I, like most of you I assume, cluck on and on about how kids are growing up too quickly these days, comparing our generation with theirs, and tsk-tsking on how things change. The other day, I was mulling this over, and reminded myself of the time I was my daughter’s age, almost 11. Almost 11, huh? Well, now….that was when my parents were tranfered to Dubai. I was…almost 11. Hmmm…and by then, I had already had one boy from my school bike down to my apartment (‘flat’ as we call them in good old desh), and shout out my name till my father had to appear like a thunder cloud on our 2nd floor balcony and chase him away. Almost 11? By that time I had another boy in my class ask my best friend whether she would go on a date with him. When she said ‘maybe’, he promptly asked me whether he could recruit another boy and have me go along as a double date. Wow. Now none of this is really shocking, but what occured to me, loud and clear, was that my daughter is nowhere NEAR any of this. And she’s a Hannah Montana/Suite Life/ Wizards of Waverly Place watching kid, who probably understands tv teenage life way better than I did when I was 11, but there’s no one even in her group of pals who’s even considered the idea of a date, let alone being followed by an admirer, or even approached by one!! And there we were, 30 years ago, being ‘pursued’, at the same age! Can anyone explain this dichotomy to me?
