Amy Fishers New Book and Advice for Teenagers

Those of us in The United States who remember  Amy Fisher seem unable to forget her.Amy  Fisher was seventeen when she was thrust into notoriety in 1992. She is remembered for shooting the wife of  her much older lover, Joey Buttafuoco.Although shot in the face, Mary  Jo Buttafuoco survived.

The press dubbed Amy  the Long Island Lolita, and she has lived in infamy ever since.Amy served seven years in prison and is now an  award-winning columnist for The Long Island Press.She is also a devoted wife and mother of one child and expecting  another in January.

Amy Fisher and I are almost exactly the same age; she is  thirty and I am twenty-nine.I remember when  the story of Amy and Joey Buttafuoco broke on the news.I felt that we had a lot of similarities.We both had voluminous dark hair and the opinion that cut-off  jean shorts, a flannel shirt, and hiking boots with big socks was  a sexy and fashionable look.We also had  a thing for older guys.Fortunately for me,  I had a thing for guys about five years older than me.She liked really older men, worked as a call girl, and hooked  up with Joey Buttafuoco, an auto  mechanic almost 20 years older than her.Although  neither Joey nor Amy claim that they were in love at the time, Amy  still shot Buttafuocos wife  Mary Jo in the face.

Amy was on NBCs Dateline here in the USA on Friday night.She  was on to promote her new advice book for teens and  their parents,If I Knew Then . .  . .written by Amy Fisher and Robbie Woliverd.Although she  has paid her debt to society and is remorseful about the past, she cannot  escape the unsavory reputation that one would expect.One piece of advice she gave on the show was that if youre  a sixteen year old girl and a thirty-five year old guy wants to  be with you, theres something wrong with him.

Here  is an excerpt from her new book: "There were so many warning signs in my past. I am  hoping that by reflecting on and writing about my life, some of  it very painful, I can help stop others from getting into the same  kind of trouble. Who better to tell kids and parents: 'These are  the warning signs,' and not spout them from some academic experience,  but rather from real-life experience; to tell these kids, 'I did  these stupid things, and I'm here to tell you, this is what you  should watch out for.'"

While I believe that Amy Fisher could easily write a book  giving advice to teens about what not to do, would teenagers listen?Isnt part of adulthood looking back at your  past and realizing that not every choice made was a good one?I cant tell you how many adults gave me unsolicited  advice as a teenager.I found that most  of their advice was useless to me, but adulthood seems to make  one want to tell others what they wish someone would have told them.While I do not have any prison experience or fame,  it did make me think about what advice I would give to young girls.Here it is: unsolicited advice in its purest form.



1.Dress like a whore

I wish that I would have had the self confidence to show  off my body while it was really worth showing off.I was thin and nubile, and the only part of me that was  big was my hair.As an adult, I feel more  confident and want to show a little belly or cleavage for a night  out on the town.As an adult, my belly is  not cute, as it was at that age.I wish I  would have worn hip huggers before I had stretch marks on my hips.Not everyone gains a significant amount of weight  after high school, but just about everyone I know has.I wish I would have not thought about how fat I was all  the time.Now that I know what fat is, I  would have embraced my high school sized self.

2.What  people think of you in high school does not matter once you are  out of high school.

Its  true.All the popular girls and athletic  guys from high school do not have the same regality today that they  once had.Some people get fat, cant get  into college, or find that not everyone loves them as much as they  did at school.Some geeks grow out of their  bad looks and move on to wonderful careers that benefit society.I have seen former teachers pets crumble in  an office where they get no attention or approval from their bosses.I have seen thugs in gangs grow up to be investment  bankers.For people like me who were teased  and harassed constantly, I find that as an adult I do not generate  that kind of hatred.If anything, I am able  to move anonymously through the world, attracting the attention  of few.

3. You really dont know what you want to do when you  grow up until you have had a little more life experience.

Why does it seem like every adult asks every person they  meet under the age of eighteen what they want to be when they grow  up?As adults, do we just not know how to  talk to children?We start pressuring children  early to know what career they want and push them toward it.For every child that I have heard asked that  question, I have never once heard a child answer that they want  to grow up and work in a retail store, or be a data analyst, or  work in a factory.We tell children in America  that they can be anything they want to be if they work at it hard  enough.Its only as adults that one has  to grapple with the fact that they will never be a lawyer if they  cant pass college algebra.For every  one person who knew they wanted to be a doctor at five and pursued  and obtained that goal, there are 100 people just like me who dont  know what the hell happened.



4. It wont seem so bad years from  now.

Maybe  Im just speaking for myself, but time has gone so much faster  since I turned twenty-one.It took forever  to get to eighteen and an eternity to get to twenty-one.Once I had reached the magical adult age, time went on fast  forward. It can feel like a broken heart  will never heal when one is a teenager.Six  months is a lot longer when youre seventeen than it is when youre  twenty-seven.The other great mystery is  how time softens memories, and you can look back at the guy you  swore you would never get over with fondness.

5.As Amy Fisher will attest, there really is something wrong  with an older guy who exclusively dates young girls.

Im not talking about Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael  Douglas.I am talking about men who date  underage girls.I was very mature for my  age and found guys who were also sixteen so immature and boring.I always dated older men, which I preferred.Sure, they had real life experience and important  things to talk about, but what were they getting from the relationship?It never occurred to me at the time that there  was something wrong with them, as I thought it validated what was  right about me.In this case, that I was  as smart as a twenty year old woman.I learned  later that younger girls have much lower expectations for a man.I thought it was cool to date a guy with a job.Why would I care that it was a minimum wage job?In my world, a guy who could take you to the  movies, AND get you all the popcorn and soda you could handle was  a prince among men. It only occurred to me  later that if a man is not financially secure he would not make  a good husband or father.Also, its the  first time that youve heard mens lies and excuses.Wow, all of your ex-girlfriends became psycho for NO  REASON?As an adult, I know that any man  who has all psycho ex-girlfriends either chose that type of woman  or made them that way.

There  is much more that I wish I could say, but time has made my memories  of adolescence seem almost fun.I can only  hope that Amy Fisher really does find happiness, and teenagers and  their parents are ready to learn from her mistakes.A quote from Amy on her website, www.amyfisher.com,  says I am now the person I always should have been except for  a brief total, unfathomable lapse of judgment in my youth.How many of us can really say that we are truly  the person we should be?I am grateful to  have survived my teenage years without prostitution, attempted murder,  or prison.If Amy Fisher can become an adult  and a productive member of society, there is hope for all of us  yet.

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