Raising Girls: Why girls are different – and how to help them grow up happy and confident

Raising Girls

Why girls are different – and how to help them grow up happy and confident

Gisela Preuschoff

foreword by

Steve Biddulph

Cover

Title Page

Foreword by Steve Biddulph

Introduction

1 Why girls are different

2 Developing your relationship with your new daughter

3 Her early years

4 Her emotional world

5 How society conditions girls

6 Schools and learning

7 Becoming a young woman

8 Relationships in the family

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword by Steve Biddulph

I remember the moment. It’s not an easy memory: I am sitting in on the Caesarean delivery of our second child, terrified for my wife’s safety, for my own powerlessness to help, and for this little life that is being prised out from the area that lies below the green surgical sheets. And then someone is saying, ‘It’s a girl!’

And amid the tears of relief are tears of joy, too, that catch me utterly by surprise. Our son is already seven years old; this new baby is long awaited. But had anyone asked me hours before, I would have given the old cliched answer – ‘I don’t care what sex it is, as long as its healthy.’

So why am I so happy? What had I been hiding from myself? A girl is something else – special to me as a man, wonderful in a different way from how a son is wonderful, and I will spend the rest of my life grappling with this, and happy to grapple, knowing it’s one of life’s gifts, a child who will become and then be a woman, and always, whatever happens, my daughter.

For a father, a daughter is something powerful. For a mother, equally so, but for quite different reasons, and we rarely feel this so intensely as in the moment they are born. And so we sit in this place halfway between feeling so lucky, so blessed, and so terrified about getting it wrong, and not being up to the job.

For help, we tap into one of the things that our culture does well – books, ideas, discussion, to help us broaden out our picture and learn from the lives of others. We don’t have elders, we don’t have a village to help us. But at least we have a questioning society that puts out so much chatter, and that brings us the thoughts from across the globe, that other people’s lives have gone into making, all for us to digest, use or discard.

This book gets beneath the surface of you and me as parents of girls, because much of the trouble we still have with girls has its roots deep in our own experience, the wounded experience of growing up in a terrible century. Most of us, men and women, had odd and difficult times growing up: distant fathers did not teach us how to father, marital chaos and widespread divorce made us distrustful and unsure of how to form strong relationships and make them work. We had little in the way of spiritual depth: the old religions collapsed but only money and pleasure rushed in to replace them. We didn’t really know the deep peace of the earth and sky around us, only the chatter of television and the clutter of bedrooms full of junk.

What we want to give our daughters, we often don’t even have ourselves. But the search is on. A baby girl in our arms, soft skin, bright eyes, sharp intelligence wanting to grow and reach out, calls to us strongly to get our act together, to focus and go looking for the tools and understanding we will need.

This book is written by a woman on her own search, and has much that stirs up your thinking. Rather than giving you formulae, lists, bullet points and glib advice (the sure sign of a third-rate parenting ‘expert’) Gisela prods your deeper searching, so that things you have kept buried inside you come to the surface – beliefs, passions, forgotten memories that can help you and direct you to be a more wide awake, fully alive human being rather than some functionary who provides meals, drives the school taxi, checks off the school bags contents for another rat race day. What our kids will remember, and what will strengthen them, is the moments of closeness, honesty, and peaceful times that we spend in amid the scramble of life: the parts that we fence off and make special, where we refuse to dance to the commercial world’s tune, and build a garden for love to grow.

Things have got better for girls. We need to remember that. There is a ‘Sooty’ video we found many years ago in a garage sale, that we enjoyed at the same time as being rather appalled when we watched it, and quietly put away on a high shelf. The compere gets children from the audience to come up on stage, asks them what they want to be. The boy will be a soccer hero. The girl will be a typist. Another boy a doctor. Another girl a nurse. This is progressive stuff – the girls actually want jobs! Twentieth-century culture crippled girls with narrow role possibilities, just as it crippled boys with inane pressure to be the brave soldier, the aloof father, the home tyrant, the frustrated wage slave.

We had a revolution, and now girls can do anything they want to, though it’s turning out to not be that simple. The empire struck back, and ugly forces of commercial greed rushed into the vacuum created by the collapse of old values, and created for girls a whole new slavery: you have to be slender. You have to have big breasts (even if it means cutting your chest open and sliding in slabs of silicone instead). You have to work your whole life long, even if you simply long for some peace and quiet with your new baby, or to be creative, or have some time to just be. You have to have it all.

We’ve made progress with girls, but as this excellent book points out, we have a long way still to go. And some quite new directions, promising and world changing, just as the changes of the sixties were world changing.

For instance, there is a lot being learned about girls:

 That the apparently quiet time, the first year or so of life, is one of such rapid brain growth that everything important seems to be getting into place inside that little head and heart. The ability to love, to feel safe and relaxed, the ability to connect with another human being in empathy and trust – all happen in this first year, and we must not rush or abandon our daughter as if she were just a blob to be fed and stopped from crying.

 That the world we live in is very toxic to young children -the messages the media send, and the food on the supermarket shelves – so we have to show great care in what we put into her body, and her mind.

 That we parents also have plenty of cultural and psychological baggage and wounds that we can so easily pass on. I don’t want to scare you here, but simply to remind you that half of what we give our children is our own selves, and these need much rehabilitation.

What else have we learned?

 That the twentieth-century idea of the father as the distant breadwinner, or the jokey stranger, has done enormous harm. We now know that fathers play an irreplaceable part in the confidence and self-esteem building of girls, a delicate role involving affection without invasion, fun with firmness, and care with strengthening levels of trust and freedom. Research into everything from anorexia to career choice, from sexual safety to educational opportunity, shows that a loving, involved dad makes a world of difference.

 That the rush to equality has caused much harm – through mistaking equality for sameness. Boys and girls grow differently, and should not be lumped together and expected to thrive. In secondary schools, especially, there are important reasons for separating girls from boys into classrooms where both sexes can be free from vulnerability to and pressure from the opposite sex; and free to learn and explore their fragile new identities without falling into the stereotypical and defensive pretence of being macho or sexy, cute or coy, aggressive or smart.

Your daughter may be a newborn. She may be a toddler, or a little school child. She may be a teenager, vulnerable but with growing identity and selfhood. She may be a young woman, relating to men, making her own way in the world, needing you less and less, or so it seems. She may even be a mother herself, coming to you with a new sense of awareness of the linkages you share. Your parenthood never ends.

The more you are awake, alive, and thinking and feeling deep into your own life – instead of zipping and rushing over its surface like a bug on a lake – the more you will have to give your daughter, and the more you will have to smile about as the seasons of both your lives pass by.

Steve Biddulph

Introduction

I would like to stimulate you to reflect with this book. What is really special about having a girl as a child? What kind of woman would you like your daughter to grow into? How important this consideration really is can be illustrated by the following story. Someone dressed a group of male and female babies in pink and light blue jumpsuits and then asked a group of dads to describe the children. They clearly treated the pink ones differently from the light blue ones. The pink babies were described as fragile, pretty, sweet and cute, although there were boys among them; in contrast, the ‘light blue’ ones were described as healthy, sturdy, strong and attentive – several girls also being among them.

People react differently to a male baby than to a female one. And that’s quite normal, for there are of course differences. These are not only biologically conditioned but are based on social influences, expectations and premises – there has always been something like a girl culture or a culture of the feminine in all cultures and at all times. We can resist it, but never quite withdraw from it.

Only when, as parents, we become aware of which images and ideas of femininity we carry inside us, and which of these images are socially effective, can we take a critical look at them, perhaps argue about them and take new paths or turn back onto the well-established paths.

What do you want for your daughter? From what age is she to become a girl? How many months or years old will she be before she wears her first necklace? And when should her ears be pierced? Some parents have very definite ideas about this, and no-one will be able to dissuade them. Others have not thought about it at all, but probably carry unconscious notions around with them.

However, one thing should remain clear from the start: children are not putty in our hands. They belong to themselves and bring their own personality and unique ‘life’s work’ into the world. As their parents, we are lucky to be allowed to accompany them for a while. In order for this to be successful, it’s also important that we understand our roles as mother and father.

Each child is, in my eyes, a wonderful, unique gift. But individual differences notwithstanding, there are recognisable differences between the sexes. Women, for example, have more acute hearing than men and can better distinguish high tones – the frequencies that babies are known to use to cry. After just a week, female infants can distinguish their mother’s voice and the crying of another baby located in the same room, from other noises. Boys cannot do this.1 Moreover, women perceive visual detail better – a skill that is of great significance in a toddler’s environment.

These days, new research is revealing important differences between girls and boys, men and women. Are these biologically inherited or socially conditioned?

I believe that parents of a girl should pay special attention to their own internal images of girls. They should ask themselves, ‘What does it mean to me that it’s a girl?’

This is very important, as it can help parents avoid burdening the child and her future life with a hidden agenda, for example, by saying, ‘She should on no account become like my mother’ or, ‘She’s not allowed to become as pampered as my sister’ or, ‘She should assert herself.’ If parents are quite clear in their minds about their internal images, they can choose to stick with them or to distance themselves from them. Their daughter then has the opportunity to later rebel against this expectation, or to consciously assume the role.

Whether you have a boy or a girl, apart from wishing for children who are born healthy, it does seem to make a difference. The decisive questions we should ask ourselves are, what do we conclude from the sex of our child, and how do we deal with this?

Even today, the question of ‘boy or girl’ still plays a significant role in family planning all round the world:

 According to surveys in Europe, more couples wish for a girl, not a boy, as their first child – maybe in the hope that daughters would be more likely to look after their ageing parents in later years.

 In China, parents may only have one child – and most prefer to have a boy. Girls are undesirable, and are terminated in many cases. In India infanticide of girls is common.

What is your idea of a girl? Were you planning for a girl? If so, why? If not, how did you feel when a baby daughter suddenly entered your life? These are important questions that have a large bearing on how you view your task of raising a girl. Answer these questions and compare your opinions with that of your partner as well as some close friends. They relate to a very important issue: projection. By that, I don’t mean slide shows in the living room, but rather how we often project our own beliefs, attitudes and expectations on to others, often mistakenly. If you can become more aware of your ideas regarding these matters, you will be less likely to project your thoughts on to others, including your daughter.

If you find this exercise rewarding, try the following ‘Self-awareness questions for parents’ to really get you thinking!

Self-awareness questions for parents

Here are some questions for you to consider. They are about you as a child and you as a parent, and a few ask about your daughter. You might like to simply toss them around in your mind, or you might like to write your answers down for future reference (which I would recommend). If you write them down, do so somewhere safe and private. You and your child(ren)’s other parent should both answer the questions. Just ignore the gender words that don’t apply to you. When you have answered all the questions and developed a relatively clear profile of yourself and your own childhood, talk about these things with your daughter if she is old enough. This conversation is likely to stay with you for many years to come.

Then

When you were a girl/boy, what did you look like?

What were your favourite clothes?

What toys did you have? What games did you play?

What was your personality as a child?

What did you like about being a girl/boy?

What did you find difficult about being a girl/boy?

What were you not allowed to do as a girl/boy?

What duties and chores did you have?

Who were your role models?

What was your dream?

What did you often imagine?

Which insulting comments can you still remember?

On which occasions were you especially sad?

On which occasions were you especially excited or thrilled?

Now

In which situations do you behave like a typical female/male?

Which qualities do you particularly like in girls?

Which qualities do you particularly like in boys?

Which qualities do you particularly like in your daughter?

What do you wish for your daughter?

Which aspects of her life are you happy about?

I hope that Raising Girls provides you with concrete guidelines on how to approach your daughter’s upbringing. I have drawn on experiences with my own daughter, scientific findings and the experiences of parents derived from my own research and consulting work. I have thought of the little girl I once was, and all the girls and women I have known during my life.

Fathers and brothers also play a critical role in raising girls. The experiences a girl has with the male members of the family follow her all her life. A woman does not allow herself to be defined without a masculine counterpart (and, of course, the opposite also applies), just as there is no loud without soft, no light without dark and no large without small! And so there are no daughters without fathers, even when the latter – for whatever reason – live separately from their daughter and/or have completely broken off contact.

You have a girl – who has her own distinct personality – and it really matters to develop this gift in the true sense of the word. I would like to accompany you on this journey. My point is to emphasise dangers and to prevent them; but above all, I would like to reveal an excellent pathway to cooperation.

Apart from this, I would like this book to be a journey of discovery of your own roots and notions, during which you may recognise what opportunities the birth of a girl offers you personally.

Gisela Preuschoff

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