Graduation, Girlhood, and Growing Up

Oh yeah I just graduated high school!

There’s a running joke in the Substack community that all anyone wants to write about now is the concept of girlhood. A couple weeks ago there was a note on my feed that I found particularly funny because it was how I had been feeling:

Listen, I love girls as much as the next person, but the sight of bows was being forcibly burned into the back of my eyelids. However, this kind of fascination is understandable: girls are an extraordinary force. They are incredibly passionate, extremely resilient, both deeply unappreciated and uniquely powerful. If you’ve ever listened to a commentary video on YouTube, you’ve doubtlessly heard someone remark about the power of girls to shape culture, especially pop culture, from phenomenons like Beatlemania to the teen girl starlets of the early 2000s.

We just experienced a massive resurgence of, slight pun intended, girl power. Everyone on the internet seems to be in agreement that 2023 was the year of the girl. From Barbie to Taylor Swift, Beyonce to Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, “girl dinner” to “hot girl walks.” As such, it was all anyone was talking about in their end-of-year recaps. Last December, I read an article called “Woman in Retrograde” by Isabel Cristo. I was drawn to the article in part because it seemed to address a question that had always seemed subliminally attached to girlhood mania, but rarely outright asked: why are we so obsessed with girlhood? To quote the author: “What is it, exactly, that’s so uninviting about being an adult woman?” 

It can be easy to romanticize being a child. There are fewer responsibilities, more room to mess up, and in general, less fear. It is a more secure time in our lives, free from worries about the seemingly ever devolving state of the world. This is not to say that girls are not affected by the issues of the adult world–in many ways, they are, often unsettlingly so. In the cases of those who grew up in difficult circumstances, the romanticization of girlhood might be making up for lost time, the safety of a bygone era that never existed in the first place. But in general, it seems that there has been a pop culture trend of concentrating on a return to innocence, where the scope of daily life was smaller and more manageable. For many girls and women, the “real” world seems so harsh, and the realities of being an adult feel scary and awful. There are so many complex decisions that can feel overwhelming to girls. Choices about marriage, sexuality, children, caretaking, and

having a career all affect women in a different way than they affect men, and no matter what you choose to do, it can sometimes feel like you are always getting the short end of the stick.

Teenage girls do not seem to romanticize womanhood the same way they do girlhood. This is not to say that girls on the cusp of womanhood think all women are unhappy or have never dreamed about getting older, but it is merely to point out that for many young women, getting older brings about anxiety. But I think the trend of pining for girlhood has run its course. Perhaps it is because of where I am in my life (girlhood is not a chapter I wish to return to, but a page I wish to turn) but I also think the culture is shifting to a greater appreciation of the joys of getting older. We can see this through the increased romanticization of adult aspects of life. Think of the “office-siren” aesthetic (romanticization of corporate jobs) and the resurgence of “Sex and the City,” which follows a cast of women over 30 who are allowed to make mistakes, be silly, and just generally have fun! Fun! Something our culture does not often associate with women over their 20s.

Of course, neither of these examples are an especially realistic view of life, as the backlash against “corporate-core” and Carrie’s lifestyle exemplify. However, they show a shift in how some people are perceiving growing up. “Sex and the City,” argues that adulthood and discovering who you are as a person as you move beyond your 20s is ultimately just as valuable a part of life as being a teenager or young adult. This portrayal of female adulthood can be silly, yes, but it is also valuable. The fear of getting older is something that we as a society need to take responsibility for. We have to make adulthood something less scary for girls, something that they feel prepared for and excited about. While the expectations of our society are deeply embedded, it does not mean that it is completely worthless to try to undo the destructive perception that as girls get older they lose their value. We need to do this with each other, but especially ourselves. 

Of course, I do not claim to have all the answers. At the time of publishing, I will have graduated high school! (As will many of you–congratulations!) So we can all acknowledge that I am just an 18 year old with no real life experience fresh off the bat, okay? But one thing graduation has made clear to me is that the door to young adulthood is well and truly open–and to be honest, that makes me vastly, nearly indescribably excited. I’m particularly thrilled to have more agency in my life. (As I keep reminding myself and my friends when we talk about it, all academia from here on out is a choice; we are officially done with mandated education.) This next phase is less about what other people want, and more about what I determine that I want for myself.

I have been incredibly lucky to have many privileges in my adolescence. I would like to think of myself as a pretty well rounded person. I’ve done things right, I’ve done things wrong, and I’ve kept on moving. I’ve been given the resources I need to have a successful life. I’ve also had a pretty great girlhood: I was given room to explore my interests, pushed to experience things beyond them, and done it all with some truly amazing people by my side. And of course, I am planning to take all of these lessons, memories, and relationships with me. But adulthood leaves less of a safety net than what I had when I was young. I know that at times it can be mundane, but I also know that it can have moments of great excitement. Yes, girlhood is great. Childhood is great. You will never have the kind of safety net that you did when you were younger ever again. Isn’t that terrifying? Isn’t that exciting? 

As humans, we would be bored if we were stuck in one place forever. We need to move, we need to make progress, we need new stimulation. As we get older, we get more responsibility and tasks, but we also get more freedom. The future is unknown, a fact that keeps me up at night on more occasions than is probably necessary, but so was the rest of life up to this point. So while I am closing the chapter on girlhood, I am looking forward to being a young adult and all the indefinite promise it holds.

As an avid collector of quotes, I cannot help but leave you with a (mildly paraphrased) one: “[Life is] like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ― E.L. Doctorow.

To the future. :)