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Mums and girls - what's going on?
Monday 11 October 2010
Categories: Family Relationships, Parenting
Research for Netmums found that mothers admitted to being tougher on their daughters than their sons. They let their sons get away with what they call “cheek” while they criticise their daughters for being “stroppy”. Boy behaviour which brings on a wry smile triggers irritation when it’s a girl’s.
What is going on here? Are mothers perpetuating learned behaviour from their mothers? Perhaps it goes all the way back to the era of hunter-gatherers when a male needed to be independent, confident, dinosaur-getting while their sisters must stay within the safe confines of the cave so as to protect and nurture the next generation. If so we must adjust, and quickly, for this is not appropriate for the world our children are growing up into.
Or is it simpler? Do we mothers of daughters try to shape them to be like ourselves? If so then any challenge or criticism is intensely personal and is felt as a criticism of us. We want good, compliant little girls to as to demonstrate what good mothers we are. Whereas we want our sons to be “out there”, charming and boisterous and growing into the perfect man!
We all shape our children. Other research shows how we interact differently with baby boys and baby girls, jiggling and bouncing rather than cooing and cuddling. We point out cars and diggers rather than babies and pussy cats. We shape them by the toys we give them and the games we play with them. Today I heard a mother say “Well you can’t give pink to a boy”.
Why not? Pink for a girl, blue for a boy is a quite custom. In mediaeval times it was blue for a girl – the colour of the Virgin Mary’s cloak, and pink for a boy because red was a stronger, more masculine colour.
You have to admire how these mothers were able to be very honest, despite the bad light it put them in. With this in mind we would do well to reflect on how we treat our daughters because the effects will last. By accepting our girls’ challenges as they grow into independent, healthy adults, by praising them whenever we can, we build foundations for the confidence essential for mental well-being and will raise a generation of wonderful, happy women.
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