The attack on girlhood would be less successful if we had not at the same time removed their main defences. In the last thirty years, as we began flooding girls' senses with these narrow versions of womanhood, we were also dismantling the emotional support system that had previously sustained young girls into womanhood. Aunties, grandmas, older woman friends, even mothers themselves, became much less available to nurture and reassure, challenge and inform adolescent girls. These women elders were either too busy, too distant geographically, or too preoccupied with their own lives, to be able to offer their time and affirmation.What do you think we can do as Christians to be counter-cultural in this area? How can we make ourselves more available to our children, and other people's children? I'd love your ideas!
This has been a remarkable change, more so for the fact that it has largely gone unnoticed. Girls today spend perhaps one tenth of the time in conversation and company of older women than they would have had even fifty years ago. The peer group does its best to fill this gap, and some of the best and most touching moments among young teens are their attempts to nurture and support each other, but it's haphazard. They are not equipped for such a vital and complex role.
The important place of men has diminished too. Father, uncles and grandfathers who ideally provided male affirmation and thoughtful conversation free of sexual pressure, once made it possible for a girl to begin seeing herself as intelligent, interesting, capable, strong and fun to be with, independently of any physical attributes. Men are gradually becoming re-activated in their fatherhood, but it's very early days. Most daughters wait in despair. A generation of adult women carry the wounds of their absence. (Steve Biddulph, 'How Girlhood Was Trashed and What We Can Do to Get It Back: a Father's View', Getting Real, pp. 167-8)
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
The disappearance of caring adults
Following on from my posts on the effects of our culture on young girls at the moment, I wanted to share this quote by Steve Biddulph. He highlights the shifting roles of adults in girls' lives as being a factor in the confusion our young girls are experiencing at the moment:
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7 comments:
Dear Nicole,
I love Steve Biddulph and his parenting books have been "our bible". He is a wise man and says many thoughtful things. I have responded to your post on my own: http://sarahspostcardsnaps.blogspot.com/2010/02/girls-and-caring-adults.html
I think that most of the Mums who read your blog are already counter-cultural and are doing an awesome job. Their girls are going to grow up into young women who fear and love the Lord.
Sarah
Thanks Sarah,
For those who are interested, I've written a response to Sarah on her blog (see link above).
And I still would like to hear your ideas!
I think you have actually said it in your question, "Be available". It's not rocket science this being available thing. It means being around physically, but more than that, being emotionally available to your daughters and their friends. I think it means being genuine and taking the opportunities when they arise instead of being too busy.
I have had some great chats with my daughter about friendships, and she was surprised to know that I did not always find things easy when I was at school. I also had a great conversation the other day with one of her friends on reading the Bible!
Mother/daughter dates, craft days, cooking, shopping days are all things you can do with other female adults and their daughters.
I have appreciated the warning from older parents, whose children have grown up (admirably), that you can't suddenly start being around when they are teenagers if you never were when they were little.
I think starting to talk directly about the importance of non-peer relationships, and actually telling women they have a really important role to play in the lives of the girls they are connected to. When we are older, we have a terrible lack of confidence that we are not young enough to be useful. We need to counteract that message!
Thanks Cathy for commenting on how easy it is to feel too old too be useful. I think I've witnessed that type of thing a fair bit and it's bothered me for a while!
I think Cathy's right when she says that adults can tend to be scared of younger people and scared of having a role in their lives. They can think that they have nothing important to say and that young people won't listen anyway. It becomes a vicious circle: adults don't get involved because teenagers won't listen, teenagers don't listen because nothing's being said, and so on!
I've seen this sort of thing happen a lot in a youth group context. As leaders over the last four years, we encouraged and asked older people from church to come and spend some time with the youth after church, or just to talk with them for a little while when they saw them or take an interest in what was going on in youth group. But it so rarely happened. It's partly an example of youth ministry being relegated to the church and the 20-something leaders instead of being drive by the parents themselves, but I think maybe the reason this happens is just because adults don't see that they have a role to play - one that someone my age simply can't fill!
Like Nicole mentioned (perhaps on Sarah's blog?), I'm not such a fan of the pattern in churches that splits up people of different ages and places them into particular congregations and meetings. I don't like only being with people my own age! I want to be with married couples and young parents and "oldies". I actually wonder whether doing "young adults" church is one way in which we prolong childhood and hold off adulthood. It seems sometimes as though night church is an extension of youth group - not quite "real" church, but almost.
Many people seem quite unsure about what it is that teenagers are supposed to fill their time with, about what their purpose is. I babysat over a couple of days last year for a family at church with three kids, one of whom is a teenager, and I had trouble figuring this one out! So it's not like I have all the answers. But to me it looks like teenagers are at a loss as to what to do with their time, so they sit on the computer, go to the shops, watch tv, sleep and text message each other - or else they get involved in "activity" after "activity" and become busy but maybe not God-centred. (That was me when I was in high school, by the way!) I think somehow we've missed the concept that teenage years are for training in godliness, and that teenagers have the capacity (under God) to do great things! Instead, we've made teenage-hood a largely pointless period of time that just needs to be ridden out and forgotten. We treat it as unimportant, thinking that real life starts later and everything, including Christian stuff, will be sorted out then. But then we also begin treating young adulthood in a similar fashion, and we implicitly send the message that older Christians are completely different to younger Christians and have nothing to teach them because their stage of life is so different!! But the thing is, Christians are to live the Christian life, including when they're three, thirteen and twenty-three. And we need help.
So - I guess what I'm saying in summary is that maybe we need to reaffirm that children, teenagers and young adults all need the help and support of older Christians - even if they don't think they do! And maybe that older Christians need some encouragement to go ahead and offer that invaluable support and advice.
I'm sorry that was such a long comment! I hope it kind of made sense and wasn't too muddled to understand.
Great suggestions Jo!
And Cathy and Hannah, I agree totally about the church family stuff.
I have some lovely friends whose children I adore, and they are also key in my daughters' lives. I know that times will come when my little girls, the oldest of whom is now only 5, may not want to talk to me about everything (although I pray this will not be the case). In that situation, I would love to know my girls have other older women who they can chat to, women who I trust beyond a shadow of a doubt, even if I never find out what they chat about. I'd prefer my girls to seek out these women if they feel they can't talk to me, than to find counsel from their peers. I'm hoping that the relationships we are building for them now will stand us in good stead when those teenage years hit. Or maybe I am naively hopeful?!
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