Mean Girl Syndrome

I think God had a plan when he blessed me with little boys.

Sure, little boys are rough and tumble and they are not at all interested in wearing any of their clothes the way that I had envisioned. (Apparently, the layered look on GAP Kids mannequins is not what boys want to look like at six and nine years old.)  They are also not into girly things - and rightly so. 

(However, you must know that both Owen and Miles can drink a mean cup of Emperor's Bride tea and are quite at home in The Tea Room - this came natural, I mean, hello!)

But the coolest thing about little boys is that they do not hang in vicious packs, whispering about other little boys the way that girls do.  

In case you haven't been on a school playground in the last several years, the girls out there are systematically sizing each other up (and sizing the adults up too) - even as kindergarteners. I have made my way into a few of their circles, being Miles' Mom and all, but some of these girls are just plain mean. I remember girls from middle school, but I had no idea that it started this early.  No wonder they are so adept at it when they become grown women!

Sadly, I have to report, even after middle school and high school - the mean girls are still out there.  They are on the soccer fields, the McDonald's Germ Playlands, and they are in corporate America too.  They are still sizing each other up - and whispering to each other.  Sometimes when they whisper to me, I am not brave enough to shut it down.  That part is sad, and I am definitely trying to improve upon this flaw.

I think that if we, as women, dared to revel in each other not for our sameness, but instead compliment and FEED our differences - we could do, make, create and solve HUGE things together.  Who wants a million female robots marching around dressing, talking and acting the same?  If we all wore red heels (or fantastical cheetah ones for that matter) they wouldn't be so great anymore, would they?  Those of us who stand out now, would blend in if we were all the same.  Sameness sucks.  Being different is KING (or QUEEN) as in this case. 

Maybe together we can stomp out Mean Girl syndrome.

Get out of the shallow end of the pool where the kindergartners are.  And stop staring at everyone else's bathing suit - it doesn't matter which of us has on a great J. Crew bikini and who swims in a tshirt and shorts.   Lately, I am hanging with the tshirt and shorts girl - because she is more real on the inside anyway.  Because to me, it's the inside of a person that matters.  The outside is just a shell.  And if you only have the outside ... well, what does that say about your inside?