Читать книгу Raising Girls in the 21st Century - Steve Biddulph - Страница 20

I hope you’ll find the five stages clear and easy to understand. Remember that each girl is different, so the stages can vary quite a lot according to at what age they happen. Also, they overlap, because nature is efficient and starts one lesson while the other is still finishing. I hope you can live with that!

The key point is that as your daughter completes each stage, she comes to a decision about her life, which is going to either help or harm her. For example, imagine a girlhood where all five stages go badly. This girl would arrive at the following five decisions:

1 Life is uncertain, and nobody loves me.

2 New ideas and things are frightening.

3 People can’t be trusted, and they are impossible to get along with.

4 I have nothing of value inside me, I am a nobody.

5 Growing up is just too hard. I don’t want to be an adult. I don’t have any power or any choice in what happens to me. Stuff just happens.

Those are pretty bad outcomes, but they are familiar to anyone who works with girls. Every parent can look at their daughter, and her friends, and other girls in their town and city, and see the results of these stages being lived out. Some girls will make it, some will not. The decisions that girls make at each stage are profound and life-altering.

Fortunately (in case you are now paralysed with fear!), these decisions are made little by little, combining many experiences, so we shouldn’t panic about always getting things right. The stages last for years and we get lots of chances.

As a parent, what matters is that you don’t give up. Loving your daughter and keeping on trying are what will get you through. And if your daughter is already past some of the stages and you feel that she didn’t really get the message, don’t despair, those decisions can often be remade later.

Of course, if you have a new little baby daughter and she is the reason you are reading this book, then you are lucky indeed. But at any age, if you have enough caring and motivation, then you can still put things right.