Secret Girls' Stuff (5 page)
Read Secret Girls' Stuff Online
Authors: Margaret Clark
As you can see by reading this email, Jack wasn’t the kindest or most helpful person to be sharing this secret with. Sheridan would done been better to approach the English teacher and discuss her feelings of inadequacy, and also to tell Rachel that her braininess was causing this jealous feeling, and together they could work it out.
When one friend is brainer than the other person, or is better looking than the other, or has a more out-going personality than the other, it’s important to realise that often the brainy/better-looking/out-going person is anxious deep down inside about only being liked for high achievement
or looks or personality. The person might never tell you this. It’s their secret. And so, you see, we never know how people feel, even our best friends.
Dear Diary
,
I hate being brainy. Like, boys don’t want to know a girl who wears glasses, braces on her teeth and who is brainy. I try to act dumb round boys. But I like to get top marks. I usually giggle and talk in science and Mr Thomson thinks I’m an idiot. A week after we’d done our science exam we were all in the science room waiting for him to read out our results and he goes, ‘Two people have got equal top marks. David Wise … and Margaret Heard. Could you please come out the front?’ And when I stood up, cos he didn’t even know who I was till then except the giggling Gertie up the back, he looked stunned. And shocked. And all these boys kind of gave this groan and someone sniggered. It was awful
.
I’d rather be dumb. And I can’t tell anyone,
even Ally and Jan and Yvonne because they’re in Commercial and I’m in Professional (which is supposed to be brainy) and part of me wants to be in Commercial with my friends. Ally usually fails even though she’s quite clever because she freezes during exams, she goes brain dead
.
When I went to school the clever top ten per cent were put in the ‘professional’ stream which meant they did Latin, Maths 1, algebra and science, and the ‘commercial’ stream did typing, shorthand, maths 2 (which we called vegie maths) and business practices instead.
But sometimes true friendships go through big traumas because one person has to move to another town or city. Here’s part of an email from Annabel age fifteen:
>From: Annabel
>To: Margaret
>Date:
‘Will you join in our crusade, who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see.’
Sorry, my dag of a music teacher was forcing us to sing the theme song from Les Mis, not that I have anything against Les Mis, it’s now on my brain, and just hearing her sing the high notes was a major turn-off. Her name is Miss Romanos and she is a 200 year old moth who hibernates during lunch breaks and who is in love with our 800 year old science teacher Mr Wilson. ERK.
Today I realised that most of my class have best friends who are so close to each other, they know every detail about each other’s lives and they wouldn’t dare put down or insult their best buddy.
How will I get another close friend like Sharni in this hole of a school? We were sooo close. Sharni’s had to move to another city and even though we phone every night, I feel like part of me is dead. We were never separated. We were in the same classes at school. We did everything together. I trusted her with everything.
Tania’s trying to be my friend now. She’s okay I guess. But I don’t want to have someone like Tania to laugh at things together like a coupla
horses, she’s a bit shallow. I don’t think I could trust her. I want someone I can really trust. I think one of the major things in a best friendship is trust. I will always be Sharni’s best friend even though she’s not here any more. Tania might put me down. She’s good at that. She’s very critical. All the other girls have got special friends. And there’s me. On my own. Without Sharni. What will I do? Will I take up with Tania just to have someone?
I think one of the most devastating things that can happen when you’re a teenager is for your best friend to move away to live somewhere else, or for
you
to move away.
Luckily, I lived in Geelong all my life except when I went to teachers college in Melbourne, and I only went to one primary school and one secondary school. So I’m no expert on what it’s like to lose a friend to the tyranny of distance.
Dear Diary
,
Fay and I were in school and this bald bloke in a pin-striped suit came in from the
Education Department and talked to all the Professional kids. He said anyone who wants to be a teacher could put up their hands, so Fay and I did. He gave us forms to take home. If we get chosen we have to live in Melbourne next year and we’ll only be sixteen and a half cos they’re desperate for primary teachers, but at least there’ll be the two of us. No Ally or Jan or Yvonne but Fay’s okay, she’s in my little group
.
I get letters and emails from teenagers who’ve moved schools four or five times, even more. Parents seem to shift around in different jobs from state to state and marriages and partnerships seem to break up more than they did when I was growing up.
But sometimes friendships can be one-sided, and maybe it’s a good thing that this next school friendship
did
break up, although it’s sad for sixteen-year-old Victoria to feel this way. Victoria wrote in her letter:
The only trust that Rebecca had in me was that I would always be her friend no
matter what she did to me, no matter how she spoke to me. That was one of the worst things. She basically had no respect for me. And all the times she insulted me or put me down in school I just tried to ignore it and pushed it aside, not thinking it was such a major issue and someday she’d stop criticising me. But for the past year I’ve been thinking that never to say it out loud to her, just silently swallowing her insults, was bad for me and bad for our friendship. So I was telling her she made me feel like shit, and she said it was my own fault, and she was only bagging me and criticising me for my own good. Then she dumped me and won’t even bother to talk to me. And suddenly I’ve just realised that she didn’t really care for me at all as a friend. All that time, years, just gone. And I feel like a big, enormous, huge, massive, gigantic lump of nothing
.
So here I am, a girl you don’t even know, crapping on about her social problems that Grade One kids have. I guess I’ve never
graduated from Grade One friendship. Which brings me back to – nothing
.
Victoria deserved a more worthy friend. I wrote to her for a while and listened to her stories, and then she stopped writing. One of her letters came back marked ‘address unknown’ so maybe she moved to another town. I hope something terrible didn’t happen to her. I’d like to think she’s moved and found some new friends who are really nice. The thing about school is that you can think you know someone really well and yet you don’t. I often get sent poetry by young people, and one girl called Rachael sent me a collection of her poems. I am sharing this particular poem called ‘Today I’m Tasha’ because I think it explains a lot about school, personality and feelings.
Today I’m Tasha
She’s noticed today.
With an air of grace about her.
This display
is not like her.
I know this,
because she’s me.
It’s a perfect day
and that means
that
today I’m Tasha.
Tasha is elegant
adopting the speech
of English old.
She approves not
of isolation
and fragmentation.
She makes
my mind think clearly,
work properly.
I wish I could
be Tasha
everyday.
She’s perfect.
It’s not always like that.
Anger is Ellie,
ready to grudge
or kill
at the slightest provocation.
Fear is Rachel.
Hiding,
trying to be
invisible.
The usual front, a mask of hate
and
necessary lies.
Academic achievement is Emma,
never used,
still in the box,
traded for something
more interesting,
perhaps.
Not sure.
Haven’t checked.
Confidence is Victoria.
Seldom heard,
whispering quietly,
the answers that
could be right.
Never sought out.
I can just remember
only just
when I was none of these.
Just one person.
Calm and undivided.
From one day
to the next
I’m never sure
who will be ‘I’
for the day.
But it doesn’t matter.
I’m thankful now.
Because
today I’m Tasha.
(Written by Rachael M)
I guess the most important thing to remember about going to school is that rules are meant to make life easier for the general school population (even though in some schools the whole place is regimented so that the people there are easier to control). School is, in a way, a comfort zone for most students because there are rules.
Events happen at specific times and in an orderly fashion. Sometimes we need that organised, timetabled way of life so that we feel secure and safe. My granny always said, ‘There’s safety in numbers’. It’s good to have lots of people round you, with different backgrounds and beliefs.
It’s good to spend time with people around your own age. It’s a herding instinct thing too.
School is actually an institution. Some schools require that the students wear uniforms. Lots of students try to be individual in their uniform by doing something to mangle their uniform, or bend
the rules a bit:
Dear Diary
,
Mum bought me a new school beret. I hate it. The first thing I did was to chuck it in a puddle then I jumped on it and then pulled it into a sort of pudding-basin shape. We all push our socks down round our ankles and tear holes in the sleeves of our jumpers near our wrists so we can pull our hands through. And of course we hitch our sports tunics up as high as we can. Ms Brown measures them with a ruler. When you’re kneeling the sports tunic must be no shorter than six inches off the ground from knee to hem when she measures it. And in the regular tunic, I always let my petticoat hang a bit below, which drives her into a frenzy
.
Despite the rules and the uniformity of school, always remember there is only one you with individual fingerprints, individual DNA, and individual needs, thoughts and feelings. No one
can ever replace you.
Years ago, someone wrote a poem on a church wall. It’s called ‘Desiderata’. No one knows who wrote it. And in part of it there’s a line that says, ‘You are a child of the universe,’ and that to me means that everyone is unique and special. At home, out and about. And in school.
Family
Families can be fantastic. Families can be hell. Most people have families.
Some families are close and never fight, like the Brady Bunch. They’re almost too good to be true, but it would be nice to live in a family like that. Maybe you do. Maybe you get on very well with your parents, your sisters, your brothers, your grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and you’re one big happy family. But judging by all the letters and emails I get, lots of you are having hassles with family members, especially during this thing called puberty.
You see, in the cavemen days you would have been having hordes of babies from the age of twelve. Nature says, ‘You’re a woman.’
But our society says, ‘You’re still a kid. You have to live with your family till you leave school.’ If you go to uni and do a first degree and then a Masters degree this could mean you’re twenty-five or more before you can leave home and support yourself. So you might be in a situation where you are an adult living in the family home and still being treated like a kid, because to your parents you are still a kid. And this is where a lot of the arguments start.
You want to go out. You want to stay over with friends. You want to have a boyfriend. You want to sleep with him. You want to buy your own clothes, make-up, jewellery, CDs, but you haven’t got any money, unless you can get a part-time job. So you’re financially and emotionally still, ‘Tied to your mother’s apron strings,’ as my granny always said. Actually, when you look at it from a social point of view, it’s quite an unhealthy situation to be still living at home at age thirty!
Dear Diary
,
I asked Mum if I could go camping at Kennet River with my friends. Dad could bring down the tent in the trailer. She said yes. I was so rapt
.
Then when I told Faith, Helen, Dana, Ally and Jan they said their parents wouldn’t let them do it because we are only fifteen and we’d get raped, murdered and pillaged. I was actually amazed that Mum had said yes. But then when I told her the camping was off, because the others weren’t allowed to go, she said, ‘What are you talking about?’ and I said, ‘You said, I could put up a tent at Kennet River with my girlfriends,’ and she said, ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid, Margaret. I was only joking!’
Families have different rules. I wasn’t allowed out on an official date with a boy till I was sixteen and neither were my friends. But we were stuffing around behind our parents’ backs going to the
pictures (movies) and meeting boys at Eastern Beach and at the youth club dances.
Dear Diary
,
Today I was sixteen. Dad and Mum gave me five pounds, a nightie, slippers and a book. Granny gave me some soap and talcum powder. Aunty Claire sent me a necklace. Ally gave me a silver horseshoe charm for my bracelet. Yvonne gave me one of those white pencils you do your nails with. Jan gave me a record, Elvis singing ‘Little Sister’, only I haven’t got a record player so I have to play it at her place
.
And I went on my first official date. With Alphonso Giruatis
.
He’s a sort. He was going with Marion B but he’s dropped her. We went to see Geelong play St Kilda at Kardinia Park and we kept bumping into my dad. It was so embarrassing!
From then on I was allowed to go to the dances.
There was no alcohol at dances. Girls didn’t go to pubs. There were no nightclubs, only The Embers in Melbourne (which I think got burnt down — bad choice of name, eh). Ally was already sixteen and so were Jan, Yvonne, Minnie, Flora and Susan. But Barbara wasn’t. Her parents were very strict. She wasn’t allowed out and that was that!
Dear Diary
,
Last night Barbara wanted to come to the dance but she wasn’t allowed by her father. So we lent her some fab clothes, Ally’s black pencil skirt, (so tight she could hardly walk,) Jan’s stiletto shoes, my tight pink fuzzy wuzzy angora jumper and Yvonne’s hair spray so she could do her beehive. She climbed out her bedroom window and came to the dance. But her father found that she was missing and he came to the dance, marched onto the floor and dragged her out in front of everyone. It was shocking! I’ll never forget the look on her face!
But parents can be the opposite. Too easy. That’s nearly as bad as parents who are too strict! I remember talking to a girl, Sonia, age fifteen when she came to see me at the Alcohol and Drug Centre. The conversation went like this:
‘Mum was going away for the night with her boyfriend. She said, “Stay here in the house, and don’t go messing it up, Sonia, or I’ll brain you. I’ve just cleaned it.”
So then, like, these two other girls came round, Sally and Lisa, see, and they brought these boys and they had two slabs, you know, and three bottles of bourbon. So we drank it all and then the boys spewed and then we spewed and then we flaked out on the carpet and then Mum came back at 3am because she had a fight with Joey and she goes, “Wait till tomorrow. You just wait!”’
I said, ‘What happened then?’
Sonia grinned at me. ‘Nuthin’. She didn’t do nuthin’. As usual.’
I said, ‘So how do you feel about it?’
And she went, ‘Dunno. Yeah, I do. Pissed off. She couldn’t care less what I do.’
This was not good parenting. When Sonia
disobeyed the rules there should have be consequences, otherwise she would never learn to take responsibility for her actions. Which she didn’t. She ended up doing a RWV (robbery with violence) with two of the guys and going to a youth detention centre for twelve months.
When I worked in the Alcohol and Drug Centre I discovered that there were a couple of teenagers who acted like total ferals but who seemed to have very nice parents. They thought they were cool, but they were serious nuff. Most of the teenagers weren’t really bad. Not many at all. Even the wildest, toughest street kids had good qualities when you sat down and talked with them.
But there were some
real
crappy parents! You see, sometimes the adults have so many problems of their own that they can’t be bothered controlling their children or giving them rules or following through when the kids mess up. Some are going through messy breakups and divorces. Some parents are ill. Some are working three jobs to try and earn enough money to live decently and repay debts.
Because of where I worked I met a lot of parents
who were alcoholics or on drugs. Sometimes they were so out of it they didn’t know what was going on with their children and teenagers. I even wrote a book called
Onya Sonya
based on my observations of a twelve-year-old girl whose mother was a heroin addict and a prostitute. That girl was actually forced into the role of mother! I would hear her reminding her mum that they needed to buy food, pay bills, buy new school shoes, etc. I thought she was an amazing girl!
Sometimes teenagers are spoilt rotten and they grow up thinking the world owes them something. It’s not their fault that they think like this: they’ve been given their own way too much and often given too much money. These teenagers are often very unhappy.
The main thing to remember about parents is that usually they are trying to do the best they can
at the time
.
It also seems to depend on whether you are the first-born child, the middle child or the last-born child, too. Often the oldest child is more strictly supervised re curfews and dating and is also given responsibility for looking after the others. The
middle ones might feel that as they are in the middle they may not be so important. The youngest one is sometimes spoilt by everyone else and “babied” so he or she can feel resentful.
The middle and youngest ones are often given more freedom earlier
if
the oldest one hasn’t messed up. If the oldest one
has
messed up, the parents might be fearful that the middle and youngest will do the same thing and be even stricter.
Another problem is the thing called sibling rivalry.
No two children are ever the same in behaviour because they are
different
. They are good at different things, they have different talents, different temperaments and different personalities.
We become what we’re told we are. Did you know that? If you’re told you’re clumsy, you will be. If you’re told you’re pretty, you’ll think you
are
pretty. If you’re told you’re ugly, you’ll think you’re ugly even if you
are
pretty.
Some parents might put you down to, ‘Keep you in your place,’ as my granny always said. They are trying to stop you from being conceited because you’re not supposed to get up yourself. They seem
convinced that this topsy-turvy sort of thinking will make you try harder!
This is an extract from a letter sent by Clare, age thirteen:
Mum is always telling me I’m useless at doing things and I’ve lost my confidence. When I try to sew she tells me it looks like a pig’s walked through it. When I cook something Dad tells me it tastes like shit and when am I going to learn to cook. They both say my homework’s a disgrace. My younger sister is a real brain. She gets A’s for everything
.
It’s real embarrassing having a younger sister who’s brainier than me
.
Sometimes I feel like I hate my family
.
Some parents give lots of praise but when you get out into the real world you find out you’re not as good as you thought you were, so you have to try harder.
Here’s part of an email from Erin, age thirteen:
>From: Erin
>To: Margaret
>Date:
i’ve just started going to a private girls’ school and i was top in my class in grade six in primary school and now i’m in year seven at this school i’m just one of a hundred and twenty girls and mum and dad think i’m really cute and clever and so does nana and i feel dumb and stupid here. There’s heaps of girls more brainy and good looking than me.
Then there’s the problem of being a twin.
An email from Susie age fourteen:
>From: Susie
>To: Margaret
>Date:
My parents think I can do no wrong. I’m a twin. My sister Sally is always in trouble with them and sometimes I feel sorry for her, but she does these dumb things, like running away from home and sleeping under a railway bridge, and sneaking out with boys, and jigging school. I don’t want to do these things but I’m not an angel either. I’m starting to feel that I HAVE to be good all the time to make up for Sally!
So you can see that in families the problem is
sometimes sisters and brothers and your relationship with them. The best thing you can do is not to compete for attention and build on what you are good at doing.
Most parents want their kids to succeed. This means different things in different families. Some parents want their children to be rocket scientists and brain surgeons and prime ministers but the reality is that most kids won’t be these things. They may not have the talent or the interest. Success in some families might mean being groomed to take over the family business one day. You might love that idea or you might hate it.
I’ll let you into a secret. It’s simple. You are good at what you like doing! In other words, people tend to be good at what they enjoy. Think about it. If you love reading, you’ll be good at it.