Growing Girls With Purpose
January 24th, 2008 — Family Life, Other stuff
Forgive me for taking a day or two from blogging.
I’ll resume when my parents go home and my children stop clinging to me (tomorrow or Monday).
They did wonderful while I was away.
But evidently, they missed me.
Please don’t unsubscribe or delete me from your bookmarks though. I’ve still got oodles and oodles more to say.
January 21st, 2008 — Other stuff
A few weeks ago:
Hey, Ains. What did you learn in school today?
We learned about a king. He got the black people freed.
You mean a president?
No a king.
You mean somewhere else?
No here.
This is America. We don’t have kings here. We have presidents. Could they be talking about Abraham Lincoln?
No, it’s a king. And we also get to not go to school on Monday.
It says on the lunch calendar that there is lunch on Monday. You just got done with Christmas break. I think you have school.
No, they said there won’t be any school because of someone’s birth day.
A week later at dinner.
What did you learn in school today, Ainsley?
We learned about Martin Luther King. He got the whites and the blacks together.
Right. A king. That brought freedom to black people. No school on Monday. Martin Luther King Day.
Mommy did you know they used to not let blacks and whites go to school together or drink out of the same drinking fountain? Did you know they weren’t allowed to be friends or be together in the bus?
I know.
Isn’t that terrible?
It is terrible.
Isn’t it happy that we all get to be together now?
Yes, very happy!
My dream is that she’ll have a similar conversation with her daughter about women’s equality.
Mommy, did you know that women didn’t used to have equal rights?
I know honey. Isn’t that crazy? she’ll say, remembering absurd it was.
January 18th, 2008 — Body Image & Self Esteem, LOVE & Other High Risks, Mother-Daughter Emotional Osmosis
Stop. Right where you are. Take a moment.
Is this the type of woman you want your daughter to be?
Do you treat yourself kindly?
Do you take time for yourself?
Or do you run yourself to the ground trying to do too much for everyone and always putting yourself last?
Is this – right now – the way you want your daughter to live?
If not, I recommend trying something else.
I’m going away and leaving the kiddos. The opportunity came knocking at my door. I’m answering with a big smile on my face.
I need the break from my kids. I need to not be needed for a few days. I need some silence and adult conversation.
When fill my cup. I teach my daughter to fill hers. I teach her to be kind to herself when I am kind to myself.
Happy, rested and relaxed Mommy makes for calmer, nicer, more together Mommy.
Of course I saw Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing
The bottom line, in case you missed it, is that if women do not take care of themselves we will get sick. Our bodies and our emotional selves will break down.
Personally, I’ve already had enough of that to last me a lifetime so I’m going on vacation without the kids.
January 18th, 2008 — Family Life, Mother-Daughter Emotional Osmosis
I love the concept of allomothering, especially for daughters.
Allomothering is non-maternal infant care.
It usually refers to fathers, aunts, grandmothers or siblings of an animal caring for and nurturing it while mommy takes a break or goes out foraging.
While you’ll never hear me say anyone can take the place of Mommy, there are benefits of providing as much exposure to other family members, friends, and caretakers and babysitters as possible. There are obvious benefits of allowing a child to be surround by many people who love them.
There are also benefits for girls to see how other women live and think. Women have been in dramatic transition in the last 30 years and different women have reacted in various ways.
Exposure to the different choices women make can only benefit daughters. There is no right or single way to be a woman – more choices for daughters is what I’m after.
If girls only see the one way their own mother’s live out their chosen roles we rob them of exposure to all the other choices.
I believe there are also generational hangups that will take more than a single generation of women to iron out or correct. I’m hoping that Ainsley won’t have such terrible guilt about working outside the home if that’s where her dreams take her. I don’t necessarily want her to work full time at an office, but any terrible guilt is is an undue burden I don’t want to put on her.
Ainsley is quite lucky in that she has many women who are more than willing to allomother her. She has two sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, family friends, even three sets of great-grandparents.
My parents are coming to stay with the kids while I jaunt off with my man on a business trip to Atlanta for 5 whole days. I love that my parents are willing to do this and I love that Ainsley will have the attention, love, affection and interaction of others.
Exposure to a different way of doing things is healthy for girls to experience.
January 16th, 2008 — Body Image & Self Esteem, Fit Girl
Since Title IX has enforced rules about spending for girls sports in the public school system it has led to a 400 percent increase in the rate of female participation in college sports and a more than 800 percent increase in participation at the high school level.
Sports are great for girls. They encourage healthy competition, good physical health and feeling physically, emotionally and mentally strong.
Boys are not the only athletic winners, except when it comes to some school athletic budgets.
Despite the significant gains girls and women have made since the enactment of Title IX, a significant drawback to the law’s enforcement at the high school level involves the lack of data reporting. The U.S. Department of Education has not required these schools to report athletic opportunity, participation, and funding statistics to any higher authority. Colleges are required to report this data, it’s time our high schools are too.
American Association of University Women strongly supports the High School Sports Information Collection Act (S. 518), which would require high schools to report basic information on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs and the expenditures made for their sports teams. Sadly, this bill only has five cosponsors. The Senate is currently working on adding provisions of this bill in the No Child Left Behind Act. An increase in the number of cosponsors will demonstrate support for including the provisions in NCLB.
Be a girls’ athletic supporter by clicking on this link and letting congress know that you want to empower girls through sports.
