Growing Girls With Purpose
November 12th, 2008 — Other stuff
If you are a company who believes you have a product that will empower girls – or at least not hinder girls’ empowerment and you want to advertise on this site please contact me at traceesioux@yahoo.com.
You can put a groovy little 125 x 125 button on the sidebar for $20 a month (like this one). 
Or 200 x 200 for $35 a month (like this one). 
I’m also doing product reviews. If you think you have a product, I’d like to recommend, please email me.
November 11th, 2008 — Body Image & Self Esteem, Media, Marketing and Advertising, Sexualization of Girls
“Low self-esteem among girls and young women has reached a crisis level,” said Dr. Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., a psychologist and self-esteem expert who collaborated on Real Girls, Real Pressure a report on the state of girls’ self-esteem sponsored by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.
According to the report:
* 61 percent of teen girls with low self-esteem admit to talking badly about themselves
* 67 percent of girls ages 13 – 17 turn to their mother as a resource when feeling badly about themselves compared to 91 percent of girls ages 8 – 12.
* Only 27 percent of girls ages 13 – 17 will turn to their father for help when feeling badly about themselves compared to 54 percent of girls ages 8-12.
* At 16, girls become more likely to seek support from male peers than from their own dads.
* 75 percent of girls with low self-esteem reported engaging in negative and potentially harmful activities, such as disordered eating, cutting, bullying, smoking or drinking.
* 25 percent of teen girls with low self-esteem resort to injuring themselves on purpose or cutting when feeling badly about themselves.
* 25 percent of teen girls with low self-esteem practice disordered eating, such as starving themselves, refusing to eat, or over-eating and throwing up, when feeling badly about themselves.
Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem was conducted nationally online among 1,029 girls 8 – 17, and is representative of the U.S. based on census indicators (region, ethnicity
and parental education.) An additional 3,344 girls 8 – 17 were surveyed in a targeted study that was conducted in 20 major U.S. cities representative of each DMA based on ethnicity and parental education.
The research was conducted by StrategyOne, an applied research consulting firm, in collaboration with Ann Kearney-Cooke, PhD.
The question is: what is the cause and what is the cure for this low-self esteem in girls?
November 10th, 2008 — Family Life, Mother-Daughter Emotional Osmosis, Other stuff
I heard about a mother who believes mothers should pick one thing to intentionally argue with their daughters about.
She chose clothes. If her daughter liked a shirt she would scrunch up her nose and call it too short. If her daughter said the color was beautiful, she would grimace and say it was hideous. They argued about it all the time.
Her belief was that mothers and daughters will inevitably argue about something so this mother’s best strategy was to consciously choose what they would fight over.
I have to agree that Ainsley is looking for something to argue with me about.
This mother chose clothes to avoid fighting about boys or curfews or school work.
Could this work as an effective parenting strategy?
If so, which is the least detrimental thing for mothers and daughters to quibble about?
November 7th, 2008 — Family Life
Over the last several years I’ve been “opting out” of Christmas obligations and reducing the spending while increasing the fun. Have you noticed it is NO FUN to get a second job or charge up your credit cards to buy unappreciated gifts.
That’s the anti-thesis of fun.
When my friends and family complain about the endless gifting and the lack of equitable gifting or lack of gratitude expressed by others for their gifts, I tell them, “Just stop doing it.”
One of my friends took my advice this year and I suspect a few more will as well. She’s given me permission to publish her email to her friends and family. Dear Friends and Family,
In the interest of making the holidays less stressful and expensive for everyone, we have decided the best gift we can give our friends and family is not to participate in gift exchanges this year. Please use any money you would have spent on us for your own family or to help someone in need.
We are still looking forward to spending time together celebrating the season and enjoying each other’s company. With that in mind, we would like to invite you to a Holiday Party at our home on Saturday, December 13 at 4 p.m. We’ll send more details as the date gets closer.
Love,
Your Name Here
The response from their friends and family?
Relief.
Her current feelings when she sees all the Christmas Marketing now?
Peace.
Copy and paste the note and forward it to your extraneous Christmas list. This will leave plenty of money for the really important people in your life: your spouse, your children, your parents and your children’s teachers.
More on this at Boycott Christmas in November.
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip # 1
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #2
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #3
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #4
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #5
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #6
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #7
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #8
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #9
Meaningfully Frugal Christmas Tip #10
Steal This Christmas Gift Please!
November 6th, 2008 — Family Life, Other stuff
The only cure for sentiments like this is extra attention.
So, I put aside my own need to lie in bed with a book all day on Sunday and took her to town where we went window shopping.
Left Zack with Daddy.
What do you do when your kids get jealous? I wonder how Moms like Kate from Jon and Kate + 8 gives each kid “enough” attention? My aunt Stephanie had 10 kids – how do mother’s manage that?
Are girls more insatiable than boys for attention?
