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Sometimes I find the responsibility of raising girls in our culture a little overwhelming. Don't make comments about weight around them. What are they thinking when they see models and heroin-skinny actresses on TV? How can I teach them that they are beautiful without making them vain?
It seems silly to think about all this when they are only 6 and 4. But these kind of issues are already coming up.
Take the Disney Princess movies, for example. The girls LOVE them. Especially The Guppy. Her favorite past time is playing dress up with all her princess costumes. She puts on her dress and slippers and play earrings and purse and walks around talking about how her prince one day will come.
The semi-Feminist in me cringes and yells, You don't need a prince!! You kick ass on your own! But the mother in me looks at her smiling face and sees how happy she is in this particular imaginary play world and says nothing.
It's a balance that I'm having a hard time finding. To tell my girls that yes, They can have it all!! But do I talk about that in this society, the option of having it all has turned into the expectation that they have to do it all? That to have the choice to have a career and children means that they will be expected to do both to their physical and emotional limits?
To teach them that they can have a career if they want, but that the womanly art of staying home and raising children is just as valuable, no matter what our society says?
I'm not sure if this is making any sense at all. It's early and I haven't had my coffee yet. It's something I do need to think about more, plan for more.
What are your thoughts on raising girls in today's society?
3 comments:
As a girl who loved fairy tales and pretend play growing up, I know that if I had a girl I would totally be loving that. But there is a ballence. I do have a problem with the marketing that is done to children and the messages that they send. I think having the Disney movies in rotation is fine, but the endless commercials peddling "princess" crap not so much. I also have a problem with the (subtle?) gender bias in our culture that seems to value female children over boys, but I digress.
Have you read Cinderella Ate My Daughter? I heard about it but haven't read it. Anyway, it seems like it would be up your alley.
While we're on the princess topic, check out "The Princess Who Saved Herself" by Jonathan Coulton. "She had no parents - she was all alone/but she got by on her own, and she liked it pretty well..."
I think that beyond our admonitions and what we expose them to, there's the modeling component. My goals are reflected in my behavior, I hope - that's why I am primarily a SAHM. However, I am also a student and a WAHM (both very part-time). I'm also a wife and a friend.
All I want is for my little ones to be able to acknowledge and participate in their interests, however traditional or unique they might be. Those interests are going to change over the years, so teaching them that it's okay to stay in touch with themselves - and check in frequently - is my plan of attack.
Love the Pics!
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