Sunday Reflections: What It’s Like to Be a 14 Year Old Girl

I remember being 14.

Like all girls – like all teens actually – I was just trying to figure out who the hell I was and how I fit into this world.  Not to be cliche, but I was not a girl but not yet a woman.  I still played with Barbies, but now our Barbies sometimes had mad, passionate sex with Ken because, well, my hormones were raging and I was trying to figure this sex stuff out.  That’s the funny thing about being 14, your hormones are in one place and your brain is in a totally different one.  In fact, science has shown that the teenage brain is in a massive time of development and change and that teens do not make good decisions for this very important reason.  We’ll get back to this topic in a moment. 

You should also know that I had crushes on 2 of my teachers.  1 in Middle School and 1 in High School.  In MS my English teacher played in a band.  He was young and single and I mentioned he played in a band, right?  Who doesn’t have a crush on the teacher that plays in a band?  And in High School I crushed on my Latin teacher.  I am less sure why, I mean he did not play in a band and his pants were always too long and I really thought someone ought to hem them for him.  And here’s the deal, in my stupid still developing 14-year old brain, I would have been flattered if they had returned any interest in me other than concern for turning in my homework on time.  Because I was 14 and here was an adult showing interest in me and how cool would that be.  So back to the teenage brain:  teenage brains, especially the decision making parts, are scientifically proven to be different than adults.  So, you know, we kind of count on adults to BE THE ADULTS and make adult decisions and keep us safe.  That is why at 14, I could not have consented to being in a relationship with my middle school English teacher, even if he was in a band.  This is also why 14 year olds can’t sign contracts, can’t vote, can’t drive, can’t drink and can’t serve in the military.  The other really important reason is because there are issues of power imbalance that come into play, which is why we have sexual harassment laws in the workplace.  If we protect people that ACTUALLY ARE adults, shouldn’t we be protecting our teens with their differently developing brains as well?  The correct answer is yes.

There has been a lot of talk lately about modesty and personal responsibility.  Here’s the deal, personal responsibility goes both ways.  You and you alone are responsible for what you think. And do. And say.  As for modesty, well – I have breasts.  At a very young age I had very big breasts.  A lot of people had strong opinions on this topic, though they had no right to.  Men often freaked out because I had big breasts, and they felt like because those big breasts were they and they liked them, then they could touch them.  It didn’t matter what I was wearing.  In fact, to be honest, there is nothing I could wear that would hide the fact that I had breasts.  Nothing.  Believe me, I have spent a lifetime trying.  I could seriously wear a tent and you would still notice them.  But they are there, in your face.  But, oddly enough, they are not ALL of me.  The fact that this is the only thing men see is on them, not me.  I can not protect you from seeing the fact that I have breasts, I couldn’t when I was 14 and I can’t now.  I have to think, though, that men are capable of looking at women and seeing more than breasts and thinking about more than sex; that they are capable of looking at a woman and seeing a human being with many facets to her life, personality and contributions to this world.

I was a virgin until I got married at the age of 22.  Yes, all those times I wanted to be sexy, I still chose not to have sex until I got married.  It was a personal choice.  Even now, older and happily married, I sometimes like to feel sexy.  Sometimes I like to feel sexy for my husband. Although sometimes I like to feel sexy just for me, because I am older and I just want to know that I can still BE sexy if I want to.  And I am human.  That is part of how I believe God made us, as beautiful creatures with sexual desires.  And like it or not, those desires kick in during the teenage years because of biology.  They don’t call them raging hormones for nothing.

There also seems to be this double standard where we say men are visual so cover up and girls are emotional.  Have these people not been on the Internet and seen the way women can drool just as equally over a shirtless Zac Efron?  In fact, I am pretty sure that his current movie campaign is banking on this very phenomenon.  Just this past week Salon even wrote an article about how more and more America is becoming obsessed with naked men (their headline, not mine).  Men can feel the same body pressures as women, women can be just as visual as men. 

I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking our teens to be thoughtful about how they present themselves on the Internet; that is actually a good conversation to be having.  But instead of focusing on how teenage girls need to “take responsibility”, let’s change the conversation: we all need to take responsibility for our actions and our thoughts.

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