Entries Tagged 'Mother-Daughter Emotional Osmosis' ↓

Very Public Exposure

Ainsley and I were in the New York Times Magazine on Friday. It was risky and scary, though important, because the topic was early puberty. TGR Body, our craptastic-ingredient-free skincare line (many skincare products are thought to have toxins that interfere with hormones), and The Girl Revolution were both highlighted.

You know I’ve researched the issue and shared the information here, but I’ve not discussed our personal experience. We considered the decision carefully — Ainsley, myself and her dad — and we felt that discussing it in public would be useful for other parents and girls. And it has been. The writer, Elizabeth Weil, has two girls of similar age to Ainsley and vowed to present us in a positive light, unembarassing, not humiliating. I thank her for keeping her word. I’ve received several emails of support, other parents and girls sharing their own experiences; thank you notes for being brave and helping them understand what’s happening with their daughters; making them feel less alone.

We chose not to have Ainsley’s face appear in the photographs because we couldn’t really determine the consequences of that.

Shame & Causes

I also felt that choosing not to talk about it added some sort of shame to early puberty, as if we had done something wrong to, as you hear constantly “allow girls to grow up too fast.” Well, we’re not ashamed and we shouldn’t be. We didn’t do anything to cause it. We didn’t neglect to do anything that caused it. We didn’t do a damn thing to “make our girls grow up too fast.”

It might be the hormones in meat and milk, it might be pesticides, it might be flame retardants, it might be the plastic Playtex insert baby bottles we microwaved when she was a baby, it might be eating more protein than our ancestors, it could be anything. Or it’s possible that it is none of these things.

It might even be evolution in action right before our very eyes. The world is on fast forward with our explosion of technology, maybe evolutionarily there is a very important reason for developing faster as a species that we simply don’t understand yet. Everything is happening faster for them, we expect more of them. Ainsley is already doing math that we weren’t expected to know until the 7th grade. They blog and learn PowerPoint in elementary school. These girls have not become adults and while we may be afraid of the consequences of early puberty, we don’t know the outcome yet. It’s not only happening to girls, it’s happening to boys as well. It’s not happening only in the United States where many of the suspected causes are more prevalent, it’s happening all over the world (Hindustan Times article). It’s at least possible that it is not harmful, but helpful in some way.

Either way, it is what it is, we’re not likely to stop it, at least not before this crop of girls develop into teenagers. The only thing to do is accept it, and dare I say, even embrace it.

New Developments

Since last year Ainsley has continued to mature. But, it hasn’t been as emotionally or developmentally disastrous as I had feared. In fact, the girls in her class discuss their “stages of development” very openly. They trust The Care and Keeping of You by American Girl as the Bible of Puberty. As it turns out Ainsley is #7 out of 10, not # 1, in getting a bra in her 4th grade class. It was one of the best days of her life. Getting a bra is a badge of honor with the girls debating the best colors to get (tan) and the best places to buy them (Target). Girls appear to be discussing their developmental stages openly with their parents (someone had to buy them a bra). They shave their armpits, and sometimes legs, as a matter of course and are even excited about it.

Juxtapose this to the many stories you hear from women about their first menses: no one told me it was coming and I thought I was dying; I didn’t tell my mom for three days; she saw the laundry and finally explained it to me; it felt shameful to me and no one ever talked about it; my mother called it a curse and told me it would be horrible; etc. You’ve heard the stories and maybe it’s your story. Things feel different now. Parents who went through those experiences and didn’t enjoy them are communicating with their daughters about the experience of development and puberty. Girls, in general, know about and don’t fear their periods or getting breasts. Rather than weird clinical books with bizarre diagrams, they are given fun books like The Care and Keeping of You, replacing Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret (we must, we must, we must increase our bust!).

Sacred & Powerful Gift

If you’ve ever read The Red Tent, (and if you haven’t you should) you know that once upon a time, for thousands of years, a woman’s first menses was a celebratory and sacred, holy, exciting event. Women held rituals to initiate a woman in her various stages of development — from menses to birth to menopause — Girl, Maiden, Mother, Crone. I’d like to see that tradition resurrected. As I mentioned in New York Times Magazine I do intend to throw a party. Even if it’s just a party of her and I — a nice dinner and the Chocolate Cafe and maybe a piece of commemorative jewelry. Or a women’s circle ritual with our girlfriends at my friend Anna’s Women’s Sacred Way studio. I’m all prepared for her first period with a Red Goddess Celebration Box, filled with essential oils, eye pillows, letters from her grandmothers, etc. I have panty liners stashed away, just in case. I’d like to share an experience different from a tampon or douche commercial. I’d love to share an experience of menstruation as a sacred gift able to produce life, a source of power. (For more on the power of our cycles read Red Moon and The Optimized Woman: If You Want to Get Ahead Get a Cycle.) When I go to the bathroom to cry, it will likely be bitter-sweet, a mixture of joy and of saying good-bye to the baby stages of my little girl —  knowing that precious, tender time will vanish from our lives forever. I imagine that’s what mothers have done for eons.

Puberty, whenever it comes, is not tragic. It’s a life-giving, sacred and exciting gift. Women have been having periods and growing breasts since the dawn of time, and we’ll keep on doing it until the end of time. We’ve lived, flourished and nurtured ourselves at varying degrees during different phases of history. Now is the time for a rebirth of our own sacred traditions. It’s time to heal the Sacred Feminine.

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I’m going through a massive transformation — it’s spiritual, it’s emotional, it’s physical, it’s psychic, it’s creative, it’s an upheaval of my soul and it’s awesome!

Christiane Northrup, author of Women’s Bodies/Women’s Wisdom, says that as women leave the hard labor years of young child birthing and nurturing and enter into their peri-menopause and near- and 40ish years they go through a massive psychic shift. They reframe their past and go through an emotional and psychic cleanse, casting off old baggage. They renegotiate their marriages, relationships with their children and other family and friends. They venture out more ambitiously into careers and the outer world. They redefine who they are and who they want to be for the next phase of their lives. If their spouses refuse to budge, they leave. If their friends take another path, they wish them well and go on their way, forging new friendships. If their careers no longer fill their needs, they start new ones. They reap the wisdom of the first 40 years and all the pieces start to fit together and they say, “I won’t make those choices again. I learned these lessons.” Ailments start to show up to point out what’s not working for them, if they listen they get well. If they don’t, they get sicker. If they renegotiate their lives and let old things go, they flourish like never before, if they don’t they decline.

This is happening to me.

As such The Girl Revolution is changing. I’ve been laying off the Watch Dog role, mainly because it makes me feel angry and frustrated and I don’t want to feel angry and frustrated. So, I will pass the torch to other fabulous bloggers who are much more passionate than I am about those causes.

The Girl Revolution sometimes dips its toe into spiritual waters. I’ve had feedback from readers saying I talk about God too much or I don’t criticize religion enough. If I try to please everyone I won’t please myself. If spiritual or religious matters offend you, seek elsewhere. I will write about it. If you have a desire to read criticism of certain religions there are plenty of blogs filling that role. There are plenty of religions that do plenty of damaging things to girls and women, that’s a fact, but I don’t go to those churches and you don’t have to either. I also don’t have to put my focus on their evil deeds. That also makes me feel frustrated and angry and I don’t enjoy feeling frustrated and angry.

The Girl Revolution has spent much time delving into the ways in which girls and women have been and are being discriminated against. This will stop now. There are plenty of blogs filling this role and thus I am not needed in this capacity. I believe in Law of Attraction and gender discrimination is not something I wish to attract for myself or for my daughter or for any other girl or woman on this planet. I do not wish to ignore it when it happens, but I do not wish to focus on it either. Again, it makes me angry and frustrated and I do not choose to feel frustrated and angry. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve realized that the truth is I have not felt certain types of gender discrimination since leaving Texas. I have not felt other types of gender discrimination since the early 2000s and it’s now 2012 and I want to let it go and believe some things have changed. Honestly, I would have preferred a little gender discrimination in my favor when I became a new mother to allow me an easier time at working and raising a family because I now realize that I DO have different priorities than the majority of fathers I know — especially the one that lives in this house — and if that offends your sense of what equality should look like well, the numbers support my thesis.

Also the truth, I realized, is that my daughter has never experienced any real damaging gender discrimination. She is among the top of her class, always encouraged in her education and given the support she needs and desires. She is on sports teams. She is told she is pretty about as often as my son is told he is so dang cute. She is told she is smart and creative more often than my son is. He is told that he is more athletic, only because he is. The media’s gender messages effect her only as much as we allow media into our consciousness, into our home, onto our computers — it’s limited. We create more than we consume. She sees women in politics, she sees women doctors and dentists, we have women friends who own businesses and are professionals and we know stay-at-home-moms and her grandma is a minister and yes, one of our friends is also a beautician who wears mini-skirts and sits in hot tubs drinking mojitos quite often and we don’t think she sold herself short, we think she’s a business owner who made choices that work for her. I don’t believe my daughter has any reason to expect gender discrimination. She is not raised in a family or church that tells her to bow down to men. She is expected to go to college. She is encouraged to pursue her passions and dream big by everyone around her.

So what am I “fighting” for? What am I spending my energy pushing against? The past. My past experiences that are over now. I have already won. The joy is already mine. I am just going to proceed, look forward and rejoice.

So, what will The Girl Revolution transform into? A lot of major things are in the works that I’m not at liberty to discuss at the present moment. But, they are extraordinarily transformative. If you are meant to, you will travel with me. If your needs are better served elsewhere, I wish you safe travels and a life full of abundance and joy.

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With Ainsley testing above her grade level, I’ve been encouraging (insisting and pressuring) her to read above her grade, so that she continues to improve and doesn’t get lazy.

So, I printed a sixth-grade Accelerated Reading list and we took it to the library. Dracula by Bram Stoker was on the list. I was surprised, because it was required reading when I was in College English, but I loved the book so we checked it out. But, on the way home, I started remembering that there was a sexually-violent undertone to the book that I don’t think is appropriate for a 10-year-old.

I asked around on Facebook . . . How do you encourage your kids to read above their grade level without risking them reading above their maturity level? It’s a conundrum that a lot of families face, it turns out.

Lori Day, an Educational Consultant in Massachusetts, and one of my Facebook Friends wrote back and reported that her Mother-Daughter Book Club had faced the same problem and they had come up with a brilliant list of books that were age appropriate for third- through eight-Grade girls with strong female protagonists. She was kind enough to share her list and the story of her Mother-Daughter Book Club.

Mother-Daughter Book Clubs Enrich Reading and Relationships

Thanks Lori! This is the list Ainsley and I will be taking to the library until we’ve exhausted it.

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“You’re lucky you got my hair, it’s gorgeous,” I say while I am curling her hair before school. The last six months is the first time in her life she has allowed me any access at all to her hair, because she wants more intricate styles than she can do for herself.

“Yeah, well I got Dad’s teeth,” Ainsley said.

“They’re straight and you won’t need braces,” I said.

“You also got my eyes, which are really beautiful,” I continued.

“Quit bragging about yourself,” she chastised.

“Hey, I’m bragging about you. You’ll notice as you get older that girls will criticize themselves to death, “Oh, I hate my teeth, I hate my hair, I hate my . . . whatever. Until they really hate themselves”

“Demi Lovato hates herself,” she interrupts. “She hates her show and she hates herself and she got fat and all the kids at school made fun of her, so she started throwing up and she hates herself now.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“All the kids at school saw it on the Internet,” she explained.

“Well, now you see why it’s important to look in the mirror and see what’s good – like your hair and your eyes – instead of listening to what the other kids say or focusing on what you think might be bad,” I say.

“Yeah,” she concedes. “My hair is beautiful.”

“I think those kids have way to much access to the Internet,” I say.

I stand back to look at my hair masterpiece.

“Why’s it all messy!?!” she demands.

Then we have an argument about her talking to me like I’m “the help” instead of her mother doing her a favor.

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The Girl Revolution is proud to announce the release of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. 

Order Now for only $9.99.

In this compilation of blog posts, I draw a parallel between the reality of dating violence, domestic violence, molestation, rape, date rape (if there is such a thing) and cohesion with the messaging of todays culture and media. Taken from almost 900 blog posts, I’ve chosen 30 posts that draw a concise and compelling picture of the Girl Traps, most stemming from a distortion of the word Love. 

Love Distortion takes a critical look at the Disney Princess Culture and the messages within that set girls up for dating violence and disastrous expectations about transforming bad guys into loving guys, the messages encouraging girls to give up their voices, their talents and their families for the “love” of a boy or man.

Love Distortion also takes a harsh look at other girl culture phenomenon like the Twilight Series and Bella’s willingness to give up her mortality, family, education and future to be with Edward; Gossip Girls, and their emotionally violent and disastrous games to achieve “success” with boys; Hannah Montana and other extensions of the Disney Brand; and posts about dating and domestic violence and the ways in which the word Love is used to coerce and manipulate girls and excuses violent and sexually predatory behavior against girls.

Love Distortion clearly explains the distorted thinking about love on both the part of the girl or woman and the boy or man in a violent, manipulative or abusive relationship. The book makes the connection between the thinking of participants in unhealthy relationships and the cultural messaging we are all inundated with day in and day out.

So as not to leave readers with defeated feelings, Love Distortion provides resources for more positive messages about, what I call, Authentic Love. Readers are given concrete exercises to do with their sons and daughters so as to prevent the distorted beliefs about love that they are inundated with through television, literature, music, Internet, video games, movies, advertising, radio and even, other adults in their lives.

Order Now for only $9.99.

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