My officer worker isn't very happy with me.

My my daughter's advice-nurture my inner bitch, she said. Remember, it's more important for people to respect you, than like you.

You know, that's not bad advice.

PDA and dealing with ex's new girlfriend

Around and around the parking lot we turned, practicing parallel parking and backing around corners (no idea why Jennifer needs to know this) for her driver's ed test this week (she passed). Barely.

Every time we turned the corner at Scene Hill Elementary, we lit up a couple leaning against their car, smooching.

"Bleech," says J., while trying to keep the car from going over the curb.

"I never realized how that looked when I was kissing d. at driver's ed," she grumbled. "PDA's are gross."

PDA? personal assistant? No, trying public displays of affection.

And there is apparently quite a bit of it going on between her ex, D, and his new girlfriend (not the cheerleader, with whom she is friends with now), but another girl, and cheerleader. Their PDAs are at school and apparently all over their MySpace pages.

And just today, J. gave me a "bitch alert" Apparently girlfriend #3 with ex, is spreading rumors that J has ugly teeth (her teeth are in fact toothpaste commercial straight).

"Honey, I would just say she's insecure and don't engage," I sighed as we pulled away from Auburn High School.

But if ex brings gf to the lunch table, you might want to show everyone your teeth.

She'll know she's been busted.

Have you tried smacking her?

Actually, I was saying don't hit your younger, bitchy, 14-year-old sister. That was my advice to my intern today, who was bemoaning the fact that the youngest girl in the family was about to top off her behavior with a spinning head. Or at least that's what her long suffering parents were thinking.

I told her to a certain extent, welcome to the world of a 14-year-old. Now, that said (as I was relaying this story to my daughter, she started to glare- "you didn't say I was like that did you!" No, actually, you weren't that bad..at least most of the time.)

But some girls do in fact turn into secretive (this young woman only talks to her parents in grunts and glares), snarky, sarcastic beings, who feel ALL adults (anyone over 20) are idiots. They seems to wake up from this alien abduction at about 16 or 17, maybe even as late as 19 (when they figure out who is paying for college).

I told my intern after listening sympathetically to the snarkiness her mom was taking, to tell her mom to stop taking it. For now, she's going to have to be the bad guy and tell her daughter "You might not like me but you..will...not..treat...me...this...way" And come up with some reasonable consequences if she doesn't. As I said, slapping her is not an option, although that's what my bro threatened to do when I told my mom to shut up at 13. Yeah, didn't do that again.

And putting her out on the street to starve is not a good idea either. So I suggest hit her where it really hurts. Take away texting privileges. Otherwise, you might get a few women I have in my life who were never told "no" or made to behave. Believe me, at 50, it's no longer cute.

My eyes get misty...

The did-she-cry, and how tough is she debate continues.

This just in from CJR, and another post from the same news-oriented magazine. Again, it seems my daughter is going to be growing up in the world, where women will have to be both bitchy and sweet (or at least appear to be) to gain respect.

Here is another post from the New York Times on the topic, as well as a well-written opinion piece.

Why did I kid myself to think we were past that?