for the future.

On my most recent shopping trip to Forever 21, I found myself so utterly disappointed with the future generations of females parading around in their trendy leggings and oversized t-shirts covered in vintage pictures of tigers that I had to write about it. Within the hour I spent there (hey, the place is huge), I witnessed girls rudely bump into other shoppers, make fun of overweight girls they saw in the store and lose the complete inability to speak properly when spoken to. I saw girls not old enough to vote, but old enough to nearly show their vaginas all over the scuffed pearly white floor. Girls covered head to toe in trends but lacking the right kind of esteem to carry them. Disappointing, girls. Disappointing.

I was no gem in my teen years, I'm sure. I paraded around middle school wearing blue glittery lipgloss. Yes, blue. Yes, glittery. Apparently I thought it was cool to look like I had just performed a sex act on a smurf. I would leave the house sans gloss, and then apply it on the bus knowing full well my mother wouldn't let me leave the house looking like that. I wore every 90s trend in the book - from a fake blue hair extension to everything American Eagle could make. But here's the thing - I could still talk to people.  Underneath my poorly executed attempts at fashion and fitting in was a well-mannered girl who could conduct herself accordingly in public.

Trends come and go girls, but just like a good little black dress, manners are classic and timeless. 

I found myself thinking, oh my God, if this is really the future of America, then put me on the next flight out of here. I realize that parents have a lot more working against them now than our parents did when we were kids. The future generations of teens are part of an automatic satisfaction generation. They're part of the generation that has had cell phones since they were 12. Televisions in their rooms, access to shows like the Jersey Shore, Teen Mom and every other 30 minutes of trashy reality television they can get their hands on. If they've been taught how to filter anything, it's only because they've had parents who have brought them up right, because society sure as hell isn't going to do it for you now. They see everything, have access to anything and to live in a world without that seems, quite frankly, petrifying to them.

Combatting that as a parent is hard. I am speaking from a childless perspective, but I can remember growing up without a television in my room. And once I got that, it didn't have cable. I remember rejoicing in the moment my parents let me have a phone in my bedroom, let alone a cell phone (which I didn't get until at least age 16, and there was nothing "smart" about it). The only thing really influentially awful we had access to on television was the Real World, and well-groomed acts like the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey crooned us to sleep at night, not Nicki Minaj talking about "clean pussies." I know I sound ancient, talking about the 90s as if they were a decade that occurred a lifetime ago, and I'm sure generations behind me said the same thing about me when they saw my blue lipgloss.

I have no parenting advice, but I imagine it's twice as hard to raise a child in a world where we no longer need to regularly practice things like patience, and we've eliminated the need to have real life conversations 90% of the time. We text our feelings, email our itineraries and "like" thoughts by clicking buttons. We think in 140 characters or less, and our whole lives have become lifelong episodes of show and tell. There's no mystery, no filter, and no need to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations anymore. Raising a child in this world and expecting them to have the manners, politeness and the ability to think independently and communicate it properly isn't impossible, but it takes a fine balancing act that so many of us aren't quite sure how to handle.

Girls (and boys), your words, thoughts and the way you treat other people will leave a much more lasting impression than your $15.80 top from Forever 21. People will forgive you of your fashion errors if you're a nice person, if you say things like "please" and "thank you" and if you hold the door open for others. Learn when to shut your mouth and shut your legs, and learn when to open a book. Parade around in your trendy booties, but remember that letting your vagina hang out of your skirt is no different than wearing a sign that says "I'm a whore, just like the rest of them." Class will always trump trend in the long run, and manners will always outdo cool.