Читать книгу Raising Girls in the 21st Century - Steve Biddulph - Страница 19

At 18 your daughter begins to be a woman, and so at the age of 14 the preparation for that huge leap has to begin in earnest. It’s mostly practical – here’s how you manage money, driving a car, time, eating, clothes, health, safety – but it’s also a powerful shift in attitude. Sometime between 14 and adulthood a girl needs some kind of marker event, a growing-up rite, an experience or even misfortune which teaches her that she is now at the steering wheel of her own life. That she literally holds her life in her own hands. This is a frightening realisation, but frightening in a good way. By steadying herself, and by receiving the welcome and support of older women, she can leave behind childishness or harmful gullibility, and be accountable, connected to consequences and proactive in making her life worthwhile. While life itself can deliver this realisation to a girl, leaving it to chance is a hazardous and unreliable way for it to happen. She might come to serious harm. Also, some people never grow up and their lives are self-absorbed and wasted; they drift in misery, blame everyone else and never take responsibility.

Girls have to be deliberately and proactively launched into healthy womanhood. When this is done well, the results are impressive. A girl takes charge of her life and makes her unique way in the world.