Thursday, September 22, 2011

Misconception: Young People

I was just admiring myself in the new dress I bought today (original price: $70. Price I bought it at: $11. Never buy things at full price) and I started paying attention to the fun layers. It has a solid white underneath with a transparent pattern on top of it. This seems to be a pretty popular fashion sometimes, when someone is looking for a more flowy or spring-like dress. Somehow, it has more dimension and makes the article of clothing appear more flowing.

Unfortunately, this reminded me of an irritating incident I had with a skirt in the past. I had received this skirt from a family friend who had taken a mission trip to Thailand, and she brought it back for me. The transparent layer on top shined a bright pink with small silver ribbons woven into the pattern, and it reached down to around my knees. Underneath the solid fabric abided by the school rules, coming down to around my fingertips. I had no fears of bending over, because it was just a good skirt. Pink wasn't my favorite color, but I had come to terms with the fact that I looked good in it. Anyway, I received many compliments, and I had deemed it a really fun skirt that showed that I was a responsible young cutesy girl with a sense of culture (even though the people who know me best understand that I'm a bit lazy, and too sarcastic to be considered cutesy).

Well, I had happened to wear this fantastic skirt to school one day in Junior High School. Although our bus had to stop off at the Middle School because the tornado sirens were sounding and we needed to take shelter, I felt confident. I was a gorgeous fifteen-year-old in a culturally diverse skirt that made me feel like I was a fairy princess or something. Sadly my confidence did not last long. Some old lady inspected my skirt as I was walking in and she said "How inappropriate!" as if my underwear were visible or something so scandalous.

I just walked past like nothing had happened, but my pride steamed with frustration. To this day, I do not know if she simply didn't see the solid part underneath the skirt, or if she was just an old fart and thought that anything with transparent fabric made you a [insert offensive term beginning with "W"]. Either way, I felt offended. She had made an assumption based off of my age, most likely.

People make stereotypes all the time. Old people about young people and the other way around; races; genders... its okay to some extent - after all, how would you categorize your thoughts without them? But at the same time, you can't assume that each one you meet is going to be that way and you can't say "Kids these days" and you can't say "Old people always do this" because they don't necessarily. I especially dislike "Kids these days". Its people who think like that who create "Kids these days" because the kids want to be as different as they possibly can from the old people who say it.

So anyway, I know that seemed a little bit random. But I suppose the point is: don't judge anything without all of the facts. The likelihood is anyway, that you will never have all of the facts, so any judgements you make are better left open for change.


Unfortunately, the following image best describes the layering on the skirt. The transparent part came down only to my knees, as I originally described, and it was pink. Not black. Every picture I could find was black -_- maybe someday I'll find a picture of me in the skirt if I have one. I have nothing against black - I mean, ninjas wear black... how could you go wrong? - but this just looks... frumpy somehow? But you get the idea.

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