They feud, they booze, they boyfriend-swap, they drink and drive, they're lonely, they're addicted, they're moody, alcoholic, rich, famous, misunderstood and overexposed; they're EVERYWHERE. They're business people, they're spokespeople; they've built empires, they've negotiated contracts, they buy, they sell, they design...and here's another common thread:
They missed out on most parts of growing up. They weren't properly socialized.
Remember those days in junior high when - suddenly - the friends you used to sit with at lunch didn't want you to sit with them anymore (er...was that just me? couldn't have been just me...)? And the girls you used to pass notes to began passing notes ABOUT you behind your back? What about the boy a few years older that didn't know you even existed...or the one that sat behind you in math class that you
wish didn't know you existed? What about that time in social studies class when you realized that cute no-good rich kid you had a crush on had NO desire to call YOU, but instead asked for your number so that he could grill you for information about your "prettier friend" that sat across the room.
Those things didn't kill you . They made you tough - gave you tools to prepare for the next barrage of social injustice - thickened your skin and showed you, years down the road, that you WERE strong, and capable, and that people weren't always nice but sometimes, years later, they'd apologize out of the blue? You weren't the shrinking violet you felt like when you were 14 or the awkward shy girl everyone took you for when you were 17, or the only girl without a fake tan at prom (or a date for that matter, but you went anyway with a life-sized cardboard cutout of a Star Trek character and discovered that being ballsy pays off every now and then because people took more pictures of you in your $19 last-minute faux-prom-dress than of any other girl in the room).
You cried about those times, scribbled over people's faces in your yearbook, spent lunch hours by yourself in the library for a few weeks, whined to your mom about the unfairness of life, whined to your sister about how "growing up blows" (at the ripe age of 16), whined to NEW friends about wrongs done by OLD friends...you met new people, learned to let things roll off your back, learned when to keep your distance and when to reach out, learned how to bounce back from hard hits (like that drama teacher that insulted your stylistic genius or the student government adviser that called you inept or the math teacher that kept trying to give you D's), developed inalienable
personality that you wouldn't have had if you'd skipped those years...
It's THOSE moments - those "OH MY GOSH HE LIKES ME BACK!!!!!!!!" moments that the rich and famous brats missed out on. The NORMAL moments. The kid moments. The teenage moments.
They were thrown into a grown-ups world without the tools, skills, or social experiences to back themselves up. Sure, they could film a great movie and call screen icons their contemporaries, or be photographed to high heaven with all the best - they had paid entourages, they made sales pitches, they have financial advisers and trust funds and probably understood "liquidity" before they understood "tampon," and were expected to play in the big leagues before they ever learned how to survive a break-up with a little dignity, or how to have an argument with a friend and NOT throw a drink in their face and profess to a tabloid that you'll never speak to her again.
They skipped the trials by fire that shape adults and prepare kids for life as an upstanding members of society - they learn about big business, their own marketability, net worth and royalties, but do they learn how to make friends? How to apologize? How to "say NO to drugs," or how to fight through the lonely?
nevermind that this came to me while I was washing my hair in the sink the other day at, oh, 5am...I think it's valid...we wonder why the starlets can't stay on the wagon or why they bed-hop or why they don't eat or why they shave their heads, but without the life skills, without socialization, without learning to build healthy friendships in a world that sees you as a dollar sign, or a dollar sign's pretty daughter, or your own parents' meal ticket, how else are they supposed to turn out??? What happens when child stars grow up....without really
growing up???When they're surrounded by people who only have their best interest in mind as long as they're on the payroll, how else can we expect them to turn out?
Hmmm - thoughts to ponder while feeding my
dlisted and
egotastic addictions...viable theory, I think...
