People talk about peer pressure among kids in middle schools all the time, but seldom talk about peer pressure among moms. Trust me, it’s a thing. Even though my oldest is only three, I am already feeling it.
I am certain that the older my children get, the worse it will be. Take my mom, for example. She was what one would call a strict parent. (60 years ago, she would have been an ordinary parent, but I digress.) We didn’t spend the night at friends’ houses until we were in high school, we never saw movies with a rating above PG-13, and sometimes not PG-13 movies, depending on the content. I am still proudly one of the only people I know who hasn’t seen “Titanic.” When I was in seventh grade, it was because of the premarital sex scene. When I finally could watch it, I was a history major who knew the historical inaccuracies would drive me crazy. An aristocratic seventeen year old flitting about the ship unchaperoned and risking an illegitimate pregnancy fathered by some penniless guy she had just met? Really?! I digress again (I tend to do that. Hence the blog). We weren’t permitted to watch TV on school nights and our curfews when we could drive were embarrassingly early. My first bikini I was permitted to wear I finally purchased at age 14, and makeup was forbidden until 15. And then the crimes against makeup I committed were unforgiveable. Glitter eyeliner for daily wear? Why?! My first high heels were also at 15, and I tottered around in them until college when I had to walk the campus too much for that to be practical. My first date was at sixteen, and the guys I went out with always had to talk to my father first and have me home by 9:00.