(Image from More Ways to Waste Time.)
I'd say that for the most part, I developed at a normal pace, physically, socially, and mentally. That is, I don't feel like a late bloomer in most regards. But for some reason, when it comes to make-up and beauty routines in general, I always feel like I'm late to the party. You may remember my discovery of the wonders of concealer. Just the other day, I finally experienced for myself the necessity of lip liner, and what exactly lipstick "feathering" means. And to this day, I still don't blow dry my hair in the morning (at what age does showing up to work with damp hair become unprofessional?).
We choose to expose ourselves to different aspects of life depending on what we believe is important. Apparently, make-up has never been that high up on my priority list of things I should know. But no one wants to feel like a late bloomer. There's such a negative connotation attached to the innocent-sounding phrase. The implication of stunted development, the last one in the know. Think of the boys whose voices remained high or the girls whose chests remained flat, while their classmates tenored and blossomed, respectively.
What if there was a way to take our adversity of being late bloomers and apply it to things that we should learn? The example I'm thinking of is financial education. Just like puberty, managing money is something that we all have to deal with in life, and yet children aren't learning the concepts, skills, etc. necessary to be financially knowledgeable. And it's not simply because financial education in schools is lacking - it's also because kids/teens/young adults just don't care (my teen self included).
Yes, there will come a certain age when it will be embarrassing to admit that you don't know what interest rates are. But is there a way to make that age younger? Can we manipulate the system so that teens feel the same shame of being a late bloomer in finance, as they do about having never been kissed?
0 comments:
Post a Comment