The Boy With the Green Skimming Board

The medical world has just released results of a study on the development of adolescence--that it is happening much earlier than in previous years. The contributing factors are unknown at this point, of course, but they include social, physical, and environmental factors. I didn't have to be told this new information, however, since I have been observing the changes in my eleven-year-old granddaughter for several months. Most apparent is that she is now showing a great interest in the opposite sex. Instead of being mere nuisances, as in the past, they are now her primary concern in life it appears. An example occurs from our recent beach trip to Galveston.

We arrived on a Sunday evening, and the children wanted to put on their swimming suits and go immediately to the beach. Upon our arrival, our granddaughter strolled into the water clad in her two-piece flowered suit with full make-up on. I have noticed this summer for the first time that her body has developed the curves of a young woman. A boy with a green skimming board looked to be about her age. The romance was on at that point with subtle glances from one to the other, a gradual moving of locations so that soon they were swimming in close proximity to one another, and a casual exchanging of names. By the next night, they were walking together on the beach looking for shells, talking constantly about their lives in Baton Rouge and Little Rock, and planning future times to be together.

I try, at age sixty-five, to remember my own adolescence. I remember being quite into actively still playing with dolls at age ten. By age eleven, I too was feeling that I was approaching adulthood and did not need any close supervision by any adults. At age twelve on the Mississippi coast at Long Beach with my mother, sister, and grandmother, I was actively flirtatious. The years might have gone by too quickly for me, but I don't think adolescence and its beginning have changed that much through time.