Backlash

When your mother calls them "prophylactics," and then later clarifies them as "rubbers," that's when you truly know that, wow, we really were born in different eras. You realize this after you're done laughing, but you realize it all the same. Mother, you think that New York City is still overrun with crime and stabbings, an erotic cake gives you the willies, you act as if you've seen a ghost. It's a time when you had to work for things. A time when you said screw these bras, screw your standards. No, you don't need to ask my dad for my hand in marriage but I'm still not taking your name. I'm not staying home. I'm making my own goddamn name. You can have mine if you like. And you see these people, these girls today, and you see them going backwards. They're going backwards and it's almost like they're running, running back to these archaic values and superstitions you worked so hard to debunk. And you, child, you can understand why your mother would still use the language she used back then. She looks around, maybe a little sad, maybe a little down, and she realizes that she's worked so hard and hardly a goddamn thing has changed. So you, child, maybe you should stop laughing.