What I Learned From Sitting In A Girl’s Dressing Room in 2020

If you’re only here to find out the answer, you can skip to the bottom of this post where I have summarised the message and take-aways for you.

The preceding story, however, provides insight that is imperative to the overall context of the post.

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I’m a parent helper in the girls' dressing room at my daughter’s dance show. My daughter’s eleven, and her dance group consists of ten to fourteen-year-olds.

I don’t know if I’m surprised by my observations, as such. But I’m definitely surprised. And alarmed.

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The girls eye me cautiously as I enter the room. One thing I’ve always done well is held a poker face. It usually serves me well with girls of this age.

There are seven girls, including my daughter, and sometimes an eighth that departs the dressing room on occasion to dance in another group. She’s nice. Well mannered. Shy. The group seems to have accepted her as their own. We’ll call her Shygirl.

Every one of them is holding a Smartphone. They acknowledge new entrants to the room, and are chatting amongst themselves but, mostly, their eyes and fingers are glued to their phones.

There’s one tall, beautiful girl. Statured for dancing, her costume fitting like a glove. She’s well mannered, fun, and graceful. She’s chatty, and the other girls stop to listen when she speaks; they adore her. She doesn’t seem to notice, only caring about being beautifully, authentically herself. We’ll call her Princess.

Next is Princess’s sidekick. She’s, again, fun and chatty. Shorter than Princess, and beautiful, but not quite as well statured. Again, she does her own thing without seeming to notice what anyone else thinks of her. She’s slightly self-absorbed, but not rude. She participates, she shares, and I don’t hear her put anyone else down in my time in the dressing room.

A good chunk of her time is spent drawing cool, colorful creations in her notebook. She has spunk, and she and Princess are thick as thieves. We’ll call her Sidekick.

Next is Queen Bee. She’s been sat on the most prominently placed seat in the dressing room, on her phone, barely acknowledging anyone, since we arrived. The first thing I hear out of her mouth is a whinge about how shit the wifi is.

She occasionally offers contributions to the girls’ conversation but, for the most part, she’s engrossed in her phone.

She’s the tallest, and “oldest" looking of the lot, other than Princess, and the girls seem to look to her consistently for validation, verbally seeking her agreement or input into their conversation.

It doesn’t take me long to realise that she’s dictating what everyone else is doing on their phones. Some group game.

Next is The Dark Horse. She’s sat next to Queen Bee on her phone. For the majority of the day, I only really see her talking to Queen Bee, or stuck to her phone. She’s quiet, and struggles (or refuses) to make eye contact with me. I never do decide whether she’s just overly shy and anxious, or snotty and dismissive. She gives nothing away the entire day.

Next is Miss Anything-Goes. She’s the only one of the lot that goes to school with my daughter; they’re in the same class together, as they have been in previous years.

I’m not that fond of her if I’m honest. There’s something I find incredibly annoying about her. It probably has a lot to do with her general disregard for authority, and lack of manners. There’s a spoiled, entitled arrogance about her that, from my observations, appears to run entirely unchecked.

Lastly, is Tiny. She’s the smallest, and youngest, of the lot. She seems to engage well with my daughter. And everyone adores her. I will later learn that her Mum is in the dressing room next door.

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If they were shy about my presence, no one would have known it. I sat quietly, abandoned by my child, the only parent helper in the room.

I figured I would entertain myself on my phone until I was needed. These girls were all old enough to sort themselves out and were already in their costumes, with hair and makeup done, on arrival. Parents helpers are simply there in case anything goes wrong, to help with costume mishaps, and to keep some extent of civility and sound control in the dressing rooms.

For a short time, I listen to their chitchat — nothing notable. All I can really hear is “Bro, the wifi is so shit.” None of them are “bro’s”. Not one of them exhibits even a smidge of “bro”.

Having tried to engage with the other girls, my daughter pops up in front of me, pleading eyes, asking to watch TikToks on my phone because she’s being ignored. She doesn’t have a phone. She did for a brief time but, being the little rebel that she is, repeatedly disregarding the rules, she had her phone removed from her for the time being.

I look around. Every head is lowered to their phone, fingers typing or scrolling. *sigh* I hand over my phone and sit staring at the wall, wishing I’d brought a book. Oh well, time for some unplanned meditation. I’m not opposed to time alone with my thoughts. This definitely isn’t going to be an all-day situation, though. Not having a phone today will give my daughter a good chance to think about why she lost hers.

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The girls sit watching TikToks together, chatting amongst themselves. After a while, one of them pulls out a pack of Uno, and they all sit down in a circle to play together.

Miss Anything Goes sits in the circle, but won’t put down her phone and participate. She’s spent the entire time since arriving roughly like this:

Text for 5 to 10 minutes, take a selfie, text for another 5 to 10 minutes, then get up and stare at self in the mirror, and reposition fake eyelashes, for 10ish minutes. Then, go back to texting and taking selfies, and telling the other girls about the boy she’s talking to on Snapchat.

She shows photos of the boy to the other girls, telling them about him. She’s sat with her back to me so I can see over her shoulder. The boy she’s talking to looks to be in his late teens, early 20’s. I shudder as it occurs to me that her parents probably have no idea what she gets up to on her phone.

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Of all of the social media apps that I would consider allowing my eleven-year-old to have, Snapchat would not be one of them. Chats that disappear as soon as you click out of them? The inability to monitor who your child is talking to, and what type of conversations they’re having? *shudders again*

No matter what kind of parent you are, there are going to be times when your child is upset with you and doesn’t appreciate the boundaries you set for them.

The concept of being able to connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, through social media, makes the internet a disgusting and dangerous place for a naive, confused, and emotional pre-teen to be.

Seriously. If you haven’t watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix yet, do so. ASAP. Educate. Yo. Self.

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The girls are having fun playing cards, except for Miss Anything-Goes, who won’t get off her phone, or shut up about the guy she’s texting. She continues trying to pull the other girls into her experience, but they are having very little of it, telling her to “get off her phone and stop being boy crazy”.

“What if he wants me to meet him and asks to do stuff?” Miss Anything-Goes asks, giggling. I gather that her angle is shock-value, in an attempt to try and engage the other girls. It only seems to be isolating her from them, as they look sideways at her, very confused, before continuing on with their game.

Although she likely has a fairly innocent angle, I am still shocked to hear the words come out of an eleven-year old’s mouth. I’m certain that, while my eleven-year old is well informed about sex and puberty, she isn’t thinking about fooling around with boys.

The girls are becoming louder and louder throughout their card game. They’re having fun, and they’re not causing any trouble, so I don’t want to be a party pooper, but several teachers have come into our dressing room already, asking them to quiet down, due to exams going on in a room nearby.

I give them intermittent “shhhh’s”, and polite “girls, noise,” reminders. Princess keeps eyeing me nervously and, after a while, she takes control of the noise level monitoring, giving the group regular reminders to quiet down, glancing at me each time.

I give her a warm smile of appreciation.

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It’s a long day in the dressing room, with a lot of waiting around. There’s a rehearsal at 10:30 am, followed by two shows at 2:30 pm and 6:00 pm.

We break at 1:00 pm for lunch, and then again at 5:00 pm, for dinner.

The girls come back from rehearsal just before lunch, and Queen Bee is addressing the group regarding the quality of their performance in rehearsal. She’d had someone record it on her phone, and she was rewatching it.

“Guys, that was sloppy. That was so sloppy. We need to do better than that. Miss Anything-Goes, you need to come on faster. And you dance too fast. You need to slow down.” She turns to my daughter next.

“And, you. You guys were causing so much trouble. If you can’t stand quietly and wait until it’s your turn to go on stage, well, then you’re just showing that you can’t be trusted.”

My daughter gasps in shock, stating that it wasn’t her that was causing trouble. Followed very quickly by the statement that it wasn’t her alone. She’s a rascal and a half. I can appreciate that a smile from someone else in the group is all it would have taken for her to get the idea in her head that they wanted to playfight too. She eyes Miss Anything-Goes sideways, and they giggle.

My eyes narrow slightly at Queen Bee’s demeanor. What a bossy little madam, trying to throw her weight around in the teacher’s absence. Every inch of me wants to tell her to sit down and shut up, but I let it play out.

I’m interested to see if my daughter will let herself be pushed around, or if she will stand up for herself. I’m not always going to be there to fight her battles for her; I need to stand back and let her figure it out herself.

Reminder: Do not let the poker face waiver. We are observing with equal parts amusement, shock, and disgust.

Queen Bee rolls her eyes and she and her bitch face turn their attention elsewhere. I satisfy myself by saying a rude comment to her in my head. My maturity levels are staggering; I know.

Checking her phone, Queen Bee continues discussing the rehearsal with Princess, suddenly blurting out “Oi, my anxiety’s been so crazy today. Look, I’m shaking.” She holds out her hand in demonstration. Her tone of voice is almost braggy, like the declaration is some medal of honour, designed to earn her the respect of her peers.

As someone who suffers from anxiety, she is pretty close to the least anxious looking person I have ever seen. I roll my eyes again, thinking to myself — what a twat.

Immediately, it occurs to me that she’s young, with much to learn, and I dismiss my ill-intentioned thoughts. Don’t be so harsh. She’s still a child.

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I’m standing, waiting for my daughter to change before we leave for lunch. A Mum from the dressing room next door comes in to the room, a littley attached to her leg, asking Tiny to get dressed before leaving for lunch.

Clear instructions have been given by the dance teachers that costumes are not to be worn outside of the building, and that dancers would need to change before and after lunch.

Tiny declares that she doesn’t want to get dressed. The Mum responds politely, encouraging Tiny to get dressed so that she can go out for lunch. A storm cloud comes over Tiny’s face, and a very firm attitude enters her tone of voice, stating that she’s NOT getting dressed.

The Mum glances my way and smiles, looking a little embarrassed, maybe not wanting to cause a scene. By the tone in which she responds to Tiny, I put two and two together that they are a Mother/Daughter duo.

Tiny turns and exits the dressing room to go to lunch, ignoring her Mum’s instructions to get dressed. I feel for her Mum.

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The rest of the group departs the dressing room for lunch. There’s a shared area outside where everyone’s been instructed to sit together, but me and my daughter had planned to drive somewhere near by to get lunch.

As I wait for my daughter to finish changing out of her costume, Miss Anything-Goes emerges from the changing room next door, declaring that she is ready to go to lunch. I inform her that me and my daughter are leaving the premises, and I offer to walk her out to the rest of the group, seeing as everyone else has left without her. She looks shy all of a sudden, and a little anxious, but smiles and nods.

As the day wears on, Miss Anything-Goes appears to notice that she’s isolated herself. Several times she tries to join in the group conversation or activities, but none of the others really pay any attention to her.

She engages with my daughter who is always accommodating of company and conversation and, for the remainder of the day, seems to cling to her every time she’s not on her phone, or staring at herself in the mirror.

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Post-lunch, and bored of her current predicament, Princess gets up off her seat where she’s positioned, on her phone, and moves beside me, sitting on the floor. She asks to borrow Queen Bee’s headphones and sits, listening to music, with her head hung between her knees, looking painfully bored.

A little under five minutes later, she gets up, retrieving something from her bag. Sitting on the floor, with a bag of lego, she starts making something. A couple of minutes pass and Sidekick sits down beside her. Whatever is playing through her headphones can’t be that loud as she engages in conversation over her headphones.

After a while, Queen Bee sits down beside them, joining in the lego making.

“You guys, I’m such a child, playing with these toys. I’m sorry. There’s something wrong with me,” Princess says, dramatically. The other girls giggle and they continue playing lego, chatting away.

Their conversation turns to talk about a mutual female acquaintance, with Princess stating that she and said acquaintance used to be friends, but that they don’t hang out anymore because said acquaintance started getting upset with Princess when she didn’t want to play with her on her breaks.

“Do you know what that is?” Queen Bee asks. It’s more of a statement than a question. “That’s toxic, bro. That’s toxic.”

She’s not entirely wrong. I can’t help but roll my eyes anyway. She’s clearly been eavesdropping on adult conversations, or watching far too much reality TV.

It occurs to me that she appears to be trying to position herself as the “mature" member of the group in an attempt to intimidate the rest of the group into thinking that she has a level of knowledge and insight that they don’t have, which will in turn award her a sense of power over them and, ultimately, allow her to conclude a sense of importance about herself that she may or may not already have. I’m picking the latter.

“Yeah. And, I’m not trying to be sad, but, she’s really behind with everything. Like, she has a phone but I don’t even know what it is. Like, it’s not an iPhone, it’s just like a Vodafone or something,” Princess explains.

I gather, she means that it’s not a Smartphone. This comment makes my heart sink. I mentally take Princess off the pedestal I had put her on. What an awfully shallow reason to disregard someone. Obviously, it’s not the main reason. But I find it repulsive that it’s *a* reason.

Further reminder: Do not let the poker face waiver. We are observing with equal parts amusement, shock, and disgust.

I consider to myself that they’re young, with so much yet to learn about life, and they are growing up in a digital world with heavy materialistic influences.

Side thought: What percentage does parental influence realistically account for these days?

Maybe their parents are busy professionals that don’t have time to sit and talk with them? Maybe their parents are too naive to realise that their child has these kinds of thoughts? Maybe communication isn’t there? Maybe they’re awful parents? Maybe they’re not? Maybe it doesn’t make a damn difference? Everyone has their reasons for being how they are. Who am I to judge? God knows I have overheard my own child saying some very bizarre things when she thought I wasn’t listening.

Maybe they have wonderful parents that strive to teach them, and communicate effectively, but they choose to look up to material people anyway. Who knows? Maybe it’s just human nature; part of living and learning.

Still, I can’t shake my disappointment that the comment that just came out of Princess's mouth didn’t align with the beautiful, graceful, well-mannered, persona that I’d summed her up to be in my head. Time to reassess.

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My daughter is sat watching TikTok videos on her phone, with Dark Horse sat beside her, and Tiny stood behind them, looking over their shoulder.

I can’t hear the majority of their conversation, but I do hear Tiny declare “Yup. I’m a TikTokker. And a YouTuber.” I frown, mentally trying to pin her age.

I have no interest in my daughter being either of those things at her age. I have nothing against TikTokkers or YouTubers, but what could an eleven year old possibly know about going viral? Or the effects of global fame and recognition? Or privacy and security? Or how to keep herself safe?

I think back to the interaction I’d witnessed earlier between Tiny and her Mum, and wonder about the rules and boundaries of their household…

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My time of being a parent helper in the dressing room had ended, and I’d made my way in to the auditorium to watch the 6:00 pm show.

As I sat watching my daughter’s dance group perform, it occurred to me that not one of them looked confident. And Queen Bee was no exception. Her shit was sloppy.

Their dance group had only been together for about half a year, meeting once a week, before the show took place and, during that time, they had faced the challenge of having to practise via Zoom classes due to Covid. They were still learning new parts to their dance in the morning rehearsal before the show! They were terribly disorganised, and it showed. All of them were a little sloppy, through no fault of their own.

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So, what did I learn from sitting in a girl’s dressing room in 2020?

1. It’s natural to make assumptions and pass judgment, but when you observe without judgement, you see things that you wouldn’t otherwise have seen; things are not always as they appear to be.

2. Even the most seemingly confident and outgoing individual is insecure, and just trying to figure out how to fit in to the world.

3. Parents in this modern, digital world face challenges that simply did not exist for parents of past generations.

4. Effective communication is vital to your child’s life path. There is comfort to be found in mastering the ability to speak your child’s language.

5. As a parent, your message must be louder, kinder, wiser, and more meaningful, than everything else in your child’s orbit.

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Follow me for more raw and insightful observations about people and life.

And, keep an eye out for an upcoming post about Active vs. Passive Communication.