‘Crotch’ Is Not a Dress Length

Judging girls: the last acceptable bias

Photo by: SIphotography

In high school, I went through a phase of wearing miniskirts with high-heeled pumps. One particularly unfabulous outfit involved a bright yellow miniskirt with shock-red heels. My mother tried to keep me from leaving the house “looking like that” and failed. At 16, I was stubborn as a corpse. What's that old saying? You can hit a corpse, scream at it, knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it. She gave up trying and took to making disgusted faces when I entered the room. My mother quickly became the last person I would turn to in a time of need.

Teens end up in unsafe relationships and dangerous spaces. They lose themselves in a wasteland of self-hate and make countless mistakes. What I needed was a cornerman. I’m not sure if they still use this term but a cornerman is the one person allowed in the ring with the boxer. The teen years are a one-on-one combat sport: Teen vs __. (You name it, they’re battling it.) But their toughest opponent, by far, is their own developing brain.

A cornerman tends wounds, wraps hands before the next round, and signals the referee to stop the (self) pummeling when things get bad. Teens usually put a friend in this role, but a cornerman needs to know what they’re doing. A parent is ideal (we’ve been there/done that) but most of us forget…