When I was growing up and having a hard time or feeling sorry for myself as I figured life out as a pre-teen, my mom would buy me the tabloids from time to time. This was back before the tabloids were mostly fabricated celebrity gossip and were mainly alien abductions or other amazing stories. She said she did it to (kindly and humorously) point out that life could be worse – after all, I hadn’t been probed by an alien, so how bad could things be? Looking back on this as an adult, I think she probably did it for a number of reasons. I believe she did it to show me I was more normal that I thought (especially as a pre-teen!) and because for the time I was reading these, I could forget my own troubles and have a good “can you believe this?” laugh. I also think she wasn’t exactly sure what to do for a struggling kid, but through this small gesture, this kid knew her mom had her back. -C, 36
Well we don’t have gossip, we’ve got pep talks and snappy come-backs!
