Rookies

A few months ago, I listened to a piece from TEDRadio on NPR that had me driving down the road with my jaw hung in awe. This amazing teenager spoke of her ever-unfolding experience as a young woman in this world with such bold honesty and uncanny wisdom that I nearly drove off the road. If you have not checked out Rookie.com, go do it right now.

Tavi Gevinson is a high school senior who refers to herself as "a senior citizen who goes to high school." She is more perceptive and witty and earnest than most of the chronological senior citizens I know, and she hasn't even graduated high school yet. But in all her prodigious wisdom, Tavi is so thoroughly a teenage girl. The difference between her and so many others is that she accepts that, takes complete ownership of it, and glories in the uncharted territory she is blasting through.

The greatest gift she offers her generation is a voice. She started a fashion blog in middle school and now has a website that is peopled by a number of bright young female contributors like her who face the challenges and triumphs and everyday flotsom of adolescence with grace and honesty. They share that space with any girl who dares to consider who she is and who she hopes to be. She can ask questions and search for the answers. She can give herself permission to take part in a discussion. After all, as Tavi explains, life is not a game that comes with a playbook and a set of rules, no matter how hard the "in-crowd" would like to claim it. Life is a discussion, and people are complex. No one is merely "one thing" or even two. We are full of contradictions and complexities and we should embrace them. Tavi not only "gets" that, she gives all teenage girls a place to embrace it.

One of my favorite points in her TED Talk comes at the end when she advises her audience to be Stevie Nicks. Stevie Nicks is "unapologetically present on stage and unapologetic about her flaws and about reconciling all her contradictory feelings, and she makes you listen to them and think about them."

If you have a teenaged daughter, introduce her to Rookiemag.com, and if you write for teenage girls, stop by and visit this insightful, unabashedly real website and meet that girl you are speaking to.