“Oh my God, so you’ll never guess what I saw in physics class today!” Annie squealed while slumping down into my menopause purple Honda. I am a nanny (aka replacement parent) and Annie is my 14-year-old charge. At first this comment inspired excitement for me, the girl I spend my days watching and mentoring was showing a passion for physics! Maybe I was doing something right after all. Silly me.
“What happened?” I asked with a fake gasp.
“Well Kensie Larson sits next to me in that class and I looked over cause she had like a funny look on her face. Jake Strachota’s desk was like super close to her and his hand was totally up her skirt! She was wearing that Target dress I tried on but didn’t like, you know the red one? I thought it was kind of slutty but I mean, it’s Kensie Larson. She wasn’t even wearing tights with it! I mean I know it’s nice out today, but still it’s like 40 degrees outside, put on some leggings. Anyway, he was totally fingering her in physics class!”
“Oh my God! WHERE WAS YOUR TEACHER?!” That time I squealed.
“He was upfront doing something, I don’t know I wasn’t really paying attention.” Of course she wasn’t.
“Wow.” I was at a loss for anything else to say. The topic failed to retain Annie’s attention and she moved on to the rest of her day but I remained in a vicious state of shock for the rest of the drive home.
Maybe I’m a prude but, at 22, public space is a place that my boyfriends have not yet been granted any kind of access. Is it really kids these days or is it the multitude of other sins we try to blame? Is it instead advertising and saucy television that is leading our children to the forbidden fruit? Or is it simply horses being led to the evolutionary water of a new generation? We know that young adults are engaging in sexual activity earlier than their parents did and the same was true when their parents were adolescents. But where do we draw the line? Each generation is more liberal than the last. That fact is hardly news-worthy. Yet it begs the question, has it gone too far? My admittedly ambiguous moral compass tells me that Kensie Larson’s little adventure falls into the ‘wrong move’ category but I can’t help feeling like a cultural relic. I am confident in my opinion and at the same time very aware that all of a sudden, amidst a sea of 14-year-old girls, I am the old lady in the room.
Thankfully, Annie has not yet shown an interest in dating. She likes a couple boys at school but hockey remains as her main priority. She continues to accept my sage advise…for now. This stage will not last forever, so for now I am making the absolute most of it, desperately hoping that her moral compass will point a little more due North than Kensie Larson's.
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