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Alison Skirtboston

Skirt! Boston editor

Skirt! is evidence that the universe is paying attention: I spent the last six years at mach speed, whether finishing college (Emerson) while writing full time for Boston Globe West (2001-2004) or editing the Boston Parents’ Paper during the day while holding down the steady gig writing for Globe ...

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Mom Watches Juno

Alison, editor

SO there I was in the living room on a Friday night, watching the teen pregnancy movie Juno with 4 kids in eighth grade (one was mine). I was more nervous than they were.

That afternoon, I’d told my nonconformist daughter, Grace, 14,  that she HAD TO make sure her friends told their parents which movie they planned to watch at our house. “Sure, no problem,” she said, nonchalantly. I was skeptical. Would I have allowed my other daughters to see this movie at a friend’s house? How exactly had they seen it before me ... about three times?

Early on, I noted the great writing. I keep mental note of the fabulous one-liners delivered by Juno, a high school student pregnant by accident. I was sure that “the baby has fingernails” would be the most memorable.

Then I was sure, “Have you been expelled?” Would be the title of this blog.

Soon those fell to “I feel like a planet,” and the conversation “How far along are you? I’m a junior.” And, the apt “I”m wearing a fat suit I can’t take off” and “Thundercaps are GO!”

Another was when my ill-prepared husband walked into the room during a sex scene flashback and declared “We have to shut this off!” 

By the time the movie ended and the marvelous plot had played out (this gets, oh, 3.75 stars in my book) the drop-dead memorable, tear-jerking line was long in the past. It comes from the scene where the awkward 16-year-old product of a broken household told her father and stepmother she was pregnant. The most perfect, frame-worthy line of the whole 2-hour movie was...

“I don’t know what kind of girl I am.”

So, I cried when the baby was born (and it wasn’t just the Friday night-week-of-deadline week-glass of wine) and I teared up when the pregnant girl softly told her erstwhile boyfriend that she was pregnant. But the line that stayed with me was “I don’t know what kind of girl I am” because it so perfectly fits that time of life when kids are so vulnerable and in-between. It’s painful to remember and it’s painful to watch and sometimes it’s painful to be the mom trying to both educate and protect at the same time.