Today’s song is ‘Bobby Sox to Stockings’ This song was written by Russell Faith, Clarence Kehner and Richard DiCicco, and performed by Frankie Avalon. The song reached Number 8 on the ‘Billboard Top 100’ and Number 26 on the ‘R&B Chart in 1959’.
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Please note that I originally sang this song for my niece Jessica's 18th birthday a few months ago, but it is an appropriate song for my message today. I have always regarded this song as a ‘coming of age’ which speaks to a passage of rights of the growing adolescent girl. These turbulent years between thirteen and sixteen are a time when no adult seems capable in the young girl’s mind of understanding her situation and truly knowing her needs like the new boy she is dating does. At a time when the young girl’s blood flows to reveal her change in status from ‘girl’ to ‘young woman’, all her body sensations intensify to the point that the thoughts in her head run the danger of mental explosion. Her brain appears to abandon all manner of reason, and nothing or no one who is incapable of seeing that ‘she is old enough to be in love’ will be listened to or conversed with.
It is, in many ways, not unlike an earthquake taking place inside the growing girl. The onset of her menstrual cycle mirrors a form of human earthquake taking place inside her mind and body. Seismic change starts to occur which shatters all former stability of parental advice and anchorage that once kept the girl grounded, and as the plates of parental/child resistance begin to rub against each other, potentially greater destructive forces are brought into play.
This is the stage in many young girl’s lives when they are more likely to go off the rails and engage in all manner of inexplicable behaviour. They can become overconcerned with body image, think themselves to be too fat, too spotty, too ugly, too unlovable etc. This is their most dangerous age to become anorexic, engage in drug experimentation, give too much consideration to what other school pupils think of them or say about them. Peer opinion comes to matter much more than parental advice. This is also the age when running away from home becomes a greater likelihood.
It is such times in your young daughter’s development when she requires a mother’s love and understanding more than ever before.
Whereas society tends to focus upon the physiological body changes taking place, too little attention is given to the mental and psychological shifts that are also occurring as she shifts from a girl into young womanhood.
At the most basic level, when adolescence arrives in a young girl’s life, this is a crucial stage where her involvement and quality of interaction with her mother assumes greater importance. Sensible mothers who can afford are well advised to take their adolescent daughter into town on a shopping spree. Her change in body status from girl to a young woman is deserving of being fitted out with a brand, new wardrobe.
This time, however, allow your daughter to select the store she shops in and the design of clothes she chooses to buy for wearing. This is a time for mum’s lips to remain tightly closed and her purse wide open as her daughter selects stylish shoes that look great even though they may not walk as smartly as other footwear do. This is the time when the mother does not raise her eyebrows as her daughter buys a fashionable dress with a higher hemline than previously worn. This is an occasion in her young daughter’s life when 'style' is permitted to trump 'common sense'.
The very first change of clothing wear the young girl will get her mother to buy will be stockings instead of the Bobby Socks, to denote that she is no longer a girl but is now in the season of budding womanhood.
Love and peace. Bill xxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Please note that I originally sang this song for my niece Jessica's 18th birthday a few months ago, but it is an appropriate song for my message today. I have always regarded this song as a ‘coming of age’ which speaks to a passage of rights of the growing adolescent girl. These turbulent years between thirteen and sixteen are a time when no adult seems capable in the young girl’s mind of understanding her situation and truly knowing her needs like the new boy she is dating does. At a time when the young girl’s blood flows to reveal her change in status from ‘girl’ to ‘young woman’, all her body sensations intensify to the point that the thoughts in her head run the danger of mental explosion. Her brain appears to abandon all manner of reason, and nothing or no one who is incapable of seeing that ‘she is old enough to be in love’ will be listened to or conversed with.
It is, in many ways, not unlike an earthquake taking place inside the growing girl. The onset of her menstrual cycle mirrors a form of human earthquake taking place inside her mind and body. Seismic change starts to occur which shatters all former stability of parental advice and anchorage that once kept the girl grounded, and as the plates of parental/child resistance begin to rub against each other, potentially greater destructive forces are brought into play.
This is the stage in many young girl’s lives when they are more likely to go off the rails and engage in all manner of inexplicable behaviour. They can become overconcerned with body image, think themselves to be too fat, too spotty, too ugly, too unlovable etc. This is their most dangerous age to become anorexic, engage in drug experimentation, give too much consideration to what other school pupils think of them or say about them. Peer opinion comes to matter much more than parental advice. This is also the age when running away from home becomes a greater likelihood.
It is such times in your young daughter’s development when she requires a mother’s love and understanding more than ever before.
Whereas society tends to focus upon the physiological body changes taking place, too little attention is given to the mental and psychological shifts that are also occurring as she shifts from a girl into young womanhood.
At the most basic level, when adolescence arrives in a young girl’s life, this is a crucial stage where her involvement and quality of interaction with her mother assumes greater importance. Sensible mothers who can afford are well advised to take their adolescent daughter into town on a shopping spree. Her change in body status from girl to a young woman is deserving of being fitted out with a brand, new wardrobe.
This time, however, allow your daughter to select the store she shops in and the design of clothes she chooses to buy for wearing. This is a time for mum’s lips to remain tightly closed and her purse wide open as her daughter selects stylish shoes that look great even though they may not walk as smartly as other footwear do. This is the time when the mother does not raise her eyebrows as her daughter buys a fashionable dress with a higher hemline than previously worn. This is an occasion in her young daughter’s life when 'style' is permitted to trump 'common sense'.
The very first change of clothing wear the young girl will get her mother to buy will be stockings instead of the Bobby Socks, to denote that she is no longer a girl but is now in the season of budding womanhood.
Love and peace. Bill xxx
