Ah, Girl Scout camp. What fun. We camped with our sister troop, which is a troop of 11-14 year olds, and I ended up hanging out a lot with the 11-14 year olds. They all know Flip, my 13 year old, and I found out a whole lot about where he’s at in the social pecking order at school. Seems all the girls LOVE him. Scary stuff, man.

It’s interesting to hear the hopes and dreams of girls that are that young. They are, of course, completely boy crazy, so I got to hear all about how the boys at school are soooo cute, but sooooo dumb. I got a look into their lives, being deemed cool enough to share info with. It’s fun to be cool to 13 year olds- after all, they’re at their most judgmental stage of their life. I remember junior high, it was rough.

I had fun ogling the cute guys on the boats on the lake with them (thank goodness, they never came close to us) and singing and dancing. I also tried to talk some seriousness with them. When they talked about how much they hated their home lives, I told them to store all that anger up and use it as stepping stones to get to where they really want to be- college and on to a good life. I talked to them about how getting pregnant with Flip when I was a teenager made my life much harder than it had to be. I told them if I had it to do all over again, I’d wait to get pregnant until I was married and driving the kind of car I really want to drive (BMW 2 seater convertible in case anybody wants to buy me one), because once you have kids, you’re stuck with cars that can accommodate carseats.

I don’t know if any of my motivational speaking worked. They seemed to have heard me. I think teenagers need someone in their lives that they deem "cool" enough to actually listen to. They’re going to do what they want to do anyway, whether or not they think you’re cool, but perhaps I planted some seeds in their heads that will grow and take root.