Blizzards amd sweater vests

You think our kids are all fluff? Read on.

While in middle school, students seem to have one goal: to be popular. More than anything, most of the students fervently hope to not be accused of going against the grain. These young teenagers would much rather conform and be accepted by the "in" crowd than focus on finding their own identity, style or path. Like most thirteen-year-olds, I succumbed to this need to fit in. One afternoon, however, I had a conversation with my father that made me think twice about following the rest of the lemmings over the proverbial cliff.

My dad and I were sitting in the dining area of the local Dairy Queen eating Blizzards on a dreary winter afternoon. We had run the gambit of usual conversation topics: school, orchestra, my plans for the weekend. Then, and I'm not quite sure how the discussion began, we started talking about popularity. I told him that I wanted to be popular, or at least accepted favorably by those who were. He looked at me and asked me why I felt that way. I shrugged my shoulders and looked back into my drink. I had never stopped to think about why I felt the need to fit in . . . I simply did. I had been told by my friends that I should want to be popular, and since I had always trusted them, I was inclined to believe them.

My father proceeded to tell me a story from his college days. His mother, my grandmother Lorraine, had made him several sweater vests to wear at school. These sweater vests were practical and comfortable, but hardly "in style." Nevertheless, they became a staple of my father's wardrobe. He didn't care that he wasn't sporting the latest fashion. In fact, he didn't care what everyone thought of him, either. I was shocked. What was even more surprising was that after a few weeks, other students at my dad's school began wearing sweater vests. By deviating from the norm, my father had started a trend. What he wore became fashionable because the other students saw the confidence with which he dressed.

This information was a lot for a thirteen-year-old girl to process, especially one who had been carefully taught about what was "cool" and what was most certainly not cool. I found it hard to believe that going against the grain could have benefits for me, so I continued to wear the same clothes, listen to the same music and go to the same places that my peers did. Surely my father was mistaken. This is also, of course, the stage in which children think they know infinitely more than their parents. I had not yet seen the light, and I continued on my quest for popularity. However, our conversation that bleak winter day replayed over and over in my mind.

As the days passed and I mulled it over, I realized that my father's words might have some validity after all. I began to evaluate my wardrobe to find which items I had bought because they were cool and which items I'd bought because I truly liked them. I also looked back at my actions, attempting to determine how many of them I performed to please the crowd and how many of them I performed because I actually enjoyed them. I found myself caring less and less what people thought about me. It was wonderfully liberating.

I have come a long way since middle school. It no longer bothers me that those who still feel compelled to follow the herd do not accept me as one of their own. I do not strive to dress in the latest fashions; if anything, I attempt to create my own. The conversation I had with my father about wearing sweater vests and feeling the need to fit in sparked in me the desire to deviate from the beaten path and form one of my own. I have learned a valuable lesson in the process: Swimming against the current can only make me stronger.

By Ester Sooter, Age 16