My daughter will turn 8 this year. The other day we were walking the dog and she began to tell me how this one girl in her class doesn’t like another one and how a different girl doesn’t want to play with some other chick. Luckily, I’ve got a kid with pretty good self esteem who then said, “But it’s okay because they both like me!”.
God bless her.
Up through sixth grade, I wasn’t particularly popular. I played mostly with the kids on my block. Being the good Jew that I was, by my eleventh birthday I had already made peace with the idea that life was full of hard knocks. I also listened to only “lite” music on the radio, often dreamed of how my life with Neil Diamond would play itself out and every time I got sick I was convinced, my days were numbered.
Then I hit seventh grade when suddenly, I, Jessica Bern, leader of no one, follower of all, became really popular. Why you ask? Fuck if I know. But who cared?
For the first time in my life, whenever the phone rang it was usually for me. My father would be pissed and yell at me, “This is gonna stop right now.” I was so high on myself, at the time I actually believed this fifty year old man was just jealous of my popularity.
Then just as suddenly as my reign had begun, it was over and right after winter break everything began to unravel. There was this group of kids, who came to the conclusion that I needed to be taken down a notch…or eighty seven. My parents, like many back then, were oblivious. I, like many kids back then (and now and forever) rarely confided to them what was going on. Not that I needed to. I was almost 13, about to marry Neil Diamond, I could handle it.
There were many an early evening or morning before school where my mother would answer the phone and then yell to me, “Jessica, it’s for you. Something about after school, watch out and run quickly. I don’t know. Just take it. I have to meet a client in half an hour!”
It was brutal.
It went on like this for over two years because unfortunately, our middle school went up through ninth grade.
Right after we graduated, I remember being at a pool party. I also remember getting down on my knees in the middle of everyone and sobbing, thanking God it was all over. So much for “handling” it. By then I was smoking cigarettes on a regular basis, drinking and my grades had dropped dramatically or in other words, I was more than ready to go to college, never mind high school.
The story goes on, too long to share here to I will give you the abridged version, so I might at least satisfy some of your curiosity.
1. Left high school a year early to attend college ( totally over prepared, toasted, even)
2. Graduated from college.
3) Therapy, therapy, therapy
then finally:
3. Turned 40, no more therapy….. for THAT particular reason
Today, I keep a close eye on my kid, knowing how the winds of popularity can shift ever so quickly. I tell her all the time, she’s beautiful, smart, kind and lovable no matter who likes her. Then I ask her for a bite of whatever she is eating, she responds with a “no” and then I whisper to myself, “yeah, well, nobody’s perfect”.
About Jessica Bern
I LOVE IT and feel the same only sub in Barry Manilow for Neil Diamond, lol!!! ;0)
Yes. Just yes. Popularity, such a confusing beast.
Twitter Name: shesuggests
As a kid who was painfully unpopular, I dread the days my 1 and 3-year-old enter school. I think it’s only through having done lots of therapy myself that I am not totally wigging out about it!
Twitter Name: 18Years2Life
This age is cruel!
Somewhere between 10 and 59 yo.
Twitter Name: Anissa Mayhew
I’ll see your Neil Diamond and raise you a “water ballet”, something I performed every day after school in my pool with my equally unpopular counterpart for all of 5th grade. No, I wasn’t dorky at ALL…
Twitter Name: izzymom
That parent’s “being clueless” part kind of hit home with me.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
Popularity is overrated. You have one time in your life to be popular: if it’s 2nd grade, so be it. 8th grade, that wad is blown. high school? glory days over.
I say wait until your 40s for popularity and blow the shit out of the water.
you go girl!
Twitter Name: returntoworkmom
Right on, sistah. Well except for the Neil Diamond part. For that part you had better taken a number girlfriend. After me, that is! (You may wish to read Queenbees ad Wannabees by Rosalind Wiseman)
I was never popular, but apparently no one I went to school with remembers me as the huge misfit that I felt I was. I’ve spent so much of my life worried about what people think of me, and I’ve never been able to shake that and I fear passing the neurosis on to my children (especially Princess, but the boys to a certain extent as well). I also worry that my worrying about making my kids neurotic is actually what drives them to be neurotic.
Needless to say, we’ve already racked up a pretty decent amount of therapy charges for the family.
Twitter Name: MamaKaren
The agonies of middle school, I’m not sure if there is anything in our lives that is that hard to endure.
That’s a stupid statement, because there obviously are but having been a girl, then having 5 girls…it can be bad.
My last child, an 8th grader pretty much agrees it still sucks most days.
Twitter Name: sasstown
I love when you write stories like this, Jessica Bern.
You tell it and I am there.
Yeah. me. the popular phase?
Never got there.
What was it even like to reign supreme for even a little while?
You’re right about clueless parents. I was so mercilessly teased, and never turned to my mother.
All those years of suffering in my own head, by myself.
Love the sense of humor you tell this story with…I just loved it.
Happy when I see you have a post up. I always feel like I know just what you’re talking about.
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
One of the handy things about never being popular is you don’t have your fifteen minutes in the sun to torment yourself with ever after. Now it means nothing to me. That sounds kind of miserable, it’s not. Being over 40 helps with perspective.
Twitter Name: penbleth
Good for you, Jessica. But no one, even a compassionate, understanding mom like you, can save anyone from the black hole that is middle school…or in my day, junior high. I have often said that if an angel came down and offered me a chance to live my life over, I would respond, “Only if I can skip junior high.” Phoebe will prevail!
You know what will be helpful for Phoebe? That you remember what it’s like to be a kid. Seriously. That is huge. I think so many kids feel alone because they feel like what they have to say (or think, or feel, or be) doesn’t matter, and that they don’t have an adult as an advocate to validate them. Remembering is key.
Please bless I can hold onto that with my four daughters (the boy? I don’t know WHAT to expect), the oldest of whom will be 12 in just a few weeks.
Twitter Name: formerlyphread
Love this post. Love it!
Twitter Name: heidicave
I was on a total roller coaster ride with my friends in high school. And we weren’t even the popular kids. Sadly, even the “middle of the road” kids are BRUTAL.
Twitter Name: mommyshorts