how to raise a girl.
July 28, 2009
I’ve had this pervasive feeling ever since the instant I knew I was pregnant that I was the mother of a daughter… and not just one daughter, but only daughters. Henry was convinced I was crazy, that the hormones had gotten to my brain and caused some sort of hormonal meningitis. Then, around 16 weeks in, the ultrasound tech and I got antsy one slow Saturday at work and decided to take a look… and, oddly it looked like a boy. (full disclosure: he was flamboyantly gay and prone to see penis’s where there are none.) I was shocked, Henry felt his diagnosis of me (CRAZY, CERTIFIED) was substantiated, and my poor dad got all excited about finally having another Y chromosome in the family.
Two weeks later we went to the proper 20-week ultrasound and were solemnly assured by the ultrasound tech that if there were boy body parts, we’d have seen them. And she was right. Cora is undoubtedly a girl. And now we have to figure out how to raise her in these somewhat frightening times.
I grew up thinking that feminism was a bad thing (and that Bill and Hilary were the devil), but was also raised in a house without barbies and TV and full of national geographic and books about girls like Anne (with an E) and Nancy Drew and Emily of New Moon who were imaginative and brave and adventurous. I was profoundly lucky to grow up at a huge camp out in the sticks in east texas where there were forests to build forts in, horse pastures, swimming pools, a lake, and enough space to generally run wild. My mom was careful to teach us the basics of how to iron a shirt, balance a checkbook, cook dinner, fold laundry, and be gracious to guests in our home, but I didn’t get the sense that we were only doing that because we were girls. (My dad did get waited on hand and foot a little bit, but I quit begrudging him that when he pointed out last year that he had purchased six or seven cars in the last decade and none of them were for him.) Mainly it just seemed like those were life skills we would need as adults and mom felt responsible to send us out of the house properly equipped to be functional adults in society.
And now I find myself in a world full of pink and purple princessy toys that don’t jive with anything I thought was cool as a kid, and I wonder why that is. I don’t think the pressure was on in the 80’s to act like tiny beauty queens, and I definitely don’t think marketing to little girls was as sexualized as it is today. We are making a big effort to keep Cora’s environment as gender-neutral as possible and let her figure out the differences between men and women by watching how Henry and I behave.
I also don’t think feminism is such a dirty term anymore. It is a dismaying thing to feel that your opinion is less valuable, or that your work is worth less, or your rights less important because of your gender or your race. I fervently hope that Cora will never feel limited by her gender, that she will feel that she can do whatever it is her future holds without hesitation about what she “ought” to want or do as a woman.
And I’m wondering, you blog readers, what do you think? How do you successfully steer a kid through the gauntlet the media and our consumer culture has laid in her path to adulthood? I’m curious.
ah, also: vintage LEGO ad via sociological images, and picture torn from a feminist coloring book at girlsnotchicks.com.
My childhood was a lot like yours — full of practical skills, not too many Barbies…. But it was also in a time when TV portrayed women as silly (I Dream of Jeannie, the Brady Bunch, Betwitched). I grew up thinking I should be able to do anything but quickly realized that no employer expected me to. My daughters lives have been full of Barbies and Polly Pockets. I’ve done an entire pink/purple load of wash for years. They embrace femininity but they KNOW they can do anything. They are perplexed by old television shows, they can’t relate to my coming-of-age experiences. I’m taking my eldest to college in a few weeks and I’m so excited about the life that is unfolding before her. It’s not Barbie or floral colors that hold a girl back. Our daughters are growing up in a whole new world.
I think you’re right, Michaelle, and that is reassuring to hear. I think if Cora is really into the pink and purple, then fine and we’ll go for it whole hog, but I worry that her ideas about femininity will be shaped by the media… I don’t like what I see on TV, or on saturday morning commercials. It sounds like you’ve done a great job of not sheltering your girls and letting them express themselves in a healthy way.
Yeah, there’s still a lot of junk on TV — and in society — but there’s a lot of improvement too. The goofy shows that my girls watch are full of strong female characters: girls who take charge, girls who get things done, girls who are leaders but who AREN’T seen as unusual. Those programs are a such a far cry from my era when a “spunky” TV girl who ran for student council was a big deal. Those girls didn’t play varsity sports (they were cheerleaders), they weren’t natural leaders and they weren’t strong characters unless the were named “Sam” or “Jo.” Slow but steady improvement… : )
Honest, Abbie, I knew how to smack a softball farther than any boy in the neighborhood or run a football play before I discovered gemstones or Bath N’ Body!!! Henry’s Gram (My Mom) played Field Hockey for WMU and established the first P.E.Curriculum ever for Hillsdale Community Schools. I have faith you and Henry will guide Cora in the mindset she will be able to accomplish whatever she chooses to do and to pursue said interests with a fervor!!! Henry & Matthew grew up playing sports but also reading voraciously and learned to cook, iron and clean house because it was unacceptable for them to be thinking someone else would be doing those things for them. Abbie, You and Henry are doing a fine job with Cora and she’ll do magnificent things. This I know for sure. Love you, Henry’s Mom & Cora’s GiGi
i love your thoughts on this stuff.
thought i can’t speak on this as to how it relates to girls, i guess the heart of this conversation touches boys and girls. i’m starting to become more and more aware that it is simply easier to let the culture and media dictate what is right/wrong, hip/uncool, masculine/feminine, whatever, to our kids. it takes more time and energy than i ever thought it would to pray about, study, direct, teach, etc. what i want my kids to hold to be true and important and good.
correct me if i’m wrong, but when you say you are keeping cora’s environment “gender-neutral” do you mean you don’t want popular culture and the media dictating what is masculine and feminine to cora? god did not create us as gender-neutral individuals and that’s a good thing! and i think even more important to this conversation, he didn’t create one sex to be of more value than the other.
I don’t know Henry, but I have the great privilege of knowing you, your sisters, and your parents. If you are yourself with Cora, you will be giving her an amazing gift. I occasionally speak to my kids about something gender-specific (don’t hit girls unless they are trying to kill your sister, for example). Mostly, I talk to them often about considering others around them and on what would please the Lord. Everything else seems unimportant in comparison.
all i know is the other day we saw an ATV trailer…and Priya said, “Look Daddy, a ABT. I want to buy that ABT, it’s cuuuute!”
and silas today picked up a piece of mulch at the park and pretended to shoot somebody with it. what is that silas? it’s a gun. oh. just a few months ago he found a water gun at the thrift store and called it an airplane…how do boys figure out these things.
everything in her world talks and needs to be fed. everything in his world crashes and rolls and catches on fire.
wow. lots of comments. thanks for replying, ladies!
margie: you guys did a great job with henry, and I appreciate your encouragement. he is fond of me as a female, but doesn’t have boxy views at ALL about how that should be worked out around the house (and he’s a marvelous cook. thank you for that.)
kate: I was hoping you’d jump in, wondering how you handle this with your boys. I agree– gender-neutral just means no purple dollhouses or plastic makeup (yet). I am all for a play-kitchen, etc, but think I’d probably get that for a boy, too. Her toys are mainly primary-colored blocks and a few dolls, etc. And, of course, we entirely control her environment at this point. What I’m curious about is more what happens in a few years when she has Friends, goes over to other little girls’ houses for play time and how filtered her environment needs to be at that point.
Alyson: thanks! and it is good to hear that keeping their feet on the foundation God has laid for them may resolve a lot of these questions before they are raised.
Amanda: well, it must be true that girls are just inherently girls seeing how Priya is the sole female kid in the Hartman clan. Do you spend much energy trying to redirect her girliness or Silas’s boyness? Are there ways that they express their gender that disturb you, or does it all just seem healthy and natural to you?
i was thinking about all of this last night with my boys. elisha is perhaps my more timid and tender boy, so i try and expose him to things that will encourage him to be strong/brave/tough-er. but not to the point that i’m “changing” him. god obviously made him to have a tender spirit and i want him to keep that. asher, on the other hand, thinks everything needs to be pushed and tackled and his most used word right now is “boom!” but he wants to be very quiet and sweet and gentle with his stuffed animals so i really encourage that, but at the same time i don’t discourage all the “boyish” behavior.
all that to say, perhaps it is balance we’re looking for??
i think about the friends’ houses, too. i don’t think i care as much about the toys that they will play with, whacked out video games/television shows not included, (as you noted, we’ll still be the primary controller of their environments) as much as who the kids and their parents are.
interestingly, i’ve been looking for a kitchen for the boys and it has been a bit harder to find something that isn’t pink or frilly or even more maddeningly, not cheap feeling and looking. it’s amazing how many genuinely non sex-specific objects there are (like kitchens, play dishes, even stuffed animals) get painted or plastered with something that immediately makes them “girly”. but then, like you, i wouldn’t buy the purple kitchen for my girl, either.
so rambly!! sorry!!
has anyone else noticed how hilarious the Possibly Related Posts are? ha.