Advice for the teenage girl

I have done it again.  I have volunteered for a huge project.  I am making the costumes for the ballet that Miss M is in in a few weeks.  It is going smoothly, but costumes for about 40 dancers takes time.  Even when most of them are tiny.

Some of them are for the older dancers.  Part of what I did after planning the costumes with the director was to measure and ask the girls for their opinions on one of two options for the gown.  And here is what I recognized:

Teenage girls are afraid to give an opinion that differs from the group.  Here were 5 confident, talented, beautiful girls and as soon as I asked which style dress they preferred they said nothing.  It was not that they didn't like either option, they just didn't want to raise their right hand if everyone else might be inclined to raise their left.  I am sure I lived through that when I was a teenager.  I don't remember it very clearly.  But I think that is because it is hard to see when you are living it, all anxious and wanting to fit in.  As an adult looking in, however, it was like someone lit a narrow spot light on a darkened stage and then suddenly spun it to the audience and blinded me!

Accept that this is a phase we all grow through.  My hope for my own daughter is that her time in such a setting is short lived.  And my advice is this girls: if you are the first one to speak in that situation you will be right.  Yours will be the opinion they all adopt.  Because it is not about preferences at that point.  If there were any strong preferences there would not be this stand-still.  It is about not being different.  In a way, you will be easing the tension because they can all stop fretting over the choices and just agree with you.  Set the trend, ladies.