The Good Girl...

I used to have a poetry album, just like everyone else. The idea was to get everyone you knew to write a poem in it. Poetry albums were incredibly popular. You’d have one from the age of about five or six, sometimes even younger.
Then you’d go round with your album, showing it to people and begging them to write something in it. Parents, grandparents, teachers, aunts, brothers and sisters, cousins and classmates. Well, classmates... Most of them couldn’t write yet, so their mums did it for them. If that was the case, at least the poetry album wasn’t ruined. No smudged pages full of spelling mistakes or ugly drawings or pictures with thick layers of glue. Not to mention felt-tip pens that bled through the paper and made the previous text illegible.

Incidentally, poetry album stickers were also sold for those albums. Often these were sheets with several pictures that you had to cut out. There were simple ones, but also some with glitter on them.

What sort of things were in a poetry album? Mostly the standard, silly poetry album verses that the average girl today would certainly find insulting. It was always the same nonsense: ‘Be a good girl, catch the spiders, clean the kitchen, scrub the floors, don’t be afraid, make sure to be a good girl, make everyone liking you...’

The only variety was bits of text from the Bible (far from poetic) and very occasionally there was something personal in there. A wish or...

Back then, people certainly had better writing and spelling skills, and they were also motivated to join in with the poetry album hype. This lasted for about two to three generations and then... the book was replaced by the friendship book. Just a booklet with pre-printed text and images. All the person asked to do was fill in their name, their address, and if they wanted to, a photo could be stuck in. They could also write down where they had met the owner of the book. Sometimes a wish could be added.

The friendship book didn’t last long. There was absolutely no room for creativity. Mums would fill in the details, or people would say they weren’t interested.
These were the first signs of a new generation that was nowhere near as good at reading and writing. Where schools no longer paid attention to creativity and where computers and gaming became far more important than playing outside with friends, doing puzzles, reading and everything to do with social skills.

The only ‘good girl’ you come across these days is the one in the film, or someone labelled as such simply because she is uneducated, naive and too kind-hearted, and is always there for others. And just like in that silly little poem, she has learnt that nobody loves her unless she works herself to death to please the entire world. People taking her for granted.

_{19-5-2026
Prompt: see title
The Photo was taken by me - unless mentioned otherwise}