Raising Girls: Why girls are different – and how to help them grow up happy and confident. Gisela Preuschoff
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own list – of the qualities and skills you value positively in a woman. (If this scenario won’t work for you, try to do it with a friend whose judgment and opinions you trust.) List all your images, expectations and value judgements! Do girls have to be good at mathematics? Assertive? Cuddly? What does a ‘good girl’ do? What does a ‘bad girl’ do? Are you supposed to make such a distinction at all? Is intelligence a positive female quality? How do you value being down-to-earth and the capacity for love? And how do intuition, empathy or sporting skills rate? How important to you are manual dexterity and good appearance? When you’ve finished, compare your lists.
While you won’t be able to force your daughter to be the things that you have written down, the things you value – being technically talented, highly musical or talented at nursing, for example – it is important that you know how you think about girls and women. Your daughter will choose her own way, but your ideas and thoughts will also shape her in important ways.
The types of girls
Socially, there are two main girl types these days, and they are contradictory. One of them is strong, self-confident, able to deal with change and eager to perform; the other feels herself disadvantaged with boys, has a low level of self-confidence, and sees her prospects as narrow. Then there are girls and women who refuse to be slotted into one or the other group and are searching for their own position, their own path.
The last millennium was mainly shaped by men. However, women will increasingly have a say in our future. Women will participate more in world affairs – but in what ways might this happen? Can you imagine your daughter one day becoming Prime Minister or winning a Nobel Prize? Regardless of which path your daughter takes, she will belong to a generation of women who will work with men to determine the future of this world.
She will help weave the fabric of human history, either loudly or quietly. So what kind of future do you dream of and wish for your daughter? Will you tell her stories about it? In your opinion, how should women and men relate to each other in the future? Have you spoken to your daughter’s other parent about this?
What makes girls the way they are?
Female behaviour is not only inherited from a girl’s forebears, it is also learned, as every girl is born into a society where the relations between the sexes are already firmly established.
Moreover, each family has its own culture and history, which is part of society’s history. For us women, our female antecedents are of special significance. But it’s not only girls who need to understand their roots – all children need to! What do you personally know about your origins? Which religion, traditions, belief systems and behavioural patterns that are part of your family tradition have you adopted, and which have you discarded? For instance, do you come from a family for whom hard work has always been a top priority? Or maybe you come from an alcoholic family, and have inherited some of the baggage that goes with that. Your home life as a child might have been very happy and nurturing, or else quite strict and stressful. These are some examples of family behaviour patterns.
My own view
When I think about what I wish for women who are growing up in this millennium, I think of qualities that have to do with original femininity, values that have largely been lost. How can they be dredged up, re-invigorated so that they find a voice again?
I wish for empathy, cooperation, helpfulness, a sense of community, creativity, and for the power of imagination, intuition, wisdom…
The editor of a well-known parents’ magazine recently told me that she’d love to be a mother – full-time. But she dares not say that aloud. She loves being at home and looking after her children, but when her girlfriends hear that, they think she’s reactionary. Must we women have a career? Do we have to become like men, act like men?
For me, femininity is connected to life-giving forces. I don’t mean that I believe all women must bear children. They can decide that for themselves! But I believe it’s important that they devote themselves to life: that they give fiery speeches to the United Nations General Assembly against war and for justice and peace; that they resist violence; that they join groups that aim to preserve Nature and not participate in the destruction of our environment. We should make our daughters familiar with Nature in all its forms and teach them to respect life – and to acknowledge women’s achievements in all areas.
Femininity, for me, means giving life, protecting it, going with it – and seeing it pass. It is about recognising that we are subject to a rhythm, being aware that death is a part of life, that time after time there must be a farewell and a new start. Let us show our daughters the moon. If we observe it closely, we’ll know a little of what it’s like to live on Earth.
This is my personal opinion, not the truth. Do what matches your nature and your convictions – but do it consciously, and in the knowledge that you are a role model. If you want your daughter to be a strong woman, she will need strong role models. Being strong means being in harmony with yourself, expressing yourself genuinely, asserting yourself, and being able to structure your own life. Being strong means bidding farewell to the victim’s role and taking on responsibility for yourself. Whoever does not seize her own strength is helpless. You claim your identity through your actions.
What we occupy ourselves with every day moulds us. Which possibilities do you wish to give your daughter?
The first role models for a girl are her mother and father. If you are careful, alert, communicative and present, you can’t do anything wrong.
In a nutshell
Girls are different from boys, right from the start.
Before we can think about how to raise our daughters, we have to know what we ourselves think about girls, women and femininity. Sometimes we also need to question that, and do some work to change our thought and behaviour patterns.
Remember, other people will also have their own personal reactions to the news that you are soon to be – or already are – the parents of a baby girl. Be ready for some reactions you may not be comfortable with!
Have a good look at the world today and take note of what women are now achieving and doing – all these things are possible for your daughter too.
Newborn girls are different from newborn boys physically, and some of these differences become greater in the first few months of life: girls are likely to want to be touched more than boys; many can play independently and comfort themselves earlier than boys can; and they often crawl earlier than boys do.
Boy? Girl? Human!
When my wife was pregnant for the first time, we decided we didn’t want to know the sex of our child ahead of the birth. We wanted the full-on experience of pregnancy – no tricks of technology, no advance warnings of whether our lives were about to turn a distinct shade of blue or pink. As the weeks passed, we had lots of fun speculating on the boy/girl question – how I would have a willing and long-term football-kicking partner if it were a boy, and how I would protect her innocence against all would-be suitors if it were a girl. The funniest part of all this is that when the wee one actually popped out of my wife’s body, both wife and I were in a state of such transcendental awe that it took us a full minute (okay, maybe a little bit less) to get around to checking what baby’s sex was. In those irreplaceable first few moments of life, we didn’t care a jot about anything other than that our baby was there, out, with us at last. It was a girl.
When my wife got pregnant again, we decided to find out at the amniocentesis test and scan what the foetus’ sex was. We wanted to do it differently this time, in order to have the complete experience – that is, once not knowing, once knowing. It was another girl.
We stopped at two, not wanting to push the envelope too far! In hindsight, that process of guessing during the first pregnancy was very special: it was the only time in my life that I might have been