Smarter than a grown up.

I don't understand teenagers today, or better yet... I do NOT understand PARENTS of teenagers. I mean, I'm not even that old, but how is it that I KNOW BETTER THAN A GROWN PERSON?

I went to Trader Joes today with the babies like any normal weekday excursion to our favorite grocery store. I have to drive to the next town over because we don't have one in my town. Trader Joes is freakin fabulous, and low priced (I'll save that for another post though). I nicely refer to my neighbor town as Snob-ville. It's full of rich, bratty, irrational teenagers and their million dollar mansions that their parents own. As if normal teenagers weren't already morons. I don't frequent Snob-ville very often. I make it an art to go directly into the location, do what I need to do, and go directly back to car without speaking or making direct eye contact with anyone for fear that they may notice my Old Navy flip flops and mock me in front of my children for not wearing more sophisticated expensive flip flops! Having to explain why I am not a millionare is something I'll save for the babies when they are older. But I digress. As we're doing our shopping and I'm keeping my eyes pointed directly at my shopping cart, I notice a swarm of teenagers entering the refrigerator section scoping out lunch. Crap. I picked a bad time to shop. The parking lot of the high school is literally next door to TJ's and it was lunch time.

I figure with teenagers, it's my right to stare at them with distaste as I try to shelter my children from their pierced, pink haired, weirdness. And as I was staring or maybe glaring, I realized I was staring at a pierced, pink haird weird girl with the words TRUE RELIGION spelled across her jean pocket.

Oh. My. Lord.

Does that girl have any idea HOW MUCH THOSE JEANS COST??? Who the hell bought them for her? Because I KNOW SHE DIDN'T! How in the world could a 16 possibly 17 year old CHILD pay $200+ dollars for a pair of JEANS? And then as I stared at her ass, I started checking out other asses surrounding me. And seriously, it wasn't just the pierced pink haired weirdo! It was nearly ALL of the teenage girls in the aisle! Citizens of Humanity, Sevens, Paige. $175, $145, $230. I mean what the frick? And this was only the lower halves of their bodies! I was so shocked staring at name brand asses, I'm sure most of them also had some ridiculously over priced hand bag with them that carried their IPhones and Mercedes keys. I couldn't see past the BLUE! I mean, when I was a teenager, Guess jeans were cool, but they were so NOT $200 bucks! And if they were, my parents would have laughed in my face and then driven me to Mervyn's to buy some generic jeans.

Do parents have no shame? Wait, more importantly do kids have no fear? I don't think I would have even uttered words like "Can you buy me those $200 dollar jeans" before my mom could slap the thought out of my head! I mean yes, I have TWO pairs of these questionably over priced jeans, but ok first of all, I bought a pair AFTER my first baby when I was EMPLOYED and 25 years old! And I'll be damned, but I wore those things basically every day for TWO years straight until I got pregnant again. (Still sad that I can't squeeze my ass into them after the second kid, but hence the SECOND pair of jeans!) I did NOT ask my MOMMY to buy them for me for no apparent reason!

I just can't help but blame parents for this hysteria. I'm secretly hoping that pierced pink haired True Religion weirdo girl gets a frickin 4.0 GPA because then maybe for a second I'd be like... well I guess you deserve the $200 dollar jeans? That sentence isn't sitting well with my stomach.

You can't send a teenager off into LIFE like this. What will they do when they realize their boss doesn't even PAY them enough to afford the jeans after the rent and food? Where are the parents priorities to TEACH the child about real stuff? Independence, self worth, accountablilty? All those things that D and I have been trying to BANG INTO G's HEAD for the past two years? Do we have not have morals anymore? Where have our brains gone? Maybe it's the ozone depleting or something? It's sucking the oxygen out of our heads and imparing our ability to train our kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm seriously so unbelievably terrified for our youth...