Betsy Tacy Forever!

Fear of missing out is not a new phenomenon. Many of the worst decisions of my life can be attributed to wanting to be where the action is, rather than being where I should be to get things done. (See entire college education, 1984-1989.)

In the works of Maud Hart Lovelace, the newly acronym-ed FoMo plays a role, even in the early 20^th century. In HEAVEN TO BETSY, when Betsy is honored with a place in the essay contest, she blows her preparation time because of a slew of parties to honor a friends who is moving away. In BETSY IN SPITE OF HERSELF Cab and Tony are supposed to read the noble work of IVANHOW the night before there sophomore year of high school begins. Instead, they decide to hang out at the Ray's, making fudge and singing tunes. Emily Webster of the apocryphal EMILY OF DEEP VALLEY attends the sleigh ride from hell when her friends are home from college even though she knows she is on a pity date and she will be spending the entire evening shivering in the Minnesota winter while her best friend and cousin unknowingly flirts with the undeserving boy who holds her heart. But she doesn't want to miss out.

There are a lot of parallels to current teenage behavior (and adult behavior, too) in these books. Instead of going to Five Guys to celebrate the last night of summer, Betsy and Tacy take a picnic up on the big hill. When Carney's beau Larry moves away to California, Betsy helps her get over it with the 1907 equivalent of listening to Fall Out Boy and binge watching Gilmore Girls – she listens to Carney play classical pieces on the piano and reads out loud to her when she sews. And Betsy's Christmas in Milwaukee is her own French/Music/Spanish trip – the first somewhat-independent trip that is a rite of passage for current upper middle class girls. Especially those who want to come home dramatic and mysterious.

The reason I love these books so much is because even though they are set in a very specific time, the experience of being a high school student generally shares the same emotional arc. Certainly not for everyone, but for many smart girls who like to read and write. And I was (and remain) just that sort of smart girl. Maud Hart lived that arc in the aughts, my mom did it in the 50s, I did it in the 80s and there are the same things going on now in the twenty-teens. Is it the lattice of coincidence? The circle of life? The wind beneath my wings? Perhaps not, but it is a shared experience of young womanhood that Ms Lovelace was brilliant at putting on the page.