Letting go....

Oh, ugh. Tonight I experienced total pre-teenhood circa 2004. I stood in American Eagle for 30 minutes. Long enough to know that I hate it. Long enough to get a raging headache from the overblown bass beat coming from the pseudo rap tunes blasting throughout the store. (Not to sound racist, but these are white surburban kids in this store. They know NOTHING about 'chillin' in da 'hood' unless it includes renting movies at Blockbuster.) Long enough to see how overpriced their crappy clothes are and long enough to see how spellbound this store has made my daughter. I wanted to grab her and scream: "BE YOURSELF! YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A SHEEP!" But it's pointless and not really fair. She deserves to be like the other girls and wear those stupid t-shirts. I did the same thing. But dammit - I want to save her from my past stupidity. I want her to know that quite often the cute, popular and mean girls get what they deserve and so will she if she just studies a fair amount and remains a nice person. I want her to know that clothes do not make the man or the woman and that she'd be better off spending that 30 minutes at the library or the museum instead of American Eagle. But it's a losing battle and probably one that I shouldn't win. It's the hardest damn part of being a parent - sitting back and letting your kids make mistakes and making sure they endure or survive the consequences.