Now granted, not every thirteen- year- old lives in New York City, where you can pick up the latest fashion trends just by standing on a street corner for fifteen minutes and watching trendy people go by. (Of course, this does not explain why these trends are invisible to me, but irresistible to Taz.)
But chances are, even if you live in a small town or a leafy suburb in some other part of the country, your kid is still way trendier than you will ever be. That's because starting at around age thirteen, kids become part of something I have come to regard as the Global Youth Style Conspiracy.
No one has to tell members of the GYSC what the styles are. They just know. Why do bare- legged girls wear boots in the summer? Why do boys wear hats indoors and short sleeves in winter? You can't know the answers to those questions if you are a parent, because parents are not part of the GYSC.
But I have concluded that the slightest differences in logos, necklines, and waistbands are part of an intricate GYSC code, a way that kids send signals to each other. These signals mark them as members of various tribes— nerds, jocks, thugs, preppies, slackers, freaks. And while the differences in style may seem small— sometimes even undetectable— to you, to members of the GYSC, those subtle tribal markings are as strict as uniforms.
To help me flesh out my theory on the GYSC, I consulted with some friends around the country on what their teens were wearing. An acquaintance in North Carolina asked his daughter Miana and her friend Katie what's popular with, as he put it, “their ilk,” and a few moments later he forwarded me this e- mail: “Daddy, why are my friends ‘ilk’? My friends aren't ilk, they're freaks. We wear tanks, Rainbows, camis, jean shorts, Bermudas, Hollister is big, label stores mostly, skater shoes (i.e. Vans, etnies, things like that), ripped things (shorts, jeans, khakis), messy buns for hair, side bangs as well, hair bands around the wrist; for safe keeping ya know, and that's pretty much it. We layer, it's all the rage. We also wear a lot of hoodies and zip- ups. Ta da, your window into teenage girl- dom/fashion. Don't forget the short, preppy mini skirts that the sluts wear. Yeah, I said sluts. Ha. Don't tell Mommy.”
It took me about a half hour, using my trusty translator Google, to decipher her message. And in case you're as out of it as I am, allow me to enlighten you: Rainbows are flip- flops; Hollister is a brand that sells rather normal- looking clothes like T- shirts and jeans (even though all of the clothing pictured on its website is inexplicably scrunched up and wrinkled, as if it had been left in the dryer too long), and skater shoes are sneakers for skateboarders, with thick rubber soles, air pockets in the heel, and occasional wild print designs.
On to the next glimpse of adolescent cool. “My boy likes to dress like a stoner,” a friend in a New England college town e- mailed me, “but with oversized pants (he likes these made of hemp) and boxers showing. The T- shirts are all of our old friends, the Dead, Jimi Hen-drix, Bob Marley, The Who, etc. The hair is long or shaved all the way off, the sneakers are huge and not tied. No visible socks. A Hacky Sack or skateboard is usually attached in some way.”
Not sure what a Hacky Sack is? Me neither. Again, I had to look that one up on Google. I think the easiest way to explain it is to compare it to the beanbags I used to play with as a kid. My mother used to sew them by the dozen with leftover scraps of fabric, and, yes, she actually filled them with dried beans or seeds. (I suppose that sounds like something out of Little House on the Prairie, but actually it happened in the 1960s in New York.)
Well, now they sell little beanbaggy thingies for about $13 (I guess no one's mother sews toys from scraps of fabric anymore) and they are called Hacky Sacks. (I guess it wouldn't be cool to call them beanbags.) The biggest difference is, you don't catch or throw them with your hands; you kick them and do all kinds of other fancy footwork to keep them aloft. The game is actually called “footbag” and sometimes kids stand around in a circle playing it.
Next I called on a friend in Spokane, Washington, who has three boys, to get his take on local styles. He said the oldest has “long cultivated a type of gangsta look, with the sideways fitted baseball cap, wild pattern T- shirts, really baggy shorts and pants and the tops of his boxer shorts showing.” Sound familiar?
His middle son wears a lot of Nike- label clothes, listens to hip- hop stations, and talks like a rapper. The youngest of the guys is into “basketball and football jerseys with baggy mesh shorts that have lots of holes and are three sizes too big.”
I'm considering asking this family if they'd care to adopt a fourth son, because clearly Taz could move to Spokane tomorrow and fit right in.
But the one thing I don't quite get about all these modes of adolescent fashion is that the clothes don't necessarily correlate with who you are. The jock look, I've noticed, is big even among kids who haven't been on a team since they were forced to take sides in second- grade dodgeball (before schools banned dodge-ball because it was too dangerous).
And surfer-dude style—floral-print shirts, baggy shorts and flip- flops— isn't just for guys at Malibu. I've seen kids waiting for the subway dressed this way, with no surfboard in sight.
The hip- hop set, meanwhile, has been gravitating toward the prep- school look— polo shirts with collars and three buttons. The only difference is, the polo shirt that used to come in sedate solid colors now comes with wild stripes of pink and gold. I know this for a fact because, of course, Taz has just such a shirt.
The look I find most puzzling of all consists of plaid Bermuda shorts and a white undershirt with slip- on canvas shoes. Yes, a really trendy kid these days looks like your father did twenty- five years ago the day you wanted to kill yourself because the neighbors saw him dressed like that to mow the lawn.
But the GYSC is not just about clothes. It's a whole culture, a frame of reference that assures any two kids from anywhere have more in common with each other than your own kid has with you.
Not long ago we hosted a visiting student from Colombia who was Taz's age. We brushed up on our Holas, but that turned out be unnecessary. Our guest, Sebastian, spoke perfect English. Not only that, but he pretty much got off the plane from Medellín, came to our house, sat down in the living room, and started playing Halo. You would have thought he lived on the block instead of on another continent.
I had set the clock radio in the room where he was sleeping to the local Spanish music station, but after a day, he politely asked if he could change it. “I don't really like Latin music,” he explained. Just like Taz, he liked hip-hop and pop.
I offered to take him to the museum of his choice, a Broadway show, or any other New York landmark he wanted to see. But all he wanted to do was go to Times Square. He was in New York for six days, and managed to get to Times Square on three of them. While he was there, he bought a skateboard in what he claimed— and Taz confirmed— was a famous skateboard store. I, of course, had no idea there even was such a thing as a famous skateboard store. How does a kid from South America know about a skateboard store in Times Square and I, a lifelong New Yorker, do not? You guessed it: GYSC.
Even in the small rural town where we vacation up in Maine, I've found evidence of the GYSC. One day, for example, I heard Taz and another kid singing a song as they paddled a little boat in our pond. How nice, I thought, what a great bonding experience. Two buddies, enjoying the great outdoors on a beautiful summer day, singing at the top of their lungs.
The song came wafting to me in bits and echoes from across the water. The two of them were pumping their fists in the air and cracking up as they chanted the words together. But what exactly were they singing? I cocked my head and took a few steps toward the shore to see if I could pick it up. I could barely make it out, but I heard something about “gin and juice.”
When they got back to shore, I asked them what they were singing. They snorted their laughter and mumbled, “Nothing, nothing.” I filed the tidbit away. Later, when I was back home in New York and sitting at a computer, the incident popped into my mind again, and I decided to consult my dearest f
riend and all- knowing helper, Google. I typed in “gin and juice,” and was treated to the lyrics of a Snoop Dogg song:
“Rollin’ down the street, smokin’ indo, sippin’ on gin and juice.”
I had heard of Snoop Dogg, but not indo. Again, I asked Google, and was sent to a link in Urban Dictionary.com, which informed me that indo is a type of marijuana.
Well, isn't that charming? Here I was, thinking these two boys were out there breathing in the fresh air and singing some uplifting youth anthem like, I don't know, “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore,” and come to find out that they'd been reciting the lyrics to a song about booze and drugs.
Another day up in Maine, Taz was wearing a G- Unit T- shirt. Of course, the other kids up there know what G- Unit is, but one of the other parents did not. He innocently looked at the shirt and asked, “Gun it? Why does your shirt say ‘Gun it’?”
I sympathized with his ignorance because I hadn't known what it was, either, until Taz told me. And in case, dear reader, you don't know, allow me to educate you. G- Unit is the name of 50 Cent's brand and record label. And in case you don't know who 50 Cent is, he is a rapper who is famous for having survived being shot nine times. His first name is pronounced “Fiddy.”
If I thought about it for too long, I could get completely hysterical about the fact that my son listens to songs about gin and indo, and that he admires a guy who's been shot nine times.
But I try to put these things in perspective. I may be a Terrible Mother, but I try not to be a hypocrite. I grew up listening to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Let's Spend the Night Together” in an era when rockers died from drug overdoses practically every day. I know from experience that singing a song with degenerate lyrics does not necessarily turn you into a degenerate.
Or at least, so I tell myself. Deep down inside, I fear that it might be so, but I refuse to dwell too long on the possibility, because it would just be too awful.
Besides, although it might seem irrelevant, I also like to remind myself that Fine Upstanding Citizens are hard to come by. Perhaps Fiddy is just as decent a person as anyone who has lately inhabited, say, the White House. Is a rapper who has been shot nine times really any worse than a president lying about weapons of mass destruction, Watergate, or, for that matter, sexual relations with that woman?
So I think I'll just save my outrage for more important issues. Like why, for example, elementary school class picnics are always scheduled for smack in the middle of the day, when I'm at work.
I also try not to be outraged by what I perceive to be the unfair disappearance of the ugly duckling stage of adolescence. (Unfair because I had to suffer through it, so why shouldn't everyone?) It used to be that most kids were downright funny- looking until they were about sixteen. They had braces and pimples and little- kid haircuts, and they were so embarrassed by their height and their bumps and everything else that they slouched in an effort to hide.
But all of that is no more. Now orthodonture starts with nine- year- olds, before the teeth that need correcting have even finished growing in. I suppose there are sound dental theories behind this, but one of the results is that the “metal mouth” stage is already well behind them by the time they hit thirteen.
And maybe I'm imagining this, but it seems to me that most teenagers don't even have pimples anymore. Do they all have personal dermatologists? Are they all getting facials? Or do they just know more about buying acne cream and cleansers than we did?
Not only that, but kids now all seem to have perfect posture. When I was a teenager, our mothers and aunts and grandmas were always yelling at us to stand up straight. But when was the last time you heard someone tell a kid to stand up straight? We slouched and dressed in lumps and layers and sacks of clothes because we didn't want anyone to see how awful we looked. As far as I can tell, teenagers these days have nothing to hide. Instead they are all about “LOOK AT ME!” They want the world to admire them.
And why shouldn't they? They look like movie stars, with fabulous smiles, fabulous clothes, and fabulous hair. Sometimes when I see a group of adolescent girls hanging out somewhere I almost can't stand it. How did they get so perfect looking?
The other morning I saw five or six of them standing around wearing short, flouncy little skirts over capris, sleeveless camisole tops with their bra straps showing, and flat, round- toed slippers. They looked like Degas ballerinas, the Little Dancer of 14 Years come to life.
And their hair, all in ponytails, was shiny, straight, and clean.
But how is that possible? I distinctly remember that when I was thirteen, half the girls had dandruff, and the other half had oil slicks on their scalps. (Ever the iconoclast, I kept changing membership from one group to the other.) So how is it that only weird people have dandruff these days? I can only assume that shampoo has come a long way in thirty years, and teenagers, in particular, use a lot more of it than they used to.
And it's not just the girls who take good care of their hair. Even Taz— whose regular trips to the barber keep his hair at Marine- regulation length— primps his buzz cut to make sure the quarter- inch- long locks are just so. A tube of “Styling Spiking Glue,” whatever that is, and bottles of “Mega Hold Style & Control Gel” and “Extreme Hold Sculpting Freeze Gel” are just a few of the products kept in our bathroom to achieve this look.
Not all kids are into looking clean and perfect, of course. As one father put it, “Half of them are obsessed with shopping for new clothes, but the other half never change their clothes.” The rocker- grunge look still has its adherents, and the uniform for them is as rigid as for anyone else. These are the kids who aspire to become Goth concert roadies, not Victoria's Secret models.
Their clothes are tattered— on purpose, of course— and they are slovenly and unwashed as well. They like leather jackets and black clunky boots, and they appear to have more than their share of tattoos, piercings, and hair dyed in colors normally found on tropical parrots.
I worry about people who pay to have sharp objects inserted through their skin or who shave their heads or chop their hair into asymmetrical patterns. Did they not get enough love when they were little?
I take it personally whenever one of my boys threatens— or even idly suggests— that he might someday want an earring, a tattoo, or a blue streak in his hair. “I don't have pierced ears, why should you?” I say. “Treat your body like a temple, not like Coney Island!”
Taz's response to this peculiar little aphorism of mine is usually “Whatever,” but isn't it obvious what I mean? Don't put garish colors on yourself that look like a run- down amusement park ride! Don't mutilate your flesh like some freak in a sideshow! Don't treat your body like an ocean that people pee in or a beach that they litter with soda cans and cigarette butts!
At least cleanliness is not an issue with Taz. In fact, he's been known to shower multiple times in a day, and incessant changing of clothes has occasionally been a problem.
It's happened any number of times that I'll do the laundry after, say, four days, expecting to find four days’ worth of dirty underwear, socks, and shirts from all four members of our family. But as I'm sorting and folding, making piles of clean clothes on the bed for each of us, I'll notice that there are eight or nine pairs of pants for Taz, and as many as a dozen shirts. He has apparently been changing clothes three times a day, or perhaps he's changed into evening wear upon his arrival home from school.
Unfortunately, I sometimes have the opposite problem with Sport. For the preadolescent in the household, the pile of laundry is often troublingly small. There might be one or two pairs of socks in there for the entire week, along with a shirt and pants so filthy that they need to go through the wash again. But he'll be thirteen soon enough, and I don't see him going grunge. Sport already has a taste for boxers and fancy sneakers, so changing clothes three times a day shouldn't be far behind.
I just hope that Taz, when he grows up, isn't stuck in the fashion of his youth. I mean, if Jordans instan
tly mark you as old- fashioned in the year 2027, I hope he can move on to something more appropriate.
And in this respect, I hope he does not emulate his mother. To this day, my pants must brush the tops of my shoes or I feel embarrassed. I just cannot bear to wear short pants. When cropped pants and capris came back into style for women, I really couldn't wear them. I just kept thinking, every time I saw them, “Highwater, highwater, where's the flood?”
hen my children were little, I consulted all kinds of reference books. Your Baby & Child, by Penelope Leach, whom I think of as a British Dr. Spock, was my favorite. I loved reading her advice about how to entertain a baby: “Try putting him in a carriage under a tree or where he can see patterns of light and shade or perhaps a line full of dancing washing.” Not that my children would be happy for more than thirty seconds lying in their carriage under a tree without screaming their heads off, but it was such a lovely fantasy to imagine spending the afternoon that way.
Then there was her advice on how to feed a toddler: “Above all, try to get him used to eating cheese. Bread or crackers with cheese and a tomato or an apple is a perfectly balanced meal.”
This is exactly what I would love to eat three times a day! Unfortunately, my children prefer Go- GURTs and Lunchables.
But once my boys were past diapers, I could no longer pretend that Penelope's wholesome ideas were working. My kids were more Where the Wild Things Are than Winnie the Pooh. Besides, I later found out that Penelope had had an unhappy childhood— she was often separated from her parents, who eventually divorced and sent her to boarding school— and I realized she was probably living in a fantasy world.
But I didn't give up on the experts; I merely branched out. First, I tried reading all the books about The (Fill- in-the- Blank) Child. There was a book called Raising Your Spirited Child, another titled The Sensitive Child, and one called The Challenging Child, along with The Difficult Child, and Your Gifted Child. I read the sleep book, the food book, and the all- about- boys book. I read about how to raise a moral child, a drug- free child, a wealthy child, a respectful child, a joyous child, and a TV- free child. (Not that I had any intention of getting rid of television— are you kidding? It was the only peace and quiet I ever got, when the kids were watching television.)
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