Monday, March 30, 2020

"Mom what was the 90s like?"

My daughter Cheyenne is seventeen years old, a senior in high school who is supposed to be graduating this year but sadly with this Covid-19 virus it may not happen. We had a conversation about my life as a teenager back in the 90s compared to her here in the 2000s. I told her life back then was definitely easier. Definitely not as chaotic. This was long before the internet hit homes and pagers were a thing. Granted I never had one. My family wasn't rich. My parents had six kids in a big old farmhouse and whatever clothes we had came from thrift stores and we didn't care. I remember helping my mom lug bags of clothes to the laundromat. Going to neighborhood yard sales with my mom and aunt Nancy. I remember going with my mom to the fruit and meat markets in Detroit when I was a kid. Getting cheeseburgers under $1 and fast food in our house was a luxury because as kids we got it maybe once or twice a month. It wasn't often.

Both of my parents worked and missed out on school functions. My parents never went to any of my band concerts. But I know they were trying their best to provide. We didn't have all the shiny fancy gadgets they have now either. My time when I was her age was spent with friends walking around the mall, major magics, movie theater and even the skating rink. Cheyenne and I laughed about our differences because my kid doesn't want to even hang out with her friends. The thing is a lot of my time spent with my friends was therapeutic for me. It got me away. I told Cheyenne that my life than was different from hers mostly because she has a parent at home. She doesn't know what its like to come home in the afternoons to a empty house. She has the luxury of having both parents at home as my dad spent a lot of time out of the country or state. He was national guard. My parents did what they had to do to make sure we had food, clothing and a roof above our heads.

I told her back in the day that I was a tomboy. I wore flannels with tank tops, baggy jeans and tennis shoes. I didn't wear makeup. I didn't keep up with the latest fashion and I was a gamer. Cheyenne laughed because I still have a flannel I wore back then in a closet. In fact she has some of my clothes she wears now. If the show "What Not To Wear" was still on they would look at my closed and say YIKES.

Although I will say that even now I don't know anything about designers. Unlike my kid. Her favorite store is Rue 21. Where they sell "half shirts" for less than $20. Yes I call halter tops "half shirts" and it irks my kid. Parents are meant to irk their kids. I told her back in the 90s that tv and music was a whole different kind of ball game, Rap music was actually good back then. Music in general was far superior than as to music now. We talked about how now kids definitely have more technology. I didn't get a cell phone until 2004 and it was a flip phone. I hated texting on it because you had to tap the same number multiple times to get a letter. Honestly though even with a touchscreen I still hate texting. I told her that the way I communicated with my friends back in the day was with notes we would pass onto each other in school. I used to love that form of communication so much that even 20 years later I still have the notes from my friends. I kept them. I showed them to her. She and her friends have no idea how much fun it was to pass them on because now all they do is text. I told her that even though there are differences from when I was 17 and she is 17, that she should cherish these years as best as she can because once you hit adulthood the game changes. Life gets harder. But I told her I have faith shes gonna be fine. But it was nice talking to her about my teenage years. Even stories I haven't shared here.

If you have a teenager willing to talk to you sit down and take the time to talk. Give them that moment cause I love that my daughter loves to talk to me about everything. Not many parents are lucky.

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