My Inner Child is a Punker

This will give you an intro to what I am talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bYK9p7RSpM


I was always a bit jealous of the guys (and occasional girl) in high school who would dress in the whole punk gear. This included leather jacket with to group names like Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, and more adorning it as well as sporting a mohawk or spiky hair that would make a porcupine jealous. Standing out as a punker took a lot of attitude that I was never comfortable with. I had the attitude inside, but was too afraid to express it on the outside verbally or aesthetically. My only "wild" outfits were a hot pink tie I got for my 16th birthday and a black and yellow shirt I wore for a while until I got sick of being called a bumblebee.

There was even a successful punk group that came out of my high school. Their name is The Offspring. The lead singer of the group graduated when I was a freshman, but I only knew him through mutual friends or acquaintances. I never took the stand it would have taken to be close to him or any true punkers in my school. Not that it is important to please any one person or group, but it is important to be true to one's self. My true self was that punker of which I speak.

A part of me truly hopes that my daughter becomes one of those punkers in school or at least feels comfortable to do so. Every child needs to have a time to revolt and I would like my daughter to do so by expressing who she truly is.

The challenge is to see why she is being a punker. Is it because she wants to be different than others and express how she truly feels or is it because of the she wants to fit into a group. Life involves finding which group we fit into, but my happiest time is when I found that I don't need to fit into any specific group. I had friends in school that were punkers, athletes, brainiacs, geeks, and those who didn't fit in one category or another.

Right now the way my daughter is I can't imagine her to be in a group just to fit in. She is much more of a type to lead whichever group she is in. My ex and my job is just to encourage her to make good choices and to see that she is worthy of being treated well. This sounds simple, but I know it is not such an easy task.