I remember sitting at the desk, listening to a group of girls in a class I was teaching talk about their weekend, trying to impress each other with their blackouts and boys.
Ears burning. Mind rolling. Heart breaking.
Over the past five years, I have been at that same desk, listening to that same conversation about where she let him take her and what she drank and what she did with him, in six different schools.
It is too much. Too much for eighth graders and freshman and seniors. For thirteen and fourteen and sixteen-year-old girls who have so much life ahead of them and so little life behind them. Who think that what is happening right now and what people, other fourteen-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds, think right now is the most important thing in the world.
The reality of the situation is that in a world full of the trashy and flashy and getting attention in any way that you can get it, it is pretty OK to be a good girl.
And I want to see that.
For the past few weeks, I have been walking home with a girl from English class in the library in a small, poor community in Bangkok, Thailand–
What…is…your…favorite…color?
a girl who gets the opportunity to learn English, to try to make a better situation for herself, to be smart. A girl who knows that I am asking if she wants to be a doctor but wants to be the police. A girl that is going to have countless opportunities to lose herself, lose the vision that she has for the future, the drive, the sass, the intelligence
What…is…your…favorite…animal?
–and I had this realization. That 10-year-old girls in Thailand and 14-year-old girls in the USA are all on this path, trying to be something.
Something that gets attention.
And what will that something be?
Will it be mascara and red lips? Will it be jeans that fit just a little too tight or shorts that are cut off just a little too high or shirts that fall just a little too low? Will it be tales of Friday nights that turn into Saturday mornings and pregnancy scares and tales from boys that cause them rejection or lust or betrayal in the hallways? Will it be the pictures they wish were not on the Internet in ten years? Will it be the nights they don’t quite remember and the choices they can never get back?
Or will it be the books they read? The articles they wrote? The goals they set and achieved? The standards they set for themselves and the people with whom they choose to share their lives? Will it be the lives they change?
Will it be the dreams they pursue?
I want to see that. I want to see it a lot more than I want to see a lot of other things that I really want to see.
I want to see girls who are worth it realize that they are worth it. I want girls who deserve more to realize that they deserve more. Girls who are smart to realize that they are smart. And that being smart is worth it. That being smart and respectful and maybe a little sassy is more than being a beautiful shell of empty attention.
And we control that.
Chances are that I will never see for myself how that turns out for the girl I walked through the dark, narrow walkways back to the little store and house where her family lives and works. Chances are I will never get to hear her have a conversation in English, to help some poor missionary girls on the bus who can only say Thank You in Thai find their stop.
Chances are I will never get to see her be the police.
But I can play a part in causing that to become her reality.
She can be the police. She can be smart. I can tell her that she can be the police, and I can tell her that she is smart.
I can control that.
And I want to be a part of making that something good. I want to see that turn into something good.
I want to see the revolution of the good girl.
The girl who is not afraid of being rejected because of how smart she is. The girl who respects people, who respects herself enough to be exactly who God created her to be and allow others to do the same. The girl who is confident and tough and allergic to settling for less than more, to settling someday in all of the countless different opportunities they will have when life is hard and rejection is biting and mediocrity is easier, and to settling for not being the police.
