Entries from January 2009 ↓
January 29th, 2009 — Notable Mentions
Scholastic’s Parent and Child Magazine is hoping to feature THE very best Mommy Bloggers out there.
The Girl Revolution is honored to have been nominated. Please take 2 seconds right now to visit the site and enter your email address and this website address: www.thegirlrevolution.com.
It would be such a prestigious and exciting thing for The Girl Revolution to win. Just think how many other parents would find out about and join The Girl Revolution - thus, changing the world for all our daughters!
Thank you all for your support! Visit Scholastic Parent and Child Mommy Blogger Contest.
You can also win a Fit Girl Shirt at Blog Fabulous.
January 28th, 2009 — Feminine Heritage, Reviews & Giveaways
I’m pleased to introduce Alexis Saint as a Guest Writer on The Girl Revolution. Alexis is a personal friend of mine. She holds a Master of Arts in Counseling and Guidance and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Intern. She is also the mother of five-year-old Sarah, one of our beautiful Poster Girls in the rotating header.
By Alexis Saint
The four of us were crowded into a public restroom at a high traffic big box store and I was wrangling my three small children, all under 36 inches, up to reach the sink. Attending to the business at hand which was getting all 40 fingers washed when my oldest son, four at the time, asked if he could have some candy while pointing to the feminine products vending machine.
Having already decided to handle questions pertaining to sexuality in a very matter-of-fact way, I answered that the machine did not have candy in it. It had pads, kind of like small diapers, to catch the no-longer-needed lining of a women’s uterus if there was not a fertilized egg inside of it already.
He seemed satisfied with my answer, but just then a woman came out of one of the stalls with a very embarrassed look on her face, glared at me and made straight for the door, without washing her hands, I might add. I wondered if starting her period as an adolescent had been somehow bound up with shame, secrecy and fear.
In that moment I decided that my daughter’s period would be a source of honor and celebrated as a benchmark on her path to womanhood.
Although she was only 11 months old at the time, I started a collection of items that I thought would be appropriate for the occasion. So, in my quest to honor her as a maiden, as a contributing member of the earth’s life force, and as my prepared, informed and confident daughter, I began collecting things in a wooden lock box decorated with pixies. The box is big enough to encompass the following…
A dream journal…a collection of multi-cultural stories about how menarche is celebrated around the world…letters written to my daughter from my trusted and loving sisters about their feelings/experiences of femininity, menstruation, and growing up…these are to give her sense of the community with all women.
A lunar calendar...to illustrate the harmonious cycle of the earth and the women on it.
Bath salts…tea bags…a candle…a mirror…for alone time to reflect and relax.
A well-written book on female sexuality…for practical education.
A new package of dark colored undies (period panties)…pads and tampons…for self care on the big day.
And finally an OTC pain reliever for cramps..lets be real, cramps and PMS happen.
My hope is that my daughter will grow to revere and embrace her full inheritance as a woman.
In celebration of this special moment in a girl’s life, Marianne Impal, of Red Goddess at www.redgoddess.org has offered to give one Red Goddess Box to a reader of The Girl Revolution.
This Red Goddess Box, which retails for $49.99, includes:
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A Solid Wood Fabricated Keepsake Box
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Lavender Bath Salts
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Celebration Tea
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Comfort Herbal Pillow
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Energy Leg and Foot Rub
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Active Leg and Foot Spritz
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Calming Body Myst
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Pad Purse
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Purse Pats Cleansing Towelettes
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Moon Calendar with stickers
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Positive Picks Inspirational Cards
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Stationery
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Gift Giver’s guide to walk you through what can sometimes be an awkward time in a young girl’s life
LEAVE A COMMENT about how you’ll handle your daughter’s period or a story about how your parents handled it for you and you’re entered to win.
This post is entered in Bloggy Giveaways. This contest will run for 7 days, and shipping to the United States and Canada are accepted. Enter for a chance to win another popular Fit Girl shirt on Blog Fabulous.
January 27th, 2009 — Body Image & Self Esteem, Fit Girl, early puberty
Yesterday, in Fit Girls: Weight = Moral Failure, we talked about how having a moderately overweight child isn’t necessarily a moral failure, but a side effect of prosperity.
And then there was the Oprah Show with those severely obese teenagers.
Sometimes its a form of neglect. Those parents are guilty of of neglect.
These are parents who were given the “red zone” warning at doctors, in schools, for years and then stopped on the way home at Sonic for the Giantest Grease Meal and the 44 Oz Dr. Pepper with a side of fried cheese sticks.
I don’t even know what to say about a high school kid that’s over 300 pounds. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But, those parents sounded like they were physically and emotionally neglectful of those children.
While walking Ainsley 3 times around a mile long track recently, I saw another family with another daughter. That little girl was probably 100 pounds and only around 5 years old. She was crying and throwing a fit every step of the way. I was so proud of those parents I almost walked up to them and gave them a high five but I didn’t know how it would be received. It was a quintessential moment of “you’ll thank me later.”
Everyone DVR Why Our Kids Are So Fat with Dr. Oz on Oprah today.
Fit Girls: Weight = Moral Failure
Fit Family = Fit Girl
Image source: Oprah.com
January 26th, 2009 — Fit Girl, early puberty
Let’s talk about the feeling of failure parents feel when they realize their kids weigh too much – or too little. You’re in the doctor’s office and she announces your child is overweight, in the red zone and a feeling of failure quickly follows. I’ve heard exactly the same feelings from parents who are told their child is underweight, malnourished, etc.
Yes, it is the parents’ responsibility. Sometimes it is a moral failure on the part of parents. A form of neglect. Sometimes.
Most of the time it’s not.
It’s a side effect of prosperity.
In America we’ve had some good times. Food and access to it, is more abundant than it’s ever been and we have to do far less work to get it.
We’re not simply fatter people. We’re larger boned and taller than the average person in developing nation. We’re larger boned and taller than Americans one or two generations ago – we also weigh more. Our nutrition – through access to food, plus our education and knowledge about food – is better now than ever in the history of civilization.
I spoke to Dr. Teresa Knight, Ob/Gyn, who is deeply concerned about what early puberty and childhood obesity means for this generation of girls. One of the things I had trouble wrapping my brain around was why girls would begin puberty earlier when, in fact, women are having children later rather than sooner and the need for more children to work fields is no longer a driving force for women to have children early and often. Why aren’t girls going through puberty later instead of earlier?
“What if we were wild animals and we take away our thought process,” Dr. Knight asked, meaning the thought process of the late 20th Century, that women should wait longer to have children and work it around their careers. “All wild animals if you give them more food and make them healthy then they reproduce more. The goal of all of nature is to reproduce more, bloom more, same thing. In nature, females are either pregnant or breast feeding their whole lives because that’s what they do.”
Put like that it does make sense that prosperity would equate to early puberty and larger bodies in mammals, and humans are still fundamentally mammals.
To get some perspective on how differently we eat today, as a result of prosperity, talk to your grandparents and parents about how they ate as children. This is a very enlightening exercise.
My grandparents grew up in the depression. Meat was a very rare luxury. They grew their own food in their own giant garden. When the crops came in they spent months laboring to store the fruits and vegetables for the winter and lean times. The meat, eggs and milk they had – they grew themselves. As they became more prosperous they sent the cow to be slaughtered and the meat was cut and stored at a butcher. The meat from that cow would last them the year. Maybe there was a pig and surely there were family chickens. My grandmother, now 85, stopped growing her own vegetables only last year. I was sorely disappointed.
Growing up, my mother remembers the men who went out to work were the only ones who ate the precious little meat they could afford. My grandfather went to work at a factory and provided a stable living, but they still ate mostly from their garden. As they became more prosperous they slowly started buying their meat from the grocery store instead of raising it themselves. Still, there was not meat at every meal. Sunday roast was a big deal. My grandmother often made dessert for after dinner, but processed sugar and sweets were a very rare treat. My mother was a mere 100 pounds when she graduated from high school.
When I grew up my parents gardened a little, but most of our food came from the grocery store. More of our entertainment began being food-oriented. The generation before them used food for entertainment, but only after the women toiled in the kitchen for hours, days even, to make it for their social occasion. My family had pizza on a Friday night. We went out to dinner for special occasions like birthdays and graduations – but it was so infrequent that it was special. We very rarely went to McDonalds or Burger King, except when traveling when we’d stop for the 50 cent hamburgers. No fries. No soft drink. The far majority of our food was still prepared at home, now with more packaged and processed food, like fish sticks, to quicken the process. I was around 115 pounds when I graduated from high school.
Our family doesn’t eat out much either. I say that, but it’s in comparison to how often other people of the 21st Century eat out rather than a comparison to how often my parents or grandparents ate out. I don’t actually consider stopping at the McDonalds for a $1 chicken sandwich because we are too busy to stop between appointments “eating out” because it lacks nuance. My children have never known, and God willing, will never know, the feeling of true hunger. They eat for fun. It’s their hobby. They still eat tons of fruits and vegetables, but I’m not sure standing in line at the grocery store compares to weeding a garden for 5 months. We can’t afford organic so their fruits and vegetables aren’t as healthy as they once were. At least once a day they have meat, sometimes it’s twice. (My kids are fine with vegetables only for dinner – it’s my red-blooded American husband who will get up and make some chicken if I don’t plan a meal around it.) The animals we eat are caged and therefore get no exercise so the meat we eat is fattier, less nutritious and full of hormones and antibiotics. Eating for us, as we raise this generation is more “conscious choice” and “resolve to do better” and less “burden of economic necessity.”
Put in perspective – the weight issue our family has – is not so much moral failure as a side effect of prosperity.
Fit Family = Fit Girl
Fit Girl Series – Obese Teens on Oprah
January 23rd, 2009 — Other stuff
Today is the last day to enter The Girl Revolution Launch Party Contests. I’m leaving all the contests open so that anyone who writes a blog post about The Girl Revolution gets 1 entry to all 25 contests.
Launch Contest Rules
1. Twitter Me: @traceesioux and post the link to either a contest post OR a post from the archives and categories you appreciated. Follow me. Come back and leave a comment so I can keep track.
2. Facebook: Add me as your friend and post a link to either a contest post OR a post from the archives you appreciated. Come back and leave a comment so I’ll can keep track.
3. Blogroll: Change Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me links to The Girl Revolution links if I’m already in your blogroll or Add The Girl Revolution to your blogroll.
4. Leave a comment
5. Blog It. You get 1 entry in all 25 contests for any post announcing and linking to The Girl Revolution on your own site. Leave a link to one of the posts.
6. Visit The Girl Revolution Store: Feel free to buy something. If you drop a link to your favorite item you’re entered to win.
7. The Girl Revolution Webazine: Sign up for the Webazine. Leave a comment saying you’re signed up on the prize you like best.
Enter as many times as you like – Just be sure to leave a comment saying what you did on the contest post you want to win. I’ll email winners directly and announce them in the The Girl Revolution Webazine.
