My Daughter Is 16. The World Is Crazy. I'm Looking For Ideas.

I read about the 17 teenagers at Massachusetts high school who became pregnant last school year - pact or coincidence, take your pick. I look at my beautiful 16-year old daughter. And I wonder about the state of young women in America.

I have to ask myself a very difficult question. For all the hard-won independence and latitude that defines the lives of young women today, has there been a price to pay?

And does even raising that question cast me back to the days when young females were neatly divided between good girls and bad girls, with those straying over that arbitrary line finding it virtually impossible to come back. I'm talking about the days when young girls did not get pregnant; they "got in trouble." And they usually vanished until the trouble passed.

Such questions pose a special personal dilemma since my two children are more then 15 years apart. A lot has happened in that span; everything from easy electronic passage to our society's cesspits to celebrity disintegration as a spectator sport.

Also, my first child was male; with much of the heavy lifting in imparting manly virtues falling to my husband: play hard, don't back down, do your job and so on.

Ok - maybe I just answered my own question. Maybe that is exactly how you raise a daughter.

There is an old saying: "Happiness is the ability to look reality in the eye, and deny it." If it makes you happy, go ahead and intellectualize the idea that gender makes no difference today in how you raise kids - if the catcher is blocking the plate and you are stretching for home, run her down! But the reality is: girls are different from boys. Go ahead and laugh, but I still believe that.

I would be very happy to adjust the check-list rituals through which mothers have imparted wisdom in the ways of the world to daughters. But there is much about the new world of young women that mystifies me. My world was the Mouseketeer girls. Hers is the Spears girls.

I get the good parts - the end of female boundaries, limitations and assumptions in everything from sports to career choice. I understand that you don't float through a glass ceiling.

But toll for that empowerment is counted out in some unsettling facts.

One in five teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease - the "at least" part is still rattling around in my head looking for a rational resting place.

And then there is the rise of teen-girl violence. The media explosion of YouTube pummelings is simply a graphic flashpoint for some puzzling trends.

Studies show historical gender gap in violence is shrinking. The most recent Justice Department Uniform Crime Report, shows the number of girls who were arrested on all charges increased by 6.4 percent, compared with a decline among boys of 16.4 percent.

Arrests of girls nationwide on assault charges rose 41 percent, as opposed to a 4.3 percent rise among boys.

A report from the Harvard School of Public Health holds that this new female violence is a new default in solving problems and a means to win social acceptance.

Some say it's the shift in role models - where women in action movies no longer wait for the hero, they kick the bad guy in the throat. Some say it's the family - from weak bonding to diminished supervision to domestic violence. Others say that - like foul language, binge drinking and grabbing your crotch - it's cool to do what the boys do.

How do we prepare daughters for this new world?

How do we make them tough, without making them hard? How do we make them show empathy without making them targets? How do we make them courageous without making them stupid?

I am an older mother of a younger daughter in a confusing time for both of us. And I'm open to suggestions.

Comments

[garcohsf]

HuffPost's Pick

Know your kid. Help her to know herself. Encourage her to have goals--her goals, not yours. I think among the hardest things in life are to know what you want, then to get it, and then to still want it after you've gotten it. So help her with that.

Tell her the truth, especially about your self and what you did when you wree her age. Admit your mistakes. No, embrace your mistakes. One of the things she needs from you is to know that you don't think that you or your life are perfect or the only way to live.

And don't worry about all those scary statistics--they don't tell you anything about your daughter. Saving the world is your day job; helping your daughter be a mature, healthy adult is your mission.

[ArabianMonkey]

So true! Well said.

Let your kid travel the world and see/live other places and communities - the more developed and the less developed, the devastated and the booming. Knowing what's out there and seeing/being part of other people's lives cultivates compassion, embraces diversity and gives a young person an enriched ability to gauge what matters to them and what they want to do about it - Understanding what's around this world helps them decide who they want to be for their own journey forward.

[dadshouse]

I agree, talk the truth. I had the birds and bees talk with my daughter when she was heading into 6th grade. Seems local boys were persuading girls to perform sexual acts in the bathroom. What I told her: http://dadshouseblog.com/2008/07/02/how-to-talk-to-your-daughter-about-sex/

Now my daughter is 16, and I still talk openly with her about dating, relationships, safe sex. Maybe it's easier for me as parent because I'm a single dad and I'm out there dating. I'm face to face with modern dating life, and it ain't pretty.

[amamomofsons]

I had a bunch of boys, but I have watched the mother's of daughters treat them differently than boys and justify it in all sorts of ways. Yesterday I had lunch with a friend and her daughter. It came out that the daughter who lives at home after graduating college, has a 1:30 curfew. This girl is 24 years old and working in a demanding profession. I don't get it. I have seen mothers of daughters turn their daughters into poor little victims and blamed others for their failings many many times. Mothers do threat them differently. Our generation worked too hard and long for our daughters to enjoy the respect and privileges they now have for them to be following the bimbos that they idolize like the Paris and Lindsy and the Britney clones. Those women set us back fifty years.The mothers allow them to wear provocative clothing and then wonder why they are marginalized. They allow them to make excuses for behavior.....like PMS... then wonder why they are not reaching their potential. They spend more time looking in the mirror and pursuing shallow endeavors than paying attention to their grades. They learn early on to use their femininity to get their way and to manipulate people around them. It's sad for the girls who are trying to reach beyond what we felt were our only choices.

[nainam97]

I think I have a lot to say to you, since I was once the single (of course working) parent of a 16-year old as well as a 13-year old.

Let me start by saying that there is virtually nothing you can say that will prevent them from doing all the things you fear. But there is a secret weapon, namely setting them a good example. Be all the things you hope they will be: independent of what the "crowd" does, hard-working, responsible, and full of love and tolerance. Believe me, they will be watching you.

My daughters are now grown and happily married and have satisfying careers. They are my best friends and the three of us often remark on how lucky we were to survive, together, the really scary dangers of the world.

[SilentShout]

Here's something I've been considering: While it's important to make sure young girls know the hardships of parenting, it's also important to not scare them away from ever having children. I just turned 30, so I am of a pre-Bush generation that was babyproofed to the gills. Every time we turned around we were hearing about how hard it is to have a baby, how you lose your life, how you are at the mercy of your partner, etc. etc. Guess what? I personally know only one woman of my generation with a baby. The women I know have been fighting like hell to establish careers, be independant, put off marriage. I don't think they're all that happy. I include myself in this statement, I don't have children and I'm not planning to. It makes me sad, because I don't want to have a baby, but I want to want to have a baby. Don't terrorize girls about motherhood and then expect them to turn on a dime when they turn 27. It's not going to happen.

[vietveter]

Move to Sweeden

[Peddler]

Love her; educate her; instill those moral values that were instill in you; be there for her; and don't take her for granted. Times are changing and the world can be a horrible place. You can only do your part; the rest will be up to her....and if she turns out anything like her mother......you know that you have succeeded.

[kardwell]

I do not have children myself, but I do have numerous friends who are parents, both single and married, and also six nieces and nephews, and one great-nephew.

The two biggest parenting mistakes I have seen involve parents who try to be their child's best friend, and parents who are lazy, self involved, and disconnected from the world. With either scenario, it boils down to the parent not demanding a degree of respect and deference as a parent, and not earning that respect by setting personal examples for conduct, establishing high standards and drawing boundaries.

Any parent who believes that their child needs a buddy in constant agreement, a constant ego-booster, more than they need a mature responsible parent to guide and mold, is setting themselves and their child up for failure.

The parents I know who have happy, stable, high-performing children, have managed to transcend their own neurosis and fear of being "unpopular" to create the structure in which their children can safely and healthily thrive.

[awitness]

Maybe it's time to start looking at girls differently. Why do we acknowlege that some segments of human kind have evolved but exclude segments of the population that make us uncomfortable to think of as changed? The girls of today mature sexually & physically much faster than ever before. It's tough as parents to wrap our minds around this. Is it hard to have a graphic sex talk with a 13 year old? You bet but you had better! Brains mature much slower but that doesn't stop us from granting adult privelages to teens - they drive, vote, sign contracts, and go to war. Hormones are raging and the drive for sexual attention is uncontrolable. Why would we expect them not to have sex and enjoy it? It's really fun, you don't need money to do it, you can do it anywhere and anyone can do it! A perfect activity for a bored, broke teens! Parents would be wise to behave as if the age of consent is much lower than it actually is...I'd say 15. Youth is beautiful. Society puts 15 year old boys & girls on a pedestal as an example of the finest, most pure beauty (see Miley, Abercrombie, etc.). Deal with them as they are rather than as you wish they could be. Arm them with information & self confidence. Girls who are confident are more likely to turn down unwanted sexual advances. Girls who lack self-esteem are the ones most at risk.

[oncethere]

I happen to see alot of mothers who are over-involved in their daughter's lives. Enmeshed. Find a healthy boundary between you and your daughter. Don''t try to meet your emotional needs through your daughter. Encourage her in things she shows an interest in and talent for.

Most Important: Validate her feelings, particularly if they are angry ones directed at you. I see too many mothers get too defensive when that happens and begin to blame everyone in sight. Kids can deal with mistakes parents make, even mistreatment they suffer, if their feelings about it are eventually validated and understood by parents.

[jsarets]

I'm going to jump on the "get rid of the TV" bandwagon. The media doesn't sell us a lifestyle that they believe is good for us personally or good for our society. They sell us a lifestyle that involves buying whatever it is that the big corporations have to sell.

The main motif is that there are two elemental personalities in American society on which all consumer behavior is based: self-interested and self-conscious. We are encouraged either to demonstrate our difference/superiority to everybody else or to please others/ourselves by being more like everybody else.

These personalities are not gender-specific, and an individual may exhibit either personality depending on the context and/or product. The danger is in identifying strongly with either of these personalities, because although they are effective in consumer life. they are highly destructive in social life.

Although marketing is becoming incredibly pervasive in all aspects of everyday life, television is its most concentrated form. Watching television can be devastating to the social development of children since they rarely understand that TV is not an example of how to live.

It requires a certain maturity to realize that while television is entertaining and compelling, it's a highly distorted reflection of reality. Maybe the real world isn't all that crazy. Maybe it's the TV world that's crazy.

[wolfgangmo]

Bandwagon? What bandwagon?

Did I miss the day when America started to chuck their TV's en masse?

In order for there to be a bandwagon, shouldn't there at least be a countable minority of people giving up the TV?

[dlswriter]

Research the effect of hormones and other additives in the food supply on adolescent sexuality. We know the current American diet is contributing to adolescent obesity, and no doubt, it's making everyone crazy. A vegan diet and nothing packaged may be the way to go.

The school system is absolutely nuts. If your serious, homeschool. The only interaction children get at school is to conform to the craziness.

If your really, really serious, there is reversible sterilization.

[SilentShout]

Yes! It's long past time we looked at the real effects of food additives. Once you begin to look at obese people not as weak with no self control, but rather as people who have been POISONED, it really changes your perspective.

[texastrixie]

Tell the truth. Tell her that sex with a teenage boy is not going to be about her - at all. That no 16 yr old (or 21 y/o for that matter) is any good in bed. That if he won't continue a relationship except with sex added (and she is not ready for that or plain doesn't want to) - let him walk.

My sister laid it on thick about how she would throw her kid out in the street, etc. She told me that all this new idea about a young woman having to make her own choices was BS. She said, "I want my daughter to have me to hide behind. I want her reaction to offers of drugs, sex, or drinking to be the old fashioned, "But my parents would KILL ME! said with enough conviction to get the other kids to lay off." Even today, kids understand and fear parents who act like parents. If when the friends come over you still insist (so 1950's) that bedroom doors stay open and that nobody calls any phone in the house after 10:30 PM, the friends will believe your kid when she says, "I can't do that - my parents will kill me, throw me out of the house, etc."

Rules are like fences, they not only keep you in - they keep bad things out.

[reggieb]

excellent post - I read somewhere that girls 14 to 17 want attention but not physical attention. Many of them don't know that oral sex can go both ways even though they hear about it much earlier than age 16. If you can make the point to your daughter that it's doubtful that a teenage boy will "reciprocate" and express doubt that he could be skillful in any way, you can possibly help sway her decisions.

[SonofLiberty1]

Texastrixie,

I agree.

Peggy Drexler,

Set the rules...your rules.

Heck, I would have gotten KILLDED if I messed up as bad as these girls and boys are.
I didn't in the 1970's and I'm glad of it!

Kids are kids. They need direction. They may not say they like it but they do.
Personally, I would hate to be that young today there's just so much more ways to screw up but I believe it's possible to raise your kids right.

I'm not married but one of my best friends is.

He's a guy that I met the very first day at college in 1976.

He ended up marrying a girl from the same school.

Today they have kids just getting out of college, they have a large family, and not one single kid is
in trouble.

And they are both Catholic.

Yes you can just remember that!

[Oldtimer]

I'm a single dad with a 13 year old girl. Do you know anybody in L.A. looking for a good
family guy that care about alot of things? It seems all the good ones are taken out here.

[texastrixie]

Go to church. Singe moms and single women who actually make it to church on Sundays usually have a least some sense of what's important in life. BTW, just because she goes to church doesn't mean she's a human ice cube. But she probably won't be asking you to spend the night (or the equivalent) for months.

[TheCult]

When it comes to sex and drugs for today's American or first world children - unless you want to try to keep them cloistered - there is not much you can do when all is said and done. You can lead a girl to information but you can't make her accept. You can spend your time hand wringing about what your daughter is doing or plans on doing or how she will be influenced by her peers and others, but you are not God. You can't control her destiny, and if you try to be super controlling usually that will backfire and make her more determined to flaunt her freedom from your desire. I always recommend that the young generation needs somem form of spirituality in their lives because it is a nihilistic outlook on life which for most children causes self destructive behavior e.g. life is short, nothing matters in the end, party like it's 1999 - party till you die.

[TheCult]

Maybe statistics on recent female crime rates are misleading. Maybe it is that females are being arrested more often the they used to be because they used to not arrest females as much as they do now for the same actions. Maybe what has changed is the attitude towards women when it comes to deciding to prosecute or not. most female crime comes from lower income areas where due to poverty and hopelessness girls are raised in an environment where violence is common due to the financial pressures and substance addictions of the people in those areas. Being raised in a cultural mileiu where you see violence used to deal with problems all around you instills within children that violence is an acceptable outlet for frustration. Peggy, if your child lives in an enviroment where causal violence is not aceeptable then she will learn that . As for her dealing with those without that upbringing -become philosophical or have her learn martial arts.