The worries we have as parents are tightly tethered to childhood experiences that shook us. Growing up in the latchkey days of the 1980s and '90s, without cellphones or supervision, it was the wild-wild west of adolescence. We explored our neighborhoods and navigated our development with nothing but a bicycle and a best friend.
In some ways, it was an incredibly free way to live. But when you compound those freedoms with pop culture influences that objectified girls and women, our childhood was fraught with indiscretions. No one talked about it, much less prepared us for it. Our favorite movies implied sexual assault was supposed to be funny. I'm looking at you, "Revenge of the Nerds," "Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club." Meanwhile, teen beauty magazines and product marketing reinforced the notion that our worth was rooted in what our bodies could offer the men in our orbits.
Perhaps this is why Melissa Fraterrigo's new book "The Perils of Girlhood: A Memoir in Essays" resonates with me so deeply. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy and get the chance to chat with Melissa a few days before the book's Sept. 1 release.
My favorite passage is from the essay "Barbie Style Head" where Melissa dissects the role cosmetics played in her life. She writes: "The truth is that I feel most beautiful when my face is not part of the equation. I'm prettiest when I'm paddling the Minnesota's Boundary Waters, running trails near our house, or driving close to the end of an essay. So maybe it isn't that makeup exists, but that I feel a need to wear it."
Fifty-year-old me feels so seen when I read this.
The details of Melissa's experiences may be different from mine, but the emotions she navigates on the page are so very familiar and I see myself in them — right down to that first girlhood crush on an older boy. Hers was a swim coach; mine was a lifeguard. Both ended with encounters that left us scared, confused and unsure how to process what happened. Neither of us told anyone.
Also like Melissa, the friendships I had in middle school stuck. These women navigated all of the uncertainties of my teenage years with me. Our paths after high school led separate ways only to return again and again as adults, anchored in lifelong solidarity. I saw my best friends in Melissa's stories of her friend Emily.
"Because our parents weren't having conversations with us," Melissa told me, "Our friendships were everything. And so those are the people that you're going to carry with you your whole life."
I want my kids to experience those close friendships, but I also want them to know that I am here for them. I don't want to leave them floundering without resources. I'm not delusional enough to think that my kids will tell me the same details they disclose to their friends, but I've done my best to build that emotional equity. I do not shy away from hard conversations. I answer their questions honestly (even if it means I pour a glass of wine for myself first.)
There is no shade thrown on parents in this book. Our parents did the best they could with the tools available to them, and Melissa gives hers grace. "I don't hold my parents to task for not knowing about what happened with my swim coach," she said. Our experiences make us who we are. That's not to excuse inappropriate behavior, but Melissa stresses that "our traumas, our hardships, the things that we work through, also change us in a good way." No one gets out of life unscathed.
Every single one of us are whole human beings. No single person is a caricature villain. To have compassion for the people who could have done better by us takes a lot of introspection and maturity. It also makes for a lot of worry as a parent. We know we will make mistakes, and we have to hold some of that same grace for ourselves too. We may try not to make the same mistakes our parents did, but in the process, we will make brand-new ones we never even thought of.
"The Perils of Girlhood" is a must-read for women or anyone who loves women. Melissa wants her book to generate conversation that "allows people to consider the stories that they're holding on to and how they might share them with other people, so that it helps somebody else." As Melissa grappled with her adolescence on the page in the context of Gen X pop culture and reflected on them as a mother, I saw my experiences in a whole new light, blanketed in kinship.
On Nov. 20, Melissa is leading an online writing workshop called "I'm Just a Girl: Writing Girlhood" with the Lafayette Writers Studio. If you're interested in exploring your own girlhood on the page with Melissa, you can register at www.lafayettewritersstudio.com/classes/girlhood.
If you have any interest in writing about your own life, Melissa hopes you'll do it, with or without her workshop. "You just never know what's going to come out of that experience," she said, "and it really does make you a better person."
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