2019 Commencement Address: Stephanie Young '00

Good morning,

My name is Stephanie Young and I am a history teacher, a dorm parent, and alumna, and a proud aunt of one of today’s graduates. As a teacher, I am always teaching, all day, everywhere. While I love history, what I most like to teach the girls here, is life. As such, I have decided to use my time today as a cram session. This is my very last opportunity to prepare these girls, seniors and underclassmen alike, for life off this campus. So today I’m going to share 4 lessons. My hope is that in these four lessons there is something for everyone here to learn, or to relearn, to internalize, to accept, at the very least, to chew over for a minute or two.
1. Sing your own praises.

a. Students, you all live in a culture of complaining. Teens compete to see who can have the most miserable situation. Over time, this negativity will permeate your spirit. You will start to believe all the negative things you say about your life, and worse, others will start to believe them of you. Break the mold. The next time you hear people singing their miseries instead of their own praises, acknowledge their troubles, be respectful of their pain, and then let them know that your life is pretty amazing. Nothing will take the wind out of their sails quicker. There are people out there who genuinely want you to be miserable. They are unhappy with themselves, and they want you to be equally unhappy with yourself.

b. You all know the scene in Mean Girls when the girls are standing in front of the mirror highlighting all their insecurities? Don’t be like Cady in that scene. Don’t give in to peer pressure to make up an insecurity you do not have, or even to share an insecurity do you. Instead, sing your own praises. Some people do not know how to handle a confident woman. It’s almost taboo for a woman to like herself. Do it. It’s so much fun! This kind of positivity and self-praise is easy if you follow lesson #2.

2. Be a person you can love and respect.

a. One of the most difficult aspects of adolescence is the drive to fit in. I promise, you will grow out of it if you haven’t already. A friend said to me the other day that there is a difference between fitting in and belonging. Fitting in means you have learned the norms, behaviors, and habits to be accepted in a group. Belonging means the groups accepts you as you are, without the need for any new learned behaviors. When you fit in, you are changing some part of yourself to be accepted. When you belong, you get to be true to yourself.

b. Here’s the thing about fitting in: it’s exhausting. Every time the group changes, the “you” has to change. Then you have to be someone different with each group you’re in. Then, when groups collide, this leads to conflict because one group knows you as someone different than the other group does, and they’ll say, “Oh, so-and-so is so fake. When she’s with us she’s this way, but whenever she’s around those people she acts completely different.” It’s like playing multiple characters in the play, on the same night. Once the curtains close, once you’re all alone, who are you?

c. Who do you want to be? Imagine the person you want to be, exclusive of everyone else in your life. Define yourself, period. Not in relation to anyone else, not in relation to your family, your friends, your significant others. At the end of day, and a million other times throughout the day, while taking a shower, while walking across campus, while riding in the car, you are alone with you. Be someone you can look in the mirror. Be a person you don’t mind being alone with. Be a person you can love yourself, a person you can respect, on your own merit. Once you accept yourself for who you are, and love yourself, as you are, people will sense that about you, and they will learn, they can either take you as you are, or they can keep moving. This brings us to lesson # 3.

3. Savor the relationships you have made in life, but do not be afraid to let go of unhealthy relationships.

a. There is such a thing as relationship inertia: relationships in existence will stay in their current form of existence until acted upon by an equal or opposite force. We’ve all witnessed it and we’ve all been caught in it. Some of us are caught in right now. Think about a person who you were only ever friends with because your parents were friends with their parents. Growing up and getting autonomy from your parents is usually the force needed to break those forced friendships. The key here is that with the right kind of force you can break free! For some of you, boarding school was that force between you and middle school friends. That’s okay!

b. You are not the same person you were at the beginning of this year, the beginning of last year, or even four years ago. You are not even the exact same person you were yesterday. Every single day we have a million interactions and experiences that alter us, and every day we are born anew. It’s not acknowledged enough, but it’s okay to grow out of a friendship. Particularly as you, seniors, go off to college. You will pursue different interests, have different experiences, some wonderful and some — hopefully very few — heartbreaking. If you find a relationship is no longer good for you, let it go. Acknowledge the relationship, be appreciative for the good times, morn for the loss for a moment, and then make room for new relationships. Today, my closest, dearest, Foxcroft friend is someone I did not spend much time with when I was a student here. We started talking at our five-year reunion and have been inseparable ever since. Don’t maintain an unhealthy relationship because you’ve invested so much time into it or because it is what people expect you to do. Love yourself enough to demand only the best for yourself in your interpersonal relationships. Which brings us to the final lesson — but it’s less of lesson, more of a truth.

4. You teach people how to treat you, by how you treat yourself.

a. When you put yourself down, others will put you down too. When you accept less than you deserve, repeatedly, people will believe that that’s all you are worth. When you highlight your own flaws, people will only see you as that flaw, and when you publish your insecurities, you arm your enemies with the weapons to destroy you.

b. Love yourself and others will see that you deserve to be loved. Respect yourself and others will respect you. When you all leave through these gates, whether this afternoon or next week, you will be in a position to meet new people, forge new relationships, and have new experiences. Remember that your actions towards yourself will influence how others treat you. This includes everything from what you put on your body to what you put in your body. It includes the things you stand up for and the things you march against, the things you’ll give voice to, and the things you suffer in silence. Ultimately, we accept the things we think we deserve. Trust me, you don’t just deserve the best — you deserve to define what the best is, for you.

So, students, faculty, families, and guests:

1. Sing your own praises. Which is easy if you can…
2. Be a person you can love and respect. When you love and respect yourself, you will find yourself surrounded by people with whom you truly belong, and not just fit in. When you find those people…
3. Savor those relationships, but if you find you are merely fitting in with people with whom you once used to belong, don’t be afraid to let go of that unhealthy relationships because at the end of day…
4. You teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself. Define what’s best for you, and settle for nothing less than the best.

Class dismissed.
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An all-girls boarding and day school in Northern Virginia, Foxcroft prepares young women in grades 9-12 for success in college and in life. Our outstanding academic program offers challenging courses, including Advanced Placement classes and an innovative STEM program. Our premiere equestrian program is nationally recognized, and our athletic teams have won conference and state championships. Experience the best in girls' boarding schools: visit Foxcroft.