Recently, a few middle school–aged girls from the Waverly Project, "an organization with a mission to inspire young women through creativity, culture, writing, and service," dropped by BuzzFeed HQ in New York. We talked with them to find out a few of the things they wish adults knew about girls their age and some misconceptions that their parents have about their generation.
Here's what they had to say!
1. We’re not on our phones all the time.
2. And when we are, we’re not always texting.
3. Our parents think we don’t eat healthy food.
4. But we’re onto our parents’ sneaky ways with food.
5. We don’t really watch TV!
6. We’re not the same as our older sibling.
7. But we do feel a lot of pressure to do the right thing.
8. We know you’re the tooth fairy — just give it up already.
9. We don’t go online just to comment on our friends’ posts or see what celebs are up to.
We're really into games — and want to read more on the internet about them!
10. And even *we* don’t always know all the new abbreviations on social media.
11. We’re not into One Direction.
12. We’d rather buy our own clothes — from the places we like — than have our parents pick stuff out for us.
13. We’re not that girly; we don’t wear dresses all the time.
14. We actually don’t go — or even want to go — shopping often. Only when we need things!
15. Girls play sports with their dads and like watching sports too.
16. Our teachers think school is our *whole* life.
17. We get confused when our parents tell us to “watch our tone.” What do they even mean by a “tone”?!
18. But please don't try to wear our clothes, Mom.
19. We’re annoyed that you have to watch things before we do to make sure they're appropriate for us.
20. Our parents don’t believe that we read. WE LOVE READING!
21. But we know our parents' book clubs are really just a gossip circle — we're onto you!
22. Finally, we don’t like how a lot of adults categorize us as either a “bad” kid or a “good” kid.
