Raising girls

I have seen so much about raising boys but not much about raising girls.  I know, college attendance and graduation statistics all point to the challenges of raising boys, hence the focus.  But, still, there seems to be the delicate balance between getting it a bit right and totally dropping the ball when it comes to raising girls.

Several things have occurred to remind me of this issue of raising girls recently. The most recent is the visit I had with a college friend I had not seen in quite some time.  Another was the shock of seeing a young teenage girl on the Washington DC metro with a HUGE tattoo of what I presume to be her name across her entire chest. (For some reason seeing a young black woman with a tattoo that measured nothing less than 3 inches in height of a long name across the entire form of her female chest made me choke up with pity. I can't explain it.)

Anyway, as the mother of a girl, I wonder if certain things I might do (or likely say) to my daughter could totally backfire and cause my daughter to rebel, get a huge tattoo across her face, follow some loser dude, drop out of high school, and never do anything with her life. All because I said the wrong thing that one time.

I went through young adulthood and college on the same quest as everyone else. To find myself, to find my space in the world, to learn as much as I could about myself and the world around me. This invariably occurred with a whole slew of mistakes and errors in judgement. The ones I had the opportunity to apologize for, I did or have since. The ones that reflected my poor judgement in friends or associates I took as a lesson in the perils of keeping bad company and moved on.

But the errors that were more complex, less black and white as to who was at fault are some that still baffle me today. Many of these errors were not mine; instead I focus on the experiences of young women who were around me and into whose lives I was more than a casual observer.  Some of those college girls I now wonder how they are faring given the odds stacked against them in their quest to become strong women who will eventually own themselves and control their destinies.

What did I see as a college student? Well a little bit of everything.

1. Abusive boyfriends who belittled, berated, and sometime beat their naive girlfriends who kept coming back? Check.
2. Young women who believed that to be loved, they must sleep with and in some cases get pregnant by the man currently interested in them? Check.
3. Naive young women who dropped out of school because of a relationship either gone bad or supposedly gone good? Check.
4. Excessive weight gain all related to a boy? Check.
5. Denying your friends, accusing your friends and associates, and downright paranoia about losing your boy from some perceived threat from your girlfriends? Check, Check, Check!
6. Decent into madness over a boy? Check. 

I think about the different women I witnessed going through some version of my summaries here. As an adult, I believe I can attribute most of these to some form of low self-esteem.  I think that if a young woman has the esteem to handle social pressures when faced with the difficulties of a relationship, or even at work, she is able to handle those challenges without denying the core of who she is. From a young age, I believed that if I ever found myself about to confront another woman over a boy, I've already lost the boy!  My father (who raised his girls to know we were princesses) once said if a man tells you to "shut up" the relationship must end! And he would say, if nothing else, no matter how bad or pathetic you believe your situation to be, know that anyone who misspeaks or insults you, does NOT deserve you; so gather the courage to walk...immediately, he would add.  Without realizing it at the time, I cannot understate the importance of this upbringing as I faced college, adulthood, life.  Many women I have known have never heard such advice from anyone.

My daughter, a strong, confident ladybug in a sea of samurai, spidermen, batmen off to trick or treat.

But watching college friends, and now adult women with children dabble in one form of the list above, I cannot help but wonder where the gaps may lie. I think (I am not sure entirely) that if I arm my daughter with a healthy dose of self esteem before she leaves my nest, I would have equipped her with about half of the armor she would need to face the world. The other half comprises her education, talents, and compassion.