Provocative Teenagers
"Everywhere, I was being sent signals that the age of my childhood, with all its accessory benefits such as innocence and goodwill, was over. The next phase in my life, as I saw it, was to be a woman"
On the subway back to my place, I put my headphones on the transparent setting and surreptitiously creeped on a gaggle of teenage girls. My interest was, of course, purely anthropologic. I turned my head the other way, even feigned sending off a few text messages. But I was listening.
I’m always interested in what the kids are doing — especially since, at the advanced age of 24, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I am no longer one of them. When I see high school girls at my shows, I notice how young they are and I think about how many adult men should be in jail (endure some sort of restorative justice that has yet to be convincingly revealed to me) for dating them. I think about the thread that connects us, that embodied feeling of being a teenage girl and knowing that the world resents you in a way that is both entirely general, and, seemingly, extremely specific to you personally.
The girls on the subway, who are no older than about fourteen, are talking about “going out” tonight. The proposition immediately introduces new air into the room — are we wearing skirts? All of us? Or just me and Jackie? Because last week you said you’d do skirts with me Kaitlyn but then you didn’t or, sorry, forgot or something, and I looked super insane like I was dressed up for something. I think skirts would be cute, Maddie. But wait what’s the bathroom like at [X PLACE]? Oh, um.. I don’t know. The bathroom at the pizza place on [X STREET] has a really good mirror. Can you see the stalls in the back from the mirror? NO! That’s why it’s the best. Wait Jackie I thought you made a TikTok in the bathroom at [X PLACE] like, last week, so should we go somewhere different? Ohmygod, I wish they had a NoBu in Brooklyn. Last year we went for my mom’s birthday in LA and they had the best lighting ever. Wait, guys, is my hair, like, brownie batter brown or more like cookie butter brown? I’m sort of worried it’s giving cookie butter. Noooo Kaitlyn it’s giving brownie batter. Definitely brownie batter. It’s giving Hailey Bieber. Really? It’s giving Hailey Bieber? Yes. Totally, it is.
Clearly, I was seeing a rough sample of a particular type of Brooklyn teenager (they got on at the Carroll Gardens stop if this helps elucidate the point any better). But as I left the train, I found myself thinking about the panopticon and worrying about the girls. Surely, I’d asked around about the prospect of Skirts Or No Skirts no less than fifty times in my youth. I’d definitely attended a gathering under the pretense of getting together but with the implicit goal of securing a great photo where my head was tilted slightly to the left. But something about seeing these children play at being women, watching them negotiate the line between innocence and control, left me feeling slightly haunted. It wasn’t that bad when I was their age… right?