This week I am host to an extra 13 yo, along with my own. This young lady is my niece, whom I do not know well, since she and her family live in South Florida. She is visiting with us for a week, after having hosted H girl at her home last week. A cousins exchange, as it were. S girl is ‘going in to’ the 8th grade at a private Christian school, where she is part of a class of about 150. It is interesting to see the differences between these two children, even though one parent who grew up in the same family has raised them.
S girl’s mother is from Honduras, and grew up in a frugal, very protective family. She married my brother, a military guy, and came to the USA – a dream of many young women in third-world situations. My niece manifests her upbringing in ways we didn’t expect – and some that remind me so much of her father. She has a propensity for cool-aide (extra sweet) and had never made homemade cookies. She loves to shop, but runs a constant commentary about how expensive things are. She believes that summer is for turning off ones brain, and chatting on the phone and online. Although she claims that “American History” is her favorite subject in school, shows absolutely no interest in history in real life. We live in the hometown of Abe Lincoln, and have a lovely new A.L Presidential Museum – a suggestion we visit was received with lukewarm politeness – we didn’t go. She loves TV, pop music, clothes, and following certain celebs – and finds that we only own one TV that is mostly off, and don’t know what was up with Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton very unusual. In other words – she seems to be a normal, average, American thirteen-year-old kid. Our life of learning kind of confuses her.
S girl is surprised that H girl has friends. How could you possibly make friends if you don’t go to school? Especially since we also don’t live in a place where the houses are real close, so there aren’t any neighbors-as-friends types. As I type, the number of teenagers in my kitchen has doubled to four, since some of those friends – in an effort to get out of helping with a church VBS- invited themselves to sleep over last night. Tonight, after fencing, she will meet a whole different group of H girl’s friends. Friends ranging in age from 8 to 60 will go out to dinner after practice. I wonder if the idea of multi-age friends will be a shock, also.
I think that my biggest shock is that S girl doesn’t like to read, period. Her folks are always bragging on her school work and grades – her school’s team went to the national competition in the Odyssey of the Mind competition last year – but she claims that reading is boring, and something she does only if required. H Girl was quite disappointed. Her love of books goes deep, and she’ll never bond as tightly with anyone who doesn’t share that.
However, they are both amiable souls, and seem to find plenty to chatter about and have had a great time messing up my kitchen. I think they will have learned a lot from one another this week, and made some memories.
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