Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?


The statistics about the plummeting self-esteem among girls as they reach puberty is staggering.  I worry about it being the mother of a singular little girl.  She is staggeringly beautiful, petite, tan, blonde and blue eyed.  She is loving and ever so clever.  She is self-assured in a way that I never was or likely will be and she is so very, very intelligent.  The quote from Shakespeare, "Though she be but little, she is fierce" describes her to a tee.  To be honest I am a little afraid of her, she outsmarts me frequently and her wrath is the stuff of legends.  I don't want her to lose any of that as she sails the stormy seas of adolescence.
Frank worries in the same fashion and he asked her the other day if anyone had ever told her that she could not do something because she was a girl.  She was shocked and annoyed by the question and spit out a staccato "No."  I was proud of her response and the fact that her older brother was also equally stunned by the idea that girls might be told they could not do something.
Frank then turned to me in front of them and said, "Mommy, did anyone tell you that you couldn't do something because you were a girl?"  He knew I had a trove of examples and I shared one for the sake of underlining the point.  I grew up in a very traditional household and under the guidance of some pretty old-fashioned parents.  My parent are both from England and my father was an avid English football fan (soccer).  He passed that passion on to my brother and he coached my brother's intra-mural soccer team.
I adored my dad as a little girl and I wanted to do anything that he loved.  I wanted to play soccer as well but my truly lovely dad told me that "girls don't play soccer honey, they do ballet."  This despite that fact that there were two girls on my brother's team...  So I never played soccer.
I wish I had been more of a Scout Finch and rebelled against the constraints of other people's expectations, but I was little and I didn't.  I also had it in the back of my mind that girls are not supposed to make a fuss, they are supposed to be obedient and quiet and no trouble. Sugar and spice and everything nice.
I was surrounded by messages that told me I was less than.  I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, a country which I still hold in my heart, but whose record with regard to women is far from stellar.  When we went to restaurants we had to sit behind screens in the "family section."  When we went to Baskin Robbins, we had to order from the window on the street as we were not allowed to enter the shop.  Women are not allowed to drive there and though I knew these things were not the norm in the rest of the world, it affected me.  I remember being told that girls are really not generally good at math, they don't grow up to be engineers, and I believed it.  It is so ironic now given that Wren scores off the charts in math and logic.
My mother told me that decent women never leave the house without a bra or make up on.  Her views ran along the same lines as The Pioneer Woman I think and those things sunk into my unformed brain from the get-go.  I know I spent a good deal of time growing up, not looking men in the eyes because it was not respectful and on some level I deemed it dangerous.
Right now our daughter is fierce and independent and sassy.  Her teachers talk about "leadership skills" which I know is a nice way of saying that she can be pretty bossy.  I have stopped telling her to "be nice" when she gets bossy and instead tell her to remember to be respectful.  I would rather she be bossy than meek, rather she rage than cower, rather she make a big splash than merely wade.
God, I don't want her to carry ANY of what I chose to take in from childhood around in her head.  I want her brain filled with hope, dreams and the knowledge that she is unlimited.  I want her to fly unencumbered by the judgements of others.  I want her to rise as high as she chooses and to live without regret.  I hope we manage to keep her head filled with hope rather than lack of self esteem and honestly I wish the same for our son and my husband and myself.