Sisterly Worries

I got some news just now.
Some news that has made me worried.

Libby told the family at dinner today that she had changed groups. This was news to me, even though we go to the same school; I just hardly see her at school I wouldn’t have a clue who she hung out with. I asked who her new group was. And she told me whose group it was.

I don’t like her new group.
They’re the ones who have got a reputation for going out to parties and getting smashed. They’re the ones who I'm sure have got laid before; basically, God knows what they’ve been up to, certainly not stuff that I want my little sister to get involved in.

When she told me who she was now hanging out with, I made a scene, saying stuff like “But they go out drinking!” and whatever. Naturally, she gets fired up, saying that “Stephanie, you don’t even know them, you always just judge my friends, they don’t even go out and drunk and I would NEVER do that!”

Well, see the thing is Libby, is that I do actually know them.
I know the type of people they are and I have seen with my own eyes the type of people they become.
And I don’t want you to become one of them.
You say that you wouldn’t go to parties and get drunk and whatever.
But when your actually there?
You will.
Because everyone else will and you wont “be cool” if you don’t.
So dont get involved in the first place.

Why cant you see what they are like? Why cant you have friends that have their minds in the right places, that worry about schoolwork or their family instead of who their next going to hook up with or which party they are next going to go to?

Because you are too self-conscious and too self-absorbed and you must have the best of everything and be considered “cool”.

Can’t you see that “being cool” doesn’t matter? That wearing make-up and having the hottest boyfriend doesn’t matter? That having credit and being able to text people doesn’t matter? That having the newest fashion doesn’t matter? That going to Chermside every weekend doesn’t matter?
Why cant you see that all of this doesn’t matter?

What maters is what you will do with your life, getting good grades now so that you can use them later to get a job or go to uni.

Your just too much of a typical teenager, to concerned about the here and now to see the big picture. You cant see that how you perform in school now affects the rest of your life?
You cant make the wrong choices now because it will just screw everything up.
Which kinda sucks because your teenage years are where everything little seems important.

Geese I hate hormones. They just screw everything up.
God damn it.

But Libby please, please don’t do this. If you end up in the wrong group the rest of your life is affected. You need to see this. Please.

Please just get your priorities right.
“Being cool” isn’t important and you need to realise this.
I feel responsible, as your older sister, to teach you this. Mum and Dad cant, because they don’t understand; they’re not part of our generation, part of our culture to understand and to teach you what right and what’s wrong.

I know it sounds horrible, but why can’t you be more like me?
Why can’t you see who will get you into trouble and who will keep you on the right track?
Why can’t you not be so self-conscious and not worry about what everyone thinks of you?
But your not like me, so its harder to get you to understand.