Oh Now I Get It

When I was a teenager there was another young woman in my ward, let’s call her Matilda. Matilda was pretty physically fit, I think she may have even been a cheerleader, but she wasn’t overly attractive. Well, Matilda was pretty popular, it seemed like she always had a lot of dates and a lot of attention from a lot of boys buzzing around her. I just didn’t get it. I remember sitting in the car with my Mom, watching Matilda cross the parking lot and saying, “I just don’t get it, Mom. Why is she so popular? She’s not even pretty.” Now, I know that is not very nice, but I was absolutely baffled about what was so wonderful about Matilda. My Mom, maybe because she was naïve too, or just didn’t want to admit what she suspected, told me, “You know Allison, maybe she has a great personality, and she is a lot of fun to be with.” Hhmmm,

I was pretty naïve back then, I don’t think I am now. I ran across a picture of Matilda the other day and I started thinking back…while I’m not 100% certain, (maybe she did have a great personality, but a great intellectual she was not) I do believe that she was doing a little something more to ensure her popularity. If my Mother suspected this I wish she would have just told me, it would have been so much easier instead of having me enviously watching and wondering.

As stated before on this blog, I am pretty blunt with my children. What goes around comes around and I have had almost the exact same comment from my daughter about certain girls in my ward. Unlike my Mother, I flat out say, “Emily, she’s probably putting out, do you really want to be that popular?” I mean I finally get it, teenage boys are hormonal creatures and the novelty of a girl like that is like the only bicycle on the block, everyone wants a turn.

I am sure there were girls like that in my Mother’s day and there will be girls like that in my granddaughter’s day. So let’s just do all our daughters a favor and call a spade a spade.