This is a picture of Stephanie taken at last week’s pizza party. She is seventeen.
When she was about ten she wrote a poem. She called her poem, “Prettyful”. The poem was written, then put away and forgotten about for the last few years until it was recently rediscovered. Kind of like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Just not quite as significant.
I showed Stephanie the poem last week and she was very, very embarrassed by it. See, in case you don’t know Stephanie no longer lives at home. She and her older brother are trying to figure out the world on their own. It’s a hard thing for parents to watch, especially since really, they are still very young.
We can’t protect them any more but we can try to advise them. My advice to them is, “Be careful of the things you do, the things you say and the people you call your friends because in the future all these things will make up your past. You’ll either be happy looking back or you’ll have regrets.”
They probably roll their eyes and mutter “Oh no, not again!”. That’s because they know everything, you see.
A few years ago she was proud of this poem. It was creative, she thought of it herself and it was cute. Now she’s embarrassed by it. If she’s feeling that way about a sweet poem written when she was an innocent ten year old, I wonder what things she’ll be embarrassed by as a thirty year old when she thinks back to her teens. I hope her happiness looking back far outweigh her regrets and embarrassment.
I know you read this Steph, so I’m not nagging again. I thought this might be a good way to get my point across. And I’m expecting the “OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” text when you read it.
And for everyone else, here is the poem:
In case you are having difficulty reading it, it says:
And your daughter is soooo pretty!
I like you! 🙂