I’m ‘Hangin’ Tough’ and don’t care who knows it

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Lorie Love Hailey

July 1, 2010

By Lorie Love Hailey Register Editor The Richmond Register Thu Jul 01, 2010, 10:00 AM EDT

RICHMOND — In fifth grade, I was a huge fan of New Kids on the Block. And I was not alone. Every girl I knew had NKOTB T-shirts, cassettes, posters and even trading cards. We each had a favorite member; mine was Jonathan.

Everyone I knew was talking about “Hangin’ Tough,” or singing “The Right Stuff.”

But one day — it seemed literally overnight — the boy band was no longer cool. In fact, if you somehow missed that memo and wore your favorite New Kids shirt, you were subject to ridicule for still liking them.

My dad and stepmother, who lived in another state, made the mistake of buying me a New Kids sweatshirt for Christmas after they were no longer popular. The last time they had seen me, in the summer, I was all about the boy band. By Christmastime, the sweatshirt was a very embarrassing gift.

But, what had changed? How did it change so quickly?

Someone higher in the social standings decided NKOTB was no longer cool. And if you wanted to fit in, you had to quit liking them as well, even if you couldn’t stop humming “Please Don’t Go Girl” when no one else was around. So it goes for a tweenager.

I was reminded of that peer pressure last week when I took my 11-year-old cousin Maggie to the skating rink. On a Friday night.

What was I thinking?

The entire place was filled with girls aged 10 to 16, wearing the shortest shorts I had ever seen, flirting with boys and ripping every other girl to shreds.

I was transported back to my days as a young teen going skating at Finley’s Roller Rink in London. I could feel Maggie’s fear of rejection — “I hope no one makes fun of me,” she said more than once — as if it were my own, because I remember the feeling oh-so well. Girls are vicious, just as they were in the early 1990s. That hasn’t changed. Only now, they have iPhones.

Growing up, you spend about 99 percent of your time in survival mode. So, if Miss Popular Cheerleader says New Kids on the Block is no longer cool, you agree wholeheartedly and pretend you never practiced kissing on your bedroom poster of Joey McIntyre.

That’s a shame. A few girls have enough confidence to be individuals and like whatever they want. I’m sad to say I wasn’t one of them.

But as an adult, I am reclaiming the right to like whatever I want. And to have no shame about it. It is one of the best parts about being in my 30s. I feel more OK in my own skin than I ever have. Even if that skin is sitting in a line at the movie theater to watch the midnight showing of “Eclipse,” the third movie in the Twilight saga, which I did Tuesday night.

Amid a gaggle of tweens and teens, my 30-something friend and I sat in line and talked about our favorite characters and wondered aloud about how well the moviemakers would bring the best parts of the book to the screen. We were very excited and unashamed of it.

My friend Nicole, a 31-year-old mother who also braved the crowd to watch the premiere, said the experience gave her the rare chance to be young again.

“Standing in line in my RPattz tee, chatting giddily with fellow members of Team Edward and arguing with the poor, delusioned Jacobites, I am not a mother, wife or — gasp! — thirtysomething. I’m simply another fan amid hundreds just like me,” she said.

Regardless of what critics say, the vampire-themed books and movies are not just for young people. They tell the story of a girl finding herself, in the most unexpected place of course, and learning how to love. To me, there is nothing cheesy about that.

And, because I am not 12 anymore, I don’t care what you have to say about it.

Now, where can I download the “Hangin’ Tough” album?

Lorie Love Hailey is editor of the Richmond Register. She can be reached at llove@richmond register.com or 624-6690.

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