Raising Strong and Confident Daughters Today

Lauren Pacibella was turning three. This year, she was very interested and involved with planning her party. Before placing the order for balloons, her mother asked her what colors she wanted for her party. Lauren answered without hesitation, "Blue and green." To both of their surprise, pink and lavender balloons were waiting for them on the big day. Her mother looked at the clerk and remarked, "These aren't the colors we ordered." The puzzled clerk said, "But it's written here that this is for a little girl's birthday??"

Even though girls and boys are born more alike than different, they are distinguished from the start. Whether a frilly "going home" gown from the hospital or a pink ribbon taped to the head, girl babies begin life already with expectations about what it means to be female. Resisting stereotypes about gender is about as impossible as preventing a one-year old from falling down. All it takes is one look at a diet cola billboard while quietly sitting in her car seat or learning the tale of a lonely cindermaid to help shape ideas about gender—ideas that many parents don't want their little girls to follow. Certainly, beliefs about the roles or men and women vary according to many factors, including culture and socioeconomic status. These beliefs have life long effects and tend to be inter-generational. The good news is that with the concerted efforts on the parts of parents, teachers and other meaningful people, girls are doing better than ever—proving that it is possible to raise girls who are strong, confident and very capable.

In the last decade or so, there has been enormous media attention paid to girls in our society. The media blitz started after the 1992 American Association of University Women's highly publicized report, How Schools Shortchange Girls. In short, girls were not receiving as much attention as boys by their teachers, suffering from a decline in self-esteem and lagging far behind boys in important subjects, such as math and science. Research, television news magazines and newspapers jumped on it to report what is happening to our girls. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, by clinical psychologist Mary Pipher quickly became a bestseller and provided much appreciated support to anxious parents and caregivers to help girls resist the ills of a "girl poisoned" society. Then the academic focus changed. Prominent psychologists questioned the empirical evidence behind the riveting AAUW report. The conclusion stunned many; it is not girls in trouble but our sons.

This academic crossfire will surely continue as long as women are having children. But in our everyday lives as parents of very young children, girls are influenced through the television, movies, books, advertising, and toys and subtly given messages about how females should act and look like. Perhaps even more constructive than the academic debate, is the reflection by parents on what has been working to nurture successful adolescent girls and how to assist our very young daughters navigate through the messages about gender with every step in development.