7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future

[bpesta22]

You could ask Rebecca.

I would but I fear Laden would beat me.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I would but I fear Laden would beat me.

Osama Bin "Greg" Laden?

 

[angrysoba]

Try going to South Korea. Complete strangers will openly mock overweight people. Resumes come with photos if you want to teach engrish. I wouldn't be surprised if plastic surgery is more common in Tokyo than Los Angeles.

In Tokyo? I doubt it. In Seoul, possibly/probably.

 

[angrysoba]

Not an expert, but since I have two, I'll bite.

For context, to be 10 and 7 in a couple of weeks.

1. You teach her to be polite and quiet.

Polite, sure. Every parent should try to do that.
Quiet? I find that to be a function of personality. Daughter of Abaddon the Elder is the life and soul of the party, equally able to interact with adults and kids.
Daughter of Abaddon the younger is an introvert, typically found surgically attached to the Leg of Abaddon.

2. You buy her gender-specific toys.

And why not. They get lots of toys, and some are gender specific, some are not.
I suspect this is generally true.

3. You tell her she’s pretty … to the exclusion of everything else.
Daughter of Abaddon the Elder has an astonishing ability on the piano to figure out how to play tunes she may have only heard once. Beats me how.
Daughter of Abaddon the Younger, while quiet and introvert, has an astonishing ability to wheel out an incredibly incisive observation of any situation. You just have to be patient.

Hey, I could make a shopping list here of stuff my kids do.

4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult.
Hmm. Partially agree. However, one must realise that the girls go through the "pink phase" at about 6/7 years old.
Daughter of Abaddon the Elder has moved beyond that, and will have nothing further to do with it. The question "Is that pink?" now means that whatever it might be that you bought for her will now be summarily rejected.

Daughter of Abaddon the Younger is still pink.

5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.

All I can say is mine cannot wait to muck in with whatever task is at hand.

6. You only let her spend time with other girls.

This one puzzles me. I am unsure how one would achieve this odd task.

7. You criticize your own body, and/or other women’s bodies.
Oprah, where are you?
This is just stupid.

I agree with most of this. Absolutely, you can't criticize parents for teaching their children to be polite and to be quiet. In fact, parents who let their children be rude and mouth off all the time are clearly damaging their offspring more.

I also think that the magazine suggests everything comes from the parents but children develop their own personalities too and many of them will want toys that could be "gender-specific" (as with lots of PC maniacs they give themselves away by assigning "gender-specific" labels only to then try and claim that there is absolutely no reason why gender-specficism should exist - if I gave a boy a toy gun would they say it is gender-specific? If I gave a girl the same toy gun would I be entitled to say I was giving her a boy's toy?

 

[Verklagekasper]

1. You teach her to be polite and quiet.

Oh yeah. We can never have enough loud and annoying people!

2. You buy her gender-specific toys.

She will play with whatever she wants to play, and she'll let you know when she wants certain toys.

3. You tell her she’s pretty … to the exclusion of everything else.

Actually, modern culture already depicts girls as smart and boys as dumb. I think it's boys who could need a little support here.

5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.

Yeah right. Show her that Dad is disposable. What's so terribly wrong with admitting that there are physical differences between men and women?

 

[Noztradamus]

4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult.
Her mother has somewhat encouraged that. I have merely pointed out that Xena and Wonder Woman are princesses too. And we regularly do battle with the aforementioned Nerf swords.

As are Mononoke and Nausicaa, who are closer in identifiable age than the 30ish Xena and WW. And rather than following the precepts of the original article, which comes across as feminista whinging about patriarchal brainwashing, a more positive counter would be the Miyazaki/Ghibli canon of strong willed, independent (but polite) girls of ages 4 to 18.
At 5 she may be past the age of girlchild obsession with My Neighbour Totoro, but the rest of the canon tracks for older children, right up to the almost Bogart/Casablana feel of Porco Rosso (If Rick was a cynical anthromorphic porcine bounty hunter)

 

[Dave Rogers]

8. You neglect to teach her how to cook and clean for her future husband.

Because, if she doesn't know, how can she teach him?

Dave

 

[JJM 777]

1. blah
2. blah
3. blah
4. blah
5. blah
6. blah
7. blah
8. You criticize traditional womanhood, and cause unnecessary emotional distress.

 

[Multivac]

What do you think of this article?

7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future

The 7 ways are:



Are these things really harmful to girls?
I'm not sure they necessarily are.
I'll grant the "to the exclusion of everything else" part of 3, but that's sort of a given for any quality a child might have. I.e., I don't think you should tell a child any one thing "to the exclusion of everything else".

In our household, we are probably guilty of number 5 some of the time, but that is down to physical strength rather than gender roles. Number 7 probably applies to Mum more than Dad, but as a Dad I do not criticise womens bodies in front of the girls. If I think that someone is being stupid, I try to explain to them why that person is being stupid without referencing their gender, size or appearance. Obviously, being human, this doesn't always work but the intent is there.

1. You teach her to be polite yes
1A. and quiet. That's funny!
2. You buy her gender-specific toys.No
3. You tell her she’s pretty yes…
3A. to the exclusion of everything else. No. We often tell them they are smart and artistic
4. You indoctrinate her into the princess cult. No way!
5. You give Dad all the physical tasks around the house.Sort of, maybe
6. You only let her spend time with other girls.No. They both spend more time with boys than girls, because they think boys have more fun
7. You criticize your own body, and/or other women’s bodies. No.

 

[Ziggurat]

My sister was determined to buy her daughter as many toy trucks as she did for her son, and her son as many dolls as she did for her daughter.

Guess what? It didn't work; my niece wasn't interested in the trucks, and my nephew hated dolls.

Yeah, that one seems guided by ideology, not reality. There's nothing wrong with gendered toys, kids tend to prefer it that way. I don't see any problem with just getting the kids the toys that they want, and if that matches gender stereotypes, so what? I mean, I plan to exercise some discretion about which particular toys to get my offspring. I'd never get a kid a doll that says "math is hard!", because that's a stupid message for girls or boys. But if the kid wants a doll, they can have a doll, and if they want a truck, they can have a truck.

 

[abaddon]

Yeah, that one seems guided by ideology, not reality. There's nothing wrong with gendered toys, kids tend to prefer it that way. I don't see any problem with just getting the kids the toys that they want, and if that matches gender stereotypes, so what? I mean, I plan to exercise some discretion about which particular toys to get my offspring. I'd never get a kid a doll that says "math is hard!", because that's a stupid message for girls or boys. But if the kid wants a doll, they can have a doll, and if they want a truck, they can have a truck.

That's exactly what I did with mine. And I ended up with a tomboy, and a girly girl.

You gotta give them space to be themselves.