"All right... I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."
- Daisy Buchanan, The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald wrote these lines almost a hundred years ago. Strange, how such a statement still resonates in our modern world, maybe even more so.
In the course of engaging in the great internal debate I continually have over whether or not to procreate, I have slowly reached at least one conclusion - I definitely do not want to have a girl. I've no interest in creating yet another beautiful little fool.
I watch how girls act, and how they dress, and how little deliniation exists between one of them and the next, and it makes me so sad. Upon expressing my wish to not have a girl, today at lunch, my co-worker commented that having boys is not the solution - they just impregnate the girls. But it's not the sex that worries me. What does worry me is that there seems to be very little room in our society for girls to have personalties. I feel that the same is not the case for little boys.
They all wear Uggs. Their makeup would make Joan Crawford jealous. If they're not wearing their pajama bottoms in public, they have a pair of sweats or racing pants on. Or, if they're trying to look "nice", their jeans look as though they were painted on, and their tops should only be worn by infants. Their conversations - my God, maybe I was just a big geek when I was younger. Talking about drinking and drugs and sex and who is hooking up with who, in public, as loudly as they can, and at very young ages. Did we do that too? I mean, I know I didn't, but I was also a really big loser. I didn't have my first boyfriend until after college, for God's sake.
I don't think I could handle the disappointment of having a girl who only aspired to be exactly like all of her little friends, because to be otherwise is to condemn yourself to an adolescence of ridicule, humiliation, and exclusion - in other words, mean-girl warfare. I know I went through that, but I resolved to take a few knocks for being different - because they're all still warming bar stools in Kent, Ohio every weekend. I'm not. And I knew that when I was in high school. But I can't gamble on my daughter being as motivated or eager to do well for herself, especially in a society where being labeled a "smart girl" is all but a death sentence.
So here's what I want to know gang - from the mothers who read this blog - were you as frightened and disappointed by what you saw in little girls before you had us? And from my friends and peers here - do you feel similarly when you think about having kids? Am I just too judgemental? Am I making it a lot worse than it actually seems?
Discuss.
Friday, February 22, 2008
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6 comments:
One the initial part of your post you have to check out the video on my blog today because I have a feeling half of these girls were wearing uggs when it was taken.
As far as kids go, I am actually terrified of having a boy child. I am 5ft tall and have a bald father. The kid would be Costanza.
In all honesty it doesn't matter. I am half convinced my kid will either be a hardcore gangsta kid or a total redneck just to spite me.
When I was in 7th grade, and had braces and bad bangs (not even the cool type), and wanted boobs and a boyfriend more than anything, my mother told me something that will live forever on that shelf of "really good advice if only you'd trusted your mom."
She told me that the girls who were beautiful and perfect and styled and dating and busty and all that were also the ones who would make out too soon, drink too soon, do drugs/smoke too soon, have sex too soon and wouldn't ever find out who they really were because they were so busy figuring out how to be what everyone wanted them to be.
She then said that "I promise you they'll burn out, and by then you'll have blossomed into you and you'll be glad you waited."
She couldn't have been more right. Of the girls we discussed, NOT ONE of them graduated college, one got pregnant at 17 by a friend's DAD, one went to rehab, and 1 had to be employed by her father in order to get and keep a job. One still lives at home. Yes, to this day.
And not one left our town.
So, therefore, I agree with you, and believe that it isn't the "having" of the girls that's the problem, it is the "not raising them properly" that is today's issue. Give them advice, support and a moral compass, and they'll be just fine. They may not date until after college, but that will just be a relief to you. :)
I wouldn't trade my girl for ANYTHING in this world!!!! Don't you think it has alot to do with how they are raised?? Do you think I would have EVER let you out of the house in anything resembling PJ's or a shirt a child should be wearing?? We had enough fights over your choice of clothes at one point in your life but they were NEVER sleazy.
Yes, mom, I think it has everything to do with how they are raised - the clothes, the makeup, the talk...but the larger question is this -
Who is raising these kids? Are they trying to be parents, or their child's best friend?
And it's not the clothes and the makeup themselves so much, but more it's the sameness and sheep mentality it represents among girls. They are cookie cutter images of each other - and I don't remember it being this bad when I was their age.
I secretly rejoice when I see a girl who doesn't look like all of her peers, because I look at her and think "now there's a girl that has a mind of her own". But there are so few! That's what really worries me - that she won't try to be her own person, or try to excel, because it is just not socially acceptable.
We're regressing, as far as I can see, when it comes to supporting girls in our society.
And it breaks my heart, as a dweeby girl who fell in love with Simon and Garfunkel long before she ever thought about a real man.
:)
I totally relate to this post, Friend. I teach 2 and 3 year olds, and it scares me how much the little girls are already into clothes, hair and makeup. Those few who are not are excluded. They're too young to be really affected yet, but you can see the direction things are going. It scares me. And, frankly, the girls bore me. The boys are doing fun, innocent things (yeah, there's a little bullying, but nothing major) and the girls are already catty. I really didn't expect these kind of cliche gender roles playing out in kids so young.
I've always said I'd prefer to have a son, but as you well know, having a son would create a LOT of challenges for me. There's really no good option.
girls (not all girls but who pays that much attention to the ones that aren't getting on our nerves) are just not being raised well. there isn't the drive to be excellent like when we were kids. no one wants to be smart, they just want to be hot. and their parents apparently aren't telling them that being twatty and vapid isn't hot. and if they are, listening to your parents isn't cool. i am gonna start yammering and changing the subject so i'll stop. btw, natalie's hypothetical costanza son is killing me over here. hilarious.
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