There are textbooks, and then there’s girlhood.
One drills you in trigonometry, which you’ll forget by twenty; the other teaches you how to enter a bathroom with a stranger and walk out with a soulmate. Schools gave us report cards, but girlhood handed us survival manuals - scribbled in group chats, whispered at sleepovers, and scrawled in eyeliner on the back of receipts.
Where classrooms graded equations, girlhood graded vibes. It wasn’t accredited, but it was essential. No lectures, just lived experience: how to hype your best friend after heartbreak, how to turn a party into an escape route, how to cry and reapply mascara in the same five minutes.
Messy, magical, and impossible to standardize - girlhood became the real syllabus of life. And unlike algebra, these lessons stayed.
Here’s to the lessons you’ll never find in a classroom but always in the company of women.
The Unwritten Lessons of Girlhood
Lesson 1: The Eyebrow Curriculum
No teacher prepared us for the sacred ritual of threading, tweezing, or—God forbid—over-plucking. That education came from bathroom mirrors, cousins with shaky hands, and girlfriends yelling, “Stop! That’s enough!” Girlhood taught us that brows frame your face, but also that growing them back is an act of patience and prayer.
Lesson 2: Heartbreak 101
Shakespeare could never. Nothing prepared us for the syllabus of first loves, ghosted texts, and crying into fries at midnight. But girlhood did. It taught us heartbreak is not survived alone - it’s survived in group chats, with eyeliner streaks and playlists that heal in three minutes flat. And the extra-credit lesson? Someday, you’ll laugh about it - usually too loudly.
Lesson 3: Bathroom Politics
No classroom ever explained the unspoken treaty of women’s bathrooms. But girlhood taught us the rules: if a zipper breaks, three strangers will engineer a fix. If eyeliner smudges, someone will whip out a Q-tip like it’s a sword. If you cry, a whole assembly of women will pat, hype, and fix your mascara. It’s where solidarity gets sprayed with perfume and sealed with compliments.
Lesson 4: The Art of Disappearing
School drilled punctuality. Girlhood drilled escape plans. How to leave parties without announcement, dodge creeps with invented cousins, or just vanish from chaos because you know your energy is better spent in bed. We learned boundaries not from textbooks but from women whispering, “Text me when you get home safe.”
Lesson 5: The Economy of Accessories
Math class never explained the barter system of girlhood - earrings swapped at brunch, necklaces borrowed indefinitely, and rings gifted during breakups. Jewellery circulates like currency between friends, carrying stories more valuable than receipts. Each piece is less “mine” or “yours” and more “ours.”
Conclusion: The Real Syllabus of Girlhood
Girlhood was the school we never applied to, never graduated from, and never really left. Its lessons weren’t neat or graded - they were messy, magical, and stitched into who we are.
From eyebrows to heartbreaks, bathroom solidarity to borrowed jewelry, girlhood taught us resilience, beauty, and the art of always showing up for each other.
Because the truth is: school taught us how to pass tests. Girlhood taught us how to live.