fixated on the approval or feedback from their peers, male and female. Which is sad and disturbing because you expect that a large part of why they’re doing that is that they’re not getting helpful guidance and support at home to distinguish what’s healthy from what’s not.
Along these lines, though, helping your kid to find an appropriate peer group doesn’t hurt as the recent Slate article, The Right Kind of Peer Pressure argues. Peer pressure is real and anxieties about fitting in hit even our best-adjusted kids but, again, you can, as a parent, provide context and insight to equip your kids to deal with this as best as possible.
LikeLike
Can I Haz Morally Uncomplicated Past? (You’ll have to imagine the kitten.)
LikeLike
Of course many of the evangelical purity types (other than, say, Mennonites) aren’t in thorough opposition to a sexually permissive mainstream culture in any real way, because evangelical culture has embraced highly sexualized images of women very enthusiastically. Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears were both considered excellent role models for young Christian women at one time, because they looked cool and danced sexy and conveyed the message that cool sexy chicks can still wait for marriage. This kind of marketing doesn’t protect young women from the requirement to make sex objects of themselves in the slightest; it just encourages the belief that you can do everything but cross the final line and still be pure.
And that disingenousness of letting girls dress sexy and act sexy (or telling them it’s OK) when you don’t think they should be sexually free is dangerous, partly because it encourages girls to think of themselves as objects, but also because it encourages older adults to treat them as sexual before they even understand what that is let alone know how to handle the attention. There’s a dance competition video making the youtube rounds of what appear to be perhaps nine-year-olds copying a Beyonce routine, wearing stripperwear with corseting. Huge audience response. Very alarming to a mother of girls especially since some adults opined that this is all good clean fun because the girls don’t understand it yet.
LikeLike
I’m a single mother with a daughter entering puberty; I think Flanagan is (once again, very predictably) making much ado about nothing. “Rainbow parties” are an urban myth, and so is the so-called “hookup culture”. I’m unconcerned. I’m more concerned that my daughter is going to have to re-fight the feminist battles of the seventies that limited women’s opportunities. The school district she attends is extending gender-specific educational strategies (men are from mars, women are from venus-type of stuff, supposedly on “hard-wired”, fundamental brain differences), and I notice a trend of “feminism has gone too far” and serious backlash against women who want a man-sized paycheck or workplace authority.
I don’t think anyone who communicates openly and honestly with their children about sexuality has anything to worry about. If you mystify sex, and hold it in a special category of human behavior, and especially if you teach young women that “purity” consists of who or what has been in their vagina—those are the young women who will have a tough time negotiating their way around sexuality.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been talking about sex with my daughter for years. Birth control, abortion, homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexuality, you name it. It’s important to me that she understands that she can come to me for information and get the straight scoop, instead of believing the myths on the street (“you can’t get pregnant the first time”—stuff like that). I back that up with discussions on feminism: sexual double-standards, myths of women’s capabilities, low expectations, self-respect, warning signs of potential abusers, etc.
I’m not worried about peer-pressure. She’s doesn’t get the concept. She’s….really self-directed, and not afraid of going against the grain. That has been a lifelong trait, and I expect it to remain so. She’s got a fighting spirit—anyone who tries to take advantage of her isn’t going to get far. And she has an excellent bullshit detector.
Look, I don’t want her hopping into bed with a boyfriend at 13. At the same time, I think it would be an even more profound mistake to go to the altar in her 20s as a virgin. My goal is that she is comfortable with her own body and her own sexuality, and not internalize the idea that she is damaged goods after she has sex. That is a poisonous attitude.
And frankly, I think Jocelyn Elders was right—we need to teach our children that there is nothing unhealthy about masturbation.
LikeLike
I’m very worried about porn culture, because culture does affect self-concept, but I’m not that worried about the sex life of my future teenagers in particular (absent the ongoing concern I have about the commercialization of sex and the misogyny aimed at young women and the risks of sexual assault, which as far as I know haven’t budged much in either direction in several generations). Most of my younger cousins became sexually active between the ages of 16 and 19 — as did I, now that I think about it — and their relationships did not strike me as much different than those I observed during my own teen years, even though they knew what oral sex was about four years earlier than I did.
LikeLike
Oh, and about those purity balls: I am pretty creeped out at the idea that my girls’ bodies would somehow be the property of their father. ICK ICK ICK.
The idea that one’s father would be the protector of one’s virginity, besides being GROSS, also has nothing to do with one’s father being a strong presence in one’s life as a girl. I would hope my daughters gain strength from their father through one-on-one visits to museums or Saturday breakfasts together or conversations at bedtime about the challenges they faced at school that day. Daddy mediating their teen sex lives? NOT SO MUCH.
LikeLike
I have never been to a Purity Ball, as I mentioned, but I doubt it’s as icky some find it. There’s a considerable sociological literature on evangelical visions of masculinity, and those visions hardly envision fathers as modern patresfamiliarum collecting the brideprice for each virgin daughter. For those who are interested in academic analysis rather than uninformed musings from the Atlantic, start with “Soft Patriarchs, New Men.”
Then again, there are certainly many women in my neighborhood who would rather have someone like Bill Clinton as a husband or father than an evangelical type, and they have their reward.
LikeLike
As soon as I learned that pregnancy is 9 months long (maybe when I was 10 and my youngest sister was born?), I figured out that sex happened before marriage, as I was born in Feb 66 and my parents married in July 65.
Re Glee: there were 3 people contemplating losing their virginity: Rachel, Finn, and Emma (the guidance counselor). Rachel and Emma didn’t in the end; Finn did. Rachel lied to Finn and said she did; Finn lied to Rachel and said he didn’t. (Finn/Rachel are our star-crossed lovers.) I actually thought that it was portrayed in a relatively (for hour-long tv) complex manner.
LikeLike
I’m with y81 on this. I’ve never been to a purity ball (and am Catholic), but I don’t see how you get from “purity ball” to “dad owns his daughter’s body.” I also don’t see how you get a father as a strong presence in a girl’s life (girl, not woman) without him also engaging in behavior that would be seen as “defending virginity” by some.
LikeLike
Then again, there are certainly many women in my neighborhood who would rather have someone like Bill Clinton as a husband or father than an evangelical type, and they have their reward.
There aren’t nearly enough Senate seats and cabinet positions for that.
LikeLike
y81, if those were the only two choices, I would be childless and unmarried.
Thankfully, there are many secular men who would never cheat on their wives as a matter of ethical principle. I’m lucky enough to have one, so I wasn’t forced into marrying someone who holds to religious beliefs that I do not just to not get Bill Clinton.
LikeLike
Couple weeks ago I took my daughter to a Brownies Snowflake Ball. Dads n lasses. She had a wonderful time dancing with her friends, I sat on the sidelines and drank fizzy orange drink with some other dads I know. It was all good.
LikeLike
I’m late to this party, but my thought is that the way we protect our girls from being exploited (or exploiting themselves for short term gain) is to teach them to value themselves. All the things that we’re talking about here, from all sides of the spectrum (religion, reiterations of their worth, to both parents, parents respecting each other and their children, feminist thought and rhetoric, . . . .). Those are the things that I think protect them from peer pressure that would convince them to do something they don’t want to do.
I suspect that it’s not particularly reasonable to expect that they will not want to have sex until they are married (or in a committed relationship, or not living in our house, or over 18 year old, or whatever rule we think would be a good one), but that we can certainly teach them why we believe that’s the correct rule to follow (including religious teachings, if those are important to one’s family).
I’m not eeked out by purity balls, if they are a formal way of acknowledging that a father cares for his child. I am eeked out if “purity” is held hostage for that concern.
And, I, like Marya, have always been deeply uncomfortable with the “anything but” definitions of purity, especially in the contradiction of purposefully exploiting the sexuality as long as there’s no sex.
LikeLike
Oh, on the relevance of Bristol Palin, I saw her situation as perfectly relevant to Y81’s comments, in which it was argued that a certain set of characteristics, which Palin probably largely shared, did not protect a girl from making unwise, life-changing choices.
I also saw Y81’s answer as relevant, but I think they boil down to showing the girls how much value they have, and part of that is showing them a future that they can aspire to, one that they want, that would be disrupted by choices they make now. Kagan’s not having to explain any nude pictures, and I’m guessing that if she was a young woman today, her facebook photo would have shown her in robes (like her yearbook picture).
LikeLike
MH, I loved your LOLspeak comment. One thing that shocked my students in a seminar on the early modern life-cycle was the prevalence of premarital pregnancies in seventeenth century England. Martin Ingram researched some regional records and found that a startling high percentage of couples were married while the bride was pregnant. This really amazed the students who had assumed, up to this point, that all that mumbo-jumbo about ironclad religious indoctrination in the past and so forth.
LikeLike
Martin Ingram researched some regional records and found that a startling high percentage of couples were married while the bride was pregnant.
I thought everybody knew that, even if younger people haven’t lived it. Certainly that was the modal path to the altar for non-college educated people in my area up until about 1980 or later.
I remember a Danish exchange student from my year who asked, in all innocence, when the baby was due after being informed that a classmate’s older sister was getting married. We laughed and laughed, except the sister of the bride who patiently explained how things tend to work a bit differently with 28 year-olds.
Anyway, assuming every one was 18 or nearly so*, nobody worried about that kind of stuff until the divorce rates started to rise. It wasn’t until the 70s that the Catholic Church started to seriously try to slow down that stuff. Shotgun marriages are a sign of religious indoctrination, not it’s failure. Nobody has ever created a society repressive enough to stop every teenager from having sex and seeing somebody have to get married did more for making other males be careful than seeing some guy have to pay 15% of his future salary.
*And nobody was really poor, really rich, a huge drunk, etc.
LikeLike
Late to the party but my husband was just on a jury for a sexual assault trial in Toronto and I guarantee you the hookup culture exists – that was the basis of the trial. Boy ‘meets’ girl (neither knew the other’s name), they go outside in the snow, 20 minutes later the boy thinks they’ve hooked up and the girl thinks she’s been assaulted. Oy vey.
LikeLike
” Nobody has ever created a society repressive enough to stop every teenager from having sex and seeing somebody have to get married did more for making other males be careful than seeing some guy have to pay 15% of his future salary.”
Complete separation of men and women almost it (except for incest and rape), and that’s what some muslim cultures do. I heard a report this morning on an Indian school for girls. They’re trying to incentivize girls to stay in school by building a bank account for them for every day of school they attend. The bank account is payable after they’ve attended through the 10th grade, accessible when they’re 21. 90% of the muslim girls drop out. The school had one 1 muslim 12th grader. Combine that with very early marriages (well, and perhaps FGM, though I don’t think that’s actually common in Indian muslim communities), and you can create a society repressive enough to prevent more premarital pregnancies.
But yes, it has to be a pretty repressive society.
So, I do believe there are societies repressive enough to
LikeLike
PS: and, less repressive societies can also produce lower premarital pregnancy rates — again, by separating boys and girls pretty significantly. I think girls pregnant at weddings are pretty rare among the middle class that still participates in arranged marriages in India (a pretty big group).
(Oh, prostitution plays a role, too, in preventing pregnancies & premarital sex among the middle class girls parents are trying to protect. I.e. the boys frequent prostitutes instead of the good girls they plan to marry).
LikeLike
Indian muslim communities
All the Indians I know are Hindu, but not very.
LikeLike
I think it’s really difficult for outsiders (and particularly Northeasterners or non-Christians) to understand the American Evangelical world. It can be especially difficult if it’s something you grew up with but bailed on in your teens, which is not prime time for sympathetic understanding of others. I’m in reasonably close contact with the Evangelical world through my family connections, living in Texas, living near a major Baptist institution and sending my kids to a Protestant school. All the same, Evangelical culture is extremely dynamic and diverse and I find it very hard to keep up. Things are always shifting. There’s always a hot new book, a hot new idea, all pursued with great passion and energy, while the outside world continues to talk about Pat Robertson, who was last important approximately 20 years ago (y81, am I right?). Non-Evangelicals are bound to be always a day late and a dollar short in understanding what’s going on, and I’m not even sure that actual Evangelicals could begin to have their fingers on the pulse of the whole movement. All sorts of things are afoot, like the move toward liturgy in traditionally unliturgical denominations. I was amazed to hear from my mom that their Pentecostal church had an Advent wreath this past year, and the local Baptist college invited the Catholic chaplain to run an ecumenical Ash Wednesday service on campus this year. This is pretty shocking stuff, really. That’s just one develop among many. It’s a big, messy spiritual marketplace, with lots of good ideas and lots of bad ideas.
You never know what’s coming next. I was talking to my neighbor with the beagle a year or so ago, and she was telling me about the latest book (can’t remember the title), which was encouraging Evangelicals to live at most on the median US income and give the rest away. I had lots of bourgeois objections (like I pointed out that living in coastal California in a 1000 sq. ft. home with a family is different from doing the same in Texas or Minnesota), but it’s hard not to be impressed with all the energy and the idealism. Not that there isn’t a funny side (for that, see larknews.com).
LikeLike
Can I Haz Morally Uncomplicated Past? (You’ll have to imagine the kitten.)
You’ll have to imagine the morally uncomplicated past, too.
LikeLike
Late to the party, and haven’t made it through all the comments, but I’m not worried. I’m not worried for my own daughter and I’m not worried for her friends. They’re all smart, have ambitions, and have an age-appropriate understanding of sex and its implications. They’re 11. When my son went off to middle school, a parent that I happened to work with asked me if he’d been offered sexual favors. I said no and she said, well, it happens all the time there. It’s rampant. I wrote it off, and rightly so, I think, to a class divide. There are girls in middle school doing those things–and getting pregnant. Though I’m sure the line isn’t clean, the kids whose parents are more educated tend to postpone sex and/or practice safe sex. I guess it’s similar to that report about blue states having better family values. I’m seeing that play out even at the middle and high school level.
LikeLike
Well, LGm, here in Arlington VA there are several middle schools, and the swellest is Williamsburg. Nicest campus, highest income of the parents, etc etc. Not that those of us with kids at the other middle schools dwell on this, no, no, certainly not.
Well, the Washington Post, several years ago, did an article about middle schoolers, and they featured an anecdote about boys getting blow jobs from girls on the bus home from Williamsburg. The phrase ‘Williamsburg Ho’ was on every middle schooler’s lips for a while after, and, yes, there was schadenfreude from non-Williamsburg parents.
Our own house is close enough to the middle school that bus is not provided, they need to walk or bike. On reflection, I like this.
LikeLike
You’ll have to imagine the morally uncomplicated past, too.
The morally uncomplicated past is the cheeseburger. As such, it doesn’t actually exist outside of the kitten’s mind.
LikeLike
The phrase ‘Williamsburg Ho’ was on every middle schooler’s lips for a while after…
If they ever watch Wagon Train reruns, they are going to be confused and dissappointed.
LikeLike
OK, I went to a number of father-daughter dances as a child, I loved them, they were a great chance to spend special time with my dad, and they are NOT the same as purity balls.
Purity balls exist for a daughter to pledge publicly to her father (NOT her mother — and the genders of the participants in these public displays do matter) that she will remain a virgin, and the father pledges to the daughter AND to the community that he will help her in that quest.
My response to Purity Balls is based on local exposure, media coverage, and some reading around about them. Other people will have other reactions but please don’t believe that my icked-out response is based on ignorance.
Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine purity balls for mothers and sons.
I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that I may be pretty far out on the margins, because if my son or daughters decided to have safe sex at 16 with a respectful, equally eager partner, I wouldn’t think anyone involved was lacking in self-esteem or self-respect. I would think they were engaging in unnecessarily risky behavior (mostly from a pregnancy POV) but I wouldn’t think anything in particular had gone wrong in their upbringing. Would I prefer my kids wait until they’re 19 or 20, as their father and I did? Yes. Am I worried that their first sexual partner won’t be respectful and kind? Yes. But I know a number of people in our particular socio-economic sphere who had sex at 16 or 17, and they all turned out just fine. Better than fine, in fact. Their sex lives didn’t seem terribly tightly connected to their other achievements in life.
Of course, this is one of the great privileges of white upper-middle-class life. Which brings up a good point: sexual behavior for teens has considerably different outcomes depending on race and socioeconomic status, and I’ve stopped subscribing to magazines whose reporters never look outside the narrow realm of wealthy white people. At this point, they’re just repeating themselves anyway.
LikeLike
I’m surprised at all the “unworried” parents commenting here; you sound so smug. I just don’t have the same confidence that our “family values” will provide the armor of protection about which others feel so confident. It may also be that I’m much more uncomfortable with the abortion option than many others are.
LikeLike
Rose, I am unworried because I still remember what it was like. Nothing really has changed since then.
The best inoculation against the breathtakingly sexist messages your daughter will receive, is communication and emphasizing that she is a person in her own right, that her worth doesn’t lie in how sexually available or attractive she is, and that she doesn’t need to play down her intelligence or run with any crowd.
I still remember how angry I was as a kid, at the automatic assumption that my IQ was the same as my breast measurement, and the low expectations (not from my parents, but from society at large) because of my gender, appearance, and SES. That has definitely not changed between my daughter’s generation and mine.
I have confidence in her because I know her, and I’m frank with her. Watching her react to the sexist messages she’s receiving now, as a kid, gives me faith that she will continue to assert herself rather than abandon herself.
I guess what I’m getting at is…..the education doesn’t begin when puberty approaches. It has to be there from the beginning.
That isn’t to say that I don’t have worries for my daughter, just that they’re not centered around her sexuality. I’m more worried about violence in the neighborhood, being able to afford college, keeping her dreams alive despite her teachers having her pegged as “future Mal-Wart clerk” rather than “wildlife biologist”.
I think “purity balls” and virginity rings are seriously creepy. I think teaching young women that sex before marriage makes them “damaged goods” is a form of psychological abuse.
LikeLike
Rose, I am unworried because I still remember what it was like. Nothing really has changed since then.
Great. I’ll get a warm case of Old Milwaukee Light, eight ice cubes in a cooler, two packs of Camels, a broken lighter, and a bag of Doritos.
LikeLike
“I’m more worried about violence in the neighborhood, being able to afford college, keeping her dreams alive despite her teachers having her pegged as “future Mal-Wart clerk” rather than “wildlife biologist”.”
bj would know better than me, but I’ve heard that the pay scale for the two jobs is closer than you might think since the latter draws so many young people who are passionate about the subject and willing to work cheap. If one had money just lying around or if it were possible to study very cheaply, it might make sense to go in that direction, but if there were any question of student loans or financial difficulty, I would not recommend it.
LikeLike
AmyP, she’s always loved animals, and always loved science. I don’t know what she’s going to end up doing with her life, but if that’s the dream that’s going to convince her to study hard and get to college, then I am for damn sure not going to say anything to discourage that.
We live in a neighborhood where going to college isn’t common. She going to have enough discouragement masquerading as “concern”. She isn’t going to receive any of that from me. (I know you didn’t mean it like that…just sayin’.)
My ace in the hole is that I can always get her into the union if her math and science grades are up to par.
MH, your responses need to come with a coffee/monitor warning.
LikeLike
La Lubu,
Sure, I know the milieu. Maybe you could get her an internship (ideally paid) with a vet or a dog trainer?
Rose,
I have somewhat similar inclinations. Part of what produces those good middle class outcomes is being vigilant and not taking success for granted.
LikeLike
Jody says:
“I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that I may be pretty far out on the margins, because if my son or daughters decided to have safe sex at 16 with a respectful, equally eager partner, I wouldn’t think anyone involved was lacking in self-esteem or self-respect. I would think they were engaging in unnecessarily risky behavior (mostly from a pregnancy POV) but I wouldn’t think anything in particular had gone wrong in their upbringing.”
and Rose writes:
“It may also be that I’m much more uncomfortable with the abortion option than many others are.”
Well, I feel much as Jody does, but for me (and I don’t want to attribute the same opinon to Jody), that belief is definitely tied up with my pro-choice position on abortion. I do think part of the relative comfort of a “high SES girl of 16-17” having sex, can come from accepting pregnancy termination as an option (and it always has been — high SES girls with choices were able to convince doctors to perform abortions, or travel abroad for them, historically). The risk for that girl is simply not as high, if abortion is an acceptable alternative to becoming a young mother, a life-changing decision. I would be (I imagine — a parent once told me, when I was childless, that hypothetical discussions about children who do not yet exist are not very meaningful. My thoughts might change) less comfortable with sex when one isn’t ready to accept motherhood if I did not regard pregnancy termination as an option. If my daughter felt differently, I would advise her differently about sex.
(And, yes, there are still the risks of disease, but the consequences and risks are different).
LikeLike
PS: No one else is allowed to tell my daughter about the post above. I haven’t really told her that it’s “ok” for her to have sex at 16!
LikeLike
La Lubu – Low expectations masqueraded as “concern” really piss me off. I’m sorry that your daughter has to deal with that nonsense. Lucky for her that she’s got a strong mom in her corner.
LikeLike
Historically, I note, high SES girls were also known to take six months off (from Miss Porter’s or Vassar or wherever) for illness of an undisclosed nature, after which they returned to school or college and some childless couple somewhere had an adopted baby.
LikeLike
La Lubu,
I lost a post, but I wanted to say that one of my pet peeves is young people getting loaded up with debt in order to pursue low-paying jobs. I’m pretty ambivalent about doing it to pursue high-paying jobs, too. The current extended family drama in my family is that after two years of medical school and $60,000+ in loans, one of my young relatives has just decided that medicine isn’t her cup of tea.
LikeLike
The current extended family drama in my family is that after two years of medical school and $60,000+ in loans, one of my young relatives has just decided that medicine isn’t her cup of tea.
Psychiatry?
LikeLike
Historically, I note, high SES girls were also known to take six months off (from Miss Porter’s or Vassar or wherever) for illness of an undisclosed nature
I came just after that period. When I was in 7th grade, a girl disappeared to have her baby and came back with nobody mentioning anything above a whisper.
LikeLike
“Psychiatry?”
No, a offshore program.
LikeLike
I meant psychiatry as a way to do medicine without doing medicine. Obviously, you’ve still got to deal with the last year.
LikeLike
“When I was in 7th grade, a girl disappeared to have her baby and came back with nobody mentioning anything above a whisper.”
harder now, with the growing push towards open records in adoption.
LikeLike
harder now, with the growing push towards open records in adoption.
For a variety of reasons, it got rare a long time before open records in adoption. I mentioned the event because it was such a contrast with what I saw even three or four years later.
LikeLike
By ‘it,’ I mean hiding the pregnancy, not the teen pregnancies. Through no fault of my own, those increased very rapidly during my high school days.
LikeLike
“I meant psychiatry as a way to do medicine without doing medicine.”
Aha. I’ll try to remember that option, if I wind up (as seems increasingly likely) getting involved.
LikeLike
La Lubu: “future Mal-Wart clerk” rather than “wildlife biologist”.
Amy P: bj would know better than me, but I’ve heard that the pay scale for the two jobs is closer than you might think
Except no. For anyone who wants some documentation, here’s “wildlife biologist” by years of experience. And here is Wal-Mart by job description. It will have escaped no-one’s attention that the lowest listed Wal-Mart pay scales are for salaried positions, and indeed that the lowest categories all have “manager” in the title. For a word on clerks, here is a bit from a PBS documentary:
“Yet the employees on average take home pay of under $250 a week. The salary for full-time employees (called ‘associates’) is $6 to $7.50 an hour for 28-40 hours a week, which is typical in the discount retail industry. This pay scale places employees with families below the poverty line, with the majority of employees’ children qualifying for free lunch at school. … One-third are part-time employees – limited to less than 28 hours of work per week – and are not eligible for benefits.”
So no, wildlife biologists are not earning comparable wages to Wal-Mart clerks.
LikeLike
Thanks, Laura, and Doug.
AmyP, my college plan for my daughter consists of two years of community college with a transfer; that will do wonders to keep debt down.
But remember, she’s ten years old. She isn’t thinking about how she’s going to pay the bills. She’s thinking about what she would love doing for a living. According to Doug’s scale, it looks like she’d be able to pay the bills if that’s the route she chooses to take.
In the meantime, I’ll be thrilled if she has the kind of strong background in math and science she will need to pursue that line of work—and it will give her plenty of options if in fact she changes her mind.
Now, if she wants to take on a bunch of debt in order to attend college….I won’t be cosigning. Period. If she has a wild hair to take the kind of debt load you described, my suggestion would be enter the trades, live at home, and save up that money so you can pay out of pocket. If not, sorry kid—I can’t help ya. I’m not putting my house or retirement savings into play.
I don’t expect that for the future, and would be shocked if that were her attitude. In our world, folks scrimp and save, and occasional unemployment is a fact of life, and the belts are permanently set to “snug”. She doesn’t have any illusion that money is easy to come by.
after two years of medical school and $60,000+ in loans, one of my young relatives has just decided that medicine isn’t her cup of tea.
or…perhaps it wasn’t her choice. Maybe she didn’t pass the boards. It happens.
LikeLike
Doug,
My information isn’t super fresh and I don’t have leisure for a lot of googling, but I did grow up in way-Western Washington, where the National Park and the National Forest are a big deal. My dad did quite a number of years as a seasonal worker for the Forest Service and fisheries in the late 80s/early 90s, doing old-growth surveys and counting reds (those are salmon egg clutches–very important in WA). Anyway, I suspect that your link to the wildlife biologist pay scale is rather misleading. The issue is that while the hourly wage was rather good by rural standards, it was not a year-round gig and (at least at the time), my dad did not get medical benefits. They would lay their people off very promptly when the number of months worked was about to trigger benefits. Maybe things are different now. Anyway, as I recall from my years of listening to Park gossip, there was a vast netherworld of wildlife techs and Park interps who would like to get on full-time, but live a nomadic and precarious existence (particularly the Park people). For La Lubu, I note that military veterans (including Coast Guard) and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers had a significant leg up in the federal hiring process for getting on full-time, as in, nobody else had much of a chance.
Doug, don’t trust everything you read on the internet!
LikeLike
“or…perhaps it wasn’t her choice. Maybe she didn’t pass the boards. It happens.”
The situation is pretty murky, but she wanted to be doctor, up until she didn’t.
“Now, if she wants to take on a bunch of debt in order to attend college….I won’t be cosigning. Period.”
Brava. Watch out for the transferability of community college courses, by the way, and don’t trust what the CC says about it.
LikeLike
Amy, anecdotes, plural, data.
People for whom this is a more pressing question can consult more rigorous sources.
I do wish Laura would let us do title=”” in the little HTML tags.
LikeLike
Doug,
It might be a bit like the academic world. Theoretically, “professors” make big bucks, but as we all know, the pay scales one reads for “professors” don’t tell the whole story because of the parallel adjunct universe.
LikeLike
First, no ten year old should be planning to be a “wildlife biologist.” But, I don’t think La Lubu’s child is — she’s interested in science and animals. I’m guessing that if that interest remains strong, a job as a wallmart clerk would not be very fulfilling (or well paid). But, in time, perhaps the science/animal interest will translate into a variety of different professions that could be fulfilling, and are likely to pay higher than “walmart clerk.”
None, however, are likely to guarantee the pay that would make me comfortable taking on 100+K in debt. But the chances are that someone making a middle class salary wouldn’t have to, and especially so if they can manage to get into one of the “star” schools.
So, I cite this book for La Lubu, “What Colleges Don’t Tell You (And Other Parents Don’t Want You to Know): 272 Secrets for Getting Your Kid into the Top Schools.” It’s a horrible book, about how to create a top-ranked, competitive”organization” kid using all the tricks and tools available to high SES professional parents.
It’s a horrible book because it contributes to the kindergarten achievement arms race. But, it’s a especially important for a parent not already enmeshed in the culture to have. The advise actually does (unfortunately) help create the kind of kids that get into the Ivies (not that every kid is like that). So, it’s useful information to have, even if you choose not to follow it.
The book is formatted to tell you different options/opportunities that exist for different kinds of kids (i.e. “science” kids, “art” kids, etc.).
(And, the piece of advise that makes me believe the book, is that it has the right advise for a “science interest kid” — get your kid into a lab where they have opportunities to do research. That’s the right way to stoke their CV’s for science. And, you get that opportunity by directly contacting scientists –not their department chair or the university).
LikeLike
PS: I hate the book, but by saying subtitling it “and other parents don’t want you to know”, the author has succeeded in getting me to tell every parent who talks about their child in college about the book. Because, you see, I don’t want to be one of those parents who tries to keep potentially useful information to myself.
LikeLike
Oops, “What High Schools Don’t Tell You: 300+ Secrets to Make Your Kid Irresistible to Colleges by Senior Year”
Is the book I actually looked at (from the library), not this, which is the second one.
The comments at amazon call the book “unethical” (and, I agree). But, having looked at it myself, I guess I want everyone else to have seen it too.
LikeLike
First, no ten year old should be planning to be a “wildlife biologist.” But, I don’t think La Lubu’s child is — she’s interested in science and animals.
Well, those are her words. She watches Animal Planet with a vengeance, and takes zoo classes regularly. She loves science, loves animals, and says she doesn’t want to be a vet because she doesn’t want to have to put animals down….but she is perfectly comfortable with the fact that sometimes its necessary, and is perfectly comfortable with the food chain.
I suspect that the real reason she says she doesn’t want to be a vet is because she’s encountered adults who have already shot that down; told her that she isn’t smart enough for that, and that there’s no way she has what it takes to get into the ultracompetitive vet schools.
With that said…insider information is always welcome. It’s not something that I would get anywhere else.
LikeLike
All the vets I’ve known with to Ohio State, if that helps. They also own rubber gloves that go to the shoulder.
LikeLike
MH, I’m convinced you’re here to provide the visuals.
LikeLike
Something Amy mentioned above is worth thinking about (it’s obviously a long way off, but vague plans are fine at that point)- if she were interested in forest service type stuff (which need not be biology as such), then a plan of something like College majoring in ecology or environmental studies, to the peace corps doing an environmental post of some sort, to a job in the forest service via the non-competitive hiring bonus returned peace corps volunteers can get (or grad school w/ the fellowship some get) would be good.
As for vets, my understanding is that there’s a real shortage of large-animal vets these days, as it’s a harder job and pays less well than taking care of pets.
LikeLike
“With that said…insider information is always welcome. It’s not something that I would get anywhere.”
I have two more things to offer.
1. My dad has been teaching remedial community college math for the past year or so and I’ve been meaning to do a big interview with him and post it to my own blog, but this is a good place to share a few thoughts. My dad says that 2nd and 3rd grade computation is a major portion of what trips CC students up. When they are attempting to factor, they don’t immediately look at 25 or 16 and recognize that they are perfect squares. Not having facility with fractions is also a big obstacle for algebra. He says his students often lose 20 points from each test just because of computation errors. Some also have problems reading their own handwriting.
2. Get to know the tracking setup in your high school. The worst offenders are the ones where they’ve euphemized all the course titles so it sounds like every course is honors or advanced. I remember reading one mom complaining about her discovery that her son had been tracked out of calculus by about 3rd grade. Figure out what courses you want your daughter to take by junior and senior year (calculus, as many APs as possible, etc.) and then work backward to see what courses she needs to be in in order to get there.
About what Matt said–I knew a Peace Corps volunteer who had a posting to a nature preserve with Siberian tigers, including a tiger cub. Very cute!
LikeLike
“With that said…insider information is always welcome. It’s not something that I would get anywhere else.”
Well, keep asking. And, keep telling. Perhaps my daughter will want to join a trade (mind you, unlikely, but, less unthinkable for the boy), and we haven’t the faintest idea of how to guide them in that choice.
I guess I wasn’t saying that a child wouldn’t focus on being a “wildlife biologist”, just that for most 10 year olds, that’s probably a fairly superficial understanding of professional possibilities.
And indeed working at a zoo or being a part of Animal Planet are pretty tough professions to get into (along with acting, concert musician, astronaut, marine biologist, supreme court justice, . . . .). Doesn’t mean you should aim for them, but there are broader hopes to consider.
Though it’s not my field, I do know someone who is trying to get a job in a zoo (after an undergraduate degree, and a fair amount of time working in a research setting). She’s told me that the main missing qualification in her CV is an educational component — evidence that she’s worked in communicating information about animals, in addition to working with the animals. Zoos (and Animal Planet) are both about communicating and non-director type jobs at those places are often given to people who have communication talent and training.
I can’t remember where I’ve read this (perhaps in the unethical book I cited), but some of those books can have suggestions for different occupations that might include a childs’ interest. One of the things that I’ve found stumbles a lot of people up is a lack of understanding of the work and skills actually required in a particular profession. For example, many lawyers don’t spend their time in court having Perry Mason moments — they write, a lot, and do a lot of analytic work. Most scientist PIs don’t spend much time with beakers mixing stuff together, but instead spend a lot of time writing, planning, analyzing, and presenting. Many surgeons do the same operation over and over again, and don’t get much time with patients. Radiologists don’t have to see people very much.
As your daughter seems to have already considered, sometimes the connection: you like animals –> vet, can be the wrong one of the the interests the child actually has. My daughter says she wants to be a “presidential historian” but right now, that means she enjoys learning about history. I don’t know how much she (or I) know about what a historian actually does.
LikeLike
For example, many lawyers don’t spend their time in court having Perry Mason moments…
My mom used to tease dad by asking how come he never won all of his cases like Perry Mason. Dad wasn’t so impressed with Mason, figuring that winning all of your cases isn’t that hard when your clients are actually innocent.
LikeLike
Zoos (and Animal Planet) are both about communicating and non-director type jobs at those places are often given to people who have communication talent and training.
Oh, cool! She’s clocking time ’till the day she can be a Junior Zookeeper and docent. Good to know that will help!
LikeLike
“Oh, cool! She’s clocking time ’till the day she can be a Junior Zookeeper and docent. Good to know that will help!”
That’s really great. I think colleges will eat that stuff up with a spoon. My feeling is that they want to see a smart person with passionate interests, rather than a joyless ticket-puncher (although you can simulate passion with enough joyless ticket-punching.
LikeLike