I’m worried about girls.
As the mother of two boys, some days I feel relief that I don’t have daughters.
I’ll be honest – girls sort of terrify me.
Yet some days I still feel the pang of what if…or who will take care of me when I’m old?
Even without daughters in my house, I’m still worried about girls.
Part of it is just a general anxiety about the world we live in and what society values. The cult of popularity hasn’t lost any steam. And right when the world should be opening up for girls, it seems to be shutting down. We live in divisive times. You are either in or out. With us or against us. A success or a failure. And that message permeates – be perfect or else.
There are glimmers of hope in the Brené Brown’s of the world and those speaking out against a culture of shame and perfectionism and championing vulnerability and authenticity. But will it be strong enough to reach our girls? To get through all of the other messages they are receiving about how they should and shouldn’t be?
Part of my worry is knowing and remembering what I went through as a girl. How alone I felt and how unsure of myself and my place in the world. How much I relied on external validation. How I used perfectionism to protect myself. Even if that is just a process of self-discovery that young people go through, it seems like the stakes are higher now. Everything is more amplified.
Anxiety, not eating, over eating, cutting, self-loathing – a litany of unimaginable chronic conditions. Of course these things were going on when I was a girl, but they seem to be so much more pervasive now. How as a parent or a teacher or a mentor do you steer girls in these treacherous waters?
I have no idea. And so I worry.
I worry about a culture that only seems to be getting more and more focused on staying on the surface instead of going deep.
I worry about the long term effects of selfies.
I worry about a world that glorifies immediate gratification, overnight success and celebrity.
I worry about the unknown future of women’s rights and the challenges that girls face as they make decisions about the life they want to live.
I worry about the sexualizing of girls and women and their bodies that is everywhere.
I worry that we’ve become immune to it.
I worry that we’re dumbing girls down subliminally hammering into them that cute is better than smart.
I worry that we’re silencing their voices teaching them that submissive is sexy.
I worry that they’re waiting for someone else to save them. I worry that they think they need to be saved – a damsel in distress, a princess awaiting her prince.
I worry that as adult women we’re not doing so great ourselves so how will we be able to show them the way? How can we be models for them when we our plagued by the same issues?
I worry that we’re letting them down because we haven’t changed anything. We’ve thrown our hands up and pointed fingers and haven’t questioned and fought enough for them.
Because in our hearts we know, we’re not doing right by our girls.
And so I worry.
I’m hoping that I’m a little too removed from their world to see that it’s not as bleak as it seems from out here looking in. That inside the world of girls there is a conscious effort to move away from all of those things I’m worried about.
Maybe as a mother of boys, my job is to stop worrying about girls and focus on showing my boys how to respect and value girls and women. Because boys and men are certainly the other half, if not part of the equation.
Okay, give me some good news. What are you doing to keep it real for the girls in your life? How can I help?
As you know, I am also the mother of boys – who are grown men now. I felt that it was my duty to raise my sons to be good to women and I think that I did that. I know it is harder today, but I still feel that that is the best that mothers of sons can do. I believe we have to still worry about girls and do what we can to help, but the best direct help is how we raise our sons.
Thank you for your insight Lynn…I think instilling in my sons the value of women is the right place to start. Your boys, now men, are a testament that it can be done no matter what the outside world is telling them.
Like you I have 2 sons. I have zero tolerance for meanness. I repeatedly tell my 2 sons that if a girl expresses interest in you and you do not reciprocate the same feelings, you should nicely tell her that while you are flattered, the feelings are not mutual and you like her only as a friend. Be kind and let them down gently, even if it is via a text (which is the way most relationships are now, especially in high school and middle school). And for the most part they have done it. It is hard enough to get up the courage to let someone know you like them, and harder to be rejected. However if it is done with respect and kindness it can teach girls (at a young age) that there are nice guys out there. And who knows -the person you reject in high school may be the person you become interested in when you are in your 20s.
Knowing how to communicate open and honestly can be such hard thing and teaching boys that skill is so important. Sounds like you are starting early and setting the expectations and that can only help. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Wow, great post. We share a lot of the same worries. And experiences, it looks like. I have an 11 year old daughter and the worrying is constant it seems. I have 3 sons as well. It’s a tough time to raise girls. It’s a tough time to raise children period. I worry that the way society “values” girls will impact the way my sons treat girls in the future, despite how I raise them to respect. There’s a lot of good too though. I try not to let myself get consumed by worry, though its hard. I keep my eyes open though. Great post!
Hi Tonya – I worry about boys too! And you are so right, it is a tough time to raise children period. I think by opening up the conversation, I’m hoping to use that worry to make us all a little bit more conscious and aware. Obviously we can’t control every outside force but maybe we can start to make choices for our families that reflect our values. And if we value girls and women that might be choosing some things that are unpopular over what is popular. Tough but necessary stuff.
I have read your post this morning and cannot stop thinking about it, yet it is hard to put it into words. I have a boy and a girl and when I try to imagine both as teenager, I am more worried about my boy. Not because of the world around us but because of their personality. My son is more an “introvert” and my daughter more an “extrovert”, and I think it is going to be easier for an extrovert to get through it for the most part. I am not seeing the world worst for girls in this country. I do worry about those teen years for both, and because they are different I worry about different things. But I want to believe into education, and on that point we live in a country where both girls and boys receive a good and equal education. Anyway, very interesting post and comments!
Hey Valerie – yes, it’s the teen years. And our society tends to favor the extrovert personality so I can see how that makes the whole thing even more complex. I think if women had true equal rights under the constitution, I would feel better. But that is sort of dead in the water. Maybe it will happen for the next generation of girls.
Obviously, as the mom of girls, this is a large, looming, ongoing topic for me. Where should I even start? I first recognized that media messages were influencing my daughters when, at the age of four, my oldest refused to wear long sleeves for weeks–in the dead of winter–because sleeves didn’t look as pretty (the message to bare your skin starts early, apparently) and princesses always show their arms (thanks Disney–where were Elsa and Anna when I needed them?). So when my lectures about beauty coming from within and society having unrealistic expectations for women didn’t do the trick, I resorted to taking her online and showing her lots of photos of Kate Middleton (all prescreened by me for long sleeves) to show her that princesses do in fact cover themselves up and like to be warm. That strategy worked. Since then, the battle to surround them with appropriate body images has been up hill–you never truly see how pervasive this issue is until you have daughters. It comes up every day not only in media, but also seemingly benign things like birthday gifts from family and friends. I try to counteract this by pointing out how fake and often ridiculous the images are. For example, I might say something like, “doesn’t that cartoon girl look silly with such humongous eyes? In real life those eyes would be the size of oranges, ha! What about her legs? Wouldn’t we look funny if our legs really did go almost up to our necks?” Then they laugh themselves to pieces at the logic of it. That way, it’s still there, but at least they stop to think about the fact that no one will EVER look that way. I also really try to enforce how much I love their natural beauty, while also making sure they know that really it’s all the other traits they have that will determine their happiness and their course in life. I could go on, but…
Stef – I think it’s amazing how you’re addressing it head on from such an early age. I think it would be so easy to sigh, shrug shoulders and resign yourself to a level of acceptance. If you keep that up, I can only imagine that your girls will be really conscious going into their tween and teen years, and since you’ve been addressing it all along, the precedent that you talk about this kind of stuff is already there. What’s up next? Photoshop?!?!? I think part of why I feel “terrified” is that I am not practiced at those kinds of conversations. And you’ve made me realize that I should also be having them with my boys about how both women and men are portrayed. Thank you.
I think it would be a great idea to have these conversations with boys too. I don’t actually think a lot of parents do that with their sons, assuming media pressure is more of a women’s issue. However, you make a great point that how the media portrays women and girls is going to effect boys’ perception of girls and, therefore, the expectations they have of the women in their lives. Also, there is more pressure than ever for men to have the perfect physique too–tall, althletic, chiseled olympians. In fact, the rate of male anorexia is currently at an unprecedented high. As always, anything that effects half the population will inevitably effect the other half.