Her big brown eyes shown with loving softness as she grabbed her seat belt and looked at me. She didn’t say “Thanks, mom, for picking me up in the rain.” (She would normally have to walk home from school the four blocks to home.) But her eyes said it all. I see a board member at a cocktail party this past week and she says, “You know, you are really great at boardsmanship, I was telling a friend how well you handle our meetings…” Someone interrupts us and we move on to talking about other things. This morning I step out into the crisp Fall air after a good overnight rain. The air is damp with the smoky smell from my neighbor’s chimney. All my Autumn plantings have gotten a good soak so I won’t have to drag out the hoses. It is Thanksgiving week and I am reminded of all of the ways I feel gratitude. In a book by life coach, Martha Beck she talks about the importance in those moments to acknowledge those feelings with “Just This.”
I realize my life and probably everyone’s lives are filled with those “Just This” moments – a smile, a kind word, a sunset, a flower, a cloudless sky, the touch of a hand, an “I love you mom” hug. We probably miss as many of those moments as we get – maybe more, worrying about the future, worrying about the past, living in the fear we are not enough or sometimes, too much.
I have been there, clouded by what’s on my to-do list. Sometimes it’s because I am too focused on what I want to happen instead of being in the moment, absorbing and being grateful for what does happen. Holidays are like that. In my head as I make up the menu and shop for groceries I think about what I want our Thanksgiving day and dinner to be. It probably won’t be anything like what I imagine, but it might be better. If I can stay present to the day, acknowledging and being totally in the moment, there will probably be so many more “Just This” opportunities. So this Thanksgiving week, I give thanks for all the little things and some bigger ones: a great place to work, a community of people who believe the world can be a better place and work toward that end, a dedicated and fun staff, beautiful daughters, loving family and friends. I remind myself today and this week to find all of those “Just This” moments that are born of total presence.
Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Edge of Adolescence
The Edge of Adolescence
“For over a century, the edge of adolescence has been identified as a time of heightened psychological risk for girls. Girls at this time have been observed to lose their vitality, their resilience, their immunity to depression, their sense of themselves and their character.”
Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan: Meeting at the Crossroads
Last week my oldest daughter slid down hill. It started with finding out that she was occasionally cutting (“ditching”) her first class in the morning. This was discovered when someone caught her and a friend off campus during that school hour. I could make a case for middle schoolers not being in school with high school students – particularly in the sixth grade, when all of this newfound freedom is dizzying. But I will save that for another day.
It ended on Friday afternoon with a phone call from the Vice Principal telling me she had been suspended for calling another girl a bad name, the same girl she was cutting school with the weeks and months before. My daughter has been most of the last few years, quiet, introspective. Prior to the volume of homework she has had this year, she read voraciously – mostly long novels with big stories. Her friends were three sometimes four girls who formed this bond early in the school year. A few falling outs during the year were nothing like what happened on Friday morning. This small group of friends imploded, leaving all of them with suspensions and I am sure some hurt feelings.
Girls – we hear it from principals all the time – take up a lot of school discipline time. They fight over friendships; their breakups with their friends are painful and cruel and maybe last a day or two. They talk about each other, they cast aside friends they pledged their devotion to just the week before. One minute they are in love with life and the next they are painfully sullen. My younger daughter, when happy, can bring light and joy into a room, when she is angry, she can suck the life out of a place.
As a mother, I was stunned by the turn of events in just a week. I knew that she had been struggling with the class, but never in my wildest dreams thought she was skipping the class. For one, I thought the hallways at school were patrolled better than that. The suspension took my breath away for a brief moment after a week of bad news and head scratching. And yet, as I thought about it, my eldest has found herself more of a follower than a leader. Even though she says she knows everything she needs to know about leadership (in response to why she doesn’t need to be in Girl Scouts anymore), she has proven to me this week that I need to get her back involved – and find her some additional adults with whom she can connect.
After I righted myself, I asked her to write me an essay about friendships – what she looks for in a friend, what she feels like when she is friended and what it feels like inside when she is a friend to herself. Her answers weren’t that introspective; in fact, they were very behavioral, which caused me to ask some follow up questions. We talked about her inner compass. Did she feel it? Did she listen to that inner voice? When her friend wanted to leave class, did she hear that voice?
When we were talking I realized that she really didn’t have the ability to override the friends’ voices. She may have the moral and ethical reasoning, but that voice, that inner compass, was being drowned out by peers. I shared with her a couple of times I wished as a girl, that either my mom stepped in or I invited her in. I told her she may not always know what to do – but I wondered if she might want to think about asking me to help sometimes. At least, inviting me into those moments when she is hearing the voice, at least a nudge from the inner compass, but really feels pulled in another direction.
It seemed to shift something for her. Maybe some weight she has been carrying. I reminded her that 12 is not really that big, that even though she feels “old” she is not very. I got the sense that this was somewhat of a relief to her.
As a mom and a Girl Scout – I know that Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan are right. This edge of adolescence is a challenging time. It is a time when girls need Girl Scouts – a time when moms also need Girl Scouts – as we shepherd our daughters through this rocky road of adolescence.
“For over a century, the edge of adolescence has been identified as a time of heightened psychological risk for girls. Girls at this time have been observed to lose their vitality, their resilience, their immunity to depression, their sense of themselves and their character.”
Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan: Meeting at the Crossroads
Last week my oldest daughter slid down hill. It started with finding out that she was occasionally cutting (“ditching”) her first class in the morning. This was discovered when someone caught her and a friend off campus during that school hour. I could make a case for middle schoolers not being in school with high school students – particularly in the sixth grade, when all of this newfound freedom is dizzying. But I will save that for another day.
It ended on Friday afternoon with a phone call from the Vice Principal telling me she had been suspended for calling another girl a bad name, the same girl she was cutting school with the weeks and months before. My daughter has been most of the last few years, quiet, introspective. Prior to the volume of homework she has had this year, she read voraciously – mostly long novels with big stories. Her friends were three sometimes four girls who formed this bond early in the school year. A few falling outs during the year were nothing like what happened on Friday morning. This small group of friends imploded, leaving all of them with suspensions and I am sure some hurt feelings.
Girls – we hear it from principals all the time – take up a lot of school discipline time. They fight over friendships; their breakups with their friends are painful and cruel and maybe last a day or two. They talk about each other, they cast aside friends they pledged their devotion to just the week before. One minute they are in love with life and the next they are painfully sullen. My younger daughter, when happy, can bring light and joy into a room, when she is angry, she can suck the life out of a place.
As a mother, I was stunned by the turn of events in just a week. I knew that she had been struggling with the class, but never in my wildest dreams thought she was skipping the class. For one, I thought the hallways at school were patrolled better than that. The suspension took my breath away for a brief moment after a week of bad news and head scratching. And yet, as I thought about it, my eldest has found herself more of a follower than a leader. Even though she says she knows everything she needs to know about leadership (in response to why she doesn’t need to be in Girl Scouts anymore), she has proven to me this week that I need to get her back involved – and find her some additional adults with whom she can connect.
After I righted myself, I asked her to write me an essay about friendships – what she looks for in a friend, what she feels like when she is friended and what it feels like inside when she is a friend to herself. Her answers weren’t that introspective; in fact, they were very behavioral, which caused me to ask some follow up questions. We talked about her inner compass. Did she feel it? Did she listen to that inner voice? When her friend wanted to leave class, did she hear that voice?
When we were talking I realized that she really didn’t have the ability to override the friends’ voices. She may have the moral and ethical reasoning, but that voice, that inner compass, was being drowned out by peers. I shared with her a couple of times I wished as a girl, that either my mom stepped in or I invited her in. I told her she may not always know what to do – but I wondered if she might want to think about asking me to help sometimes. At least, inviting me into those moments when she is hearing the voice, at least a nudge from the inner compass, but really feels pulled in another direction.
It seemed to shift something for her. Maybe some weight she has been carrying. I reminded her that 12 is not really that big, that even though she feels “old” she is not very. I got the sense that this was somewhat of a relief to her.
As a mom and a Girl Scout – I know that Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan are right. This edge of adolescence is a challenging time. It is a time when girls need Girl Scouts – a time when moms also need Girl Scouts – as we shepherd our daughters through this rocky road of adolescence.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Girls Soaring
Why does the thrill of soaring have to be preceded by the fear of falling? Good public speakers, athletes, and actors all talk about that initial anxiety that accompanies the speech, the event, the play. I have heard it said that just a little of that anxiety can help you create the edge you need to push yourself to the next level. Once, while taking a class in self defense, we were told to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” That is a good lesson to learn when you are trying to overcome something; in this case, old patterns and scripts of being unable to defend yourself.
As girls are socialized, they come to an edge of knowing and not knowing themselves. Before my eyes I, am watching my 11-year-old try on new “selves.” Last year as a fifth grader, she was somewhat reserved around others and very judgmental of teachers who she did not feel were in integrity. This year, she observes the passion in her English teacher for a book he likes. She tells me, “It would be like me talking about the books I really like, mom. He just goes on and on about this book.” She doesn’t like the book and thinks it is boring. Last year, she would have resisted completely, dug her heals in and chosen not to participate. This year, she is plodding through, reading the book and doing the assignments.
Looking at the canon of works they are reading, I am saddened to see there are no women authors. There are few men of color. I want to push back on this edge, even though she has backed away from it. Her conformity comes with her socialization. As her mom and as a woman in this culture, I know she has to conform. She can’t step out and fly off this ledge. She has to be successful in school and to be successful she has to accept the canon of books as the best of the best, even though she will not see herself reflected in it. She must deny the voice inside herself that wants to demand a book that engages her and connects her.
To soar as women sometimes means to leave the comfort of the group, to challenge the status quo, to speak out when something doesn’t feel right. Sometimes we don’t even recognize any more what we accept as true, even though it may not be true for ourselves. Raising daughters, watching them, I see those edges and have to trust that eventually, my daughters will know when to soar.
As girls are socialized, they come to an edge of knowing and not knowing themselves. Before my eyes I, am watching my 11-year-old try on new “selves.” Last year as a fifth grader, she was somewhat reserved around others and very judgmental of teachers who she did not feel were in integrity. This year, she observes the passion in her English teacher for a book he likes. She tells me, “It would be like me talking about the books I really like, mom. He just goes on and on about this book.” She doesn’t like the book and thinks it is boring. Last year, she would have resisted completely, dug her heals in and chosen not to participate. This year, she is plodding through, reading the book and doing the assignments.
Looking at the canon of works they are reading, I am saddened to see there are no women authors. There are few men of color. I want to push back on this edge, even though she has backed away from it. Her conformity comes with her socialization. As her mom and as a woman in this culture, I know she has to conform. She can’t step out and fly off this ledge. She has to be successful in school and to be successful she has to accept the canon of books as the best of the best, even though she will not see herself reflected in it. She must deny the voice inside herself that wants to demand a book that engages her and connects her.
To soar as women sometimes means to leave the comfort of the group, to challenge the status quo, to speak out when something doesn’t feel right. Sometimes we don’t even recognize any more what we accept as true, even though it may not be true for ourselves. Raising daughters, watching them, I see those edges and have to trust that eventually, my daughters will know when to soar.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Perception is Everything
In a recent meeting I attended, the lone man in the room said quite seriously, “well, now that women have taken over the world, you all don’t need to worry about all this.” My immediate thought was that life really is all about perception. We recently appointed only the third woman in 111 justices to the Supreme Court; there are just 17 women in the U.S. senate; and Oklahoma ranks 49th in women serving in state elected office.
Girls who participated in focus groups on leadership after the presidential election in 2008 pointed out that it was much harder for women leaders to succeed in this country than men. But perception is everything. And the lone man in the room felt that we had taken over.
Once, while teaching a college class on Adolescent Female Development, I led a guided imagery to the class, asking them to go back and connect with the 8-year-old self that they were, before body changes and social perceptions changed how they may have perceived themselves. Since it was a class on female development, I used the pronoun “she” as the generic term instead of “he.” Right away, the three men in the class fidgeted until the quiet imagery part was over. Immediately their hands went up: “We can’t do that.” “I could not translate ‘she’ to ‘he.’” said another.
Do we women even think about that? When the word “mankind” is used, women have no problem including themselves under that terminology. Unless you were somehow blessed with the perception to question the status quo (I sometime want to figure out why I liked the “emperor has no clothes” story so much!) most of the ways women are disconnected from or denigrated in the picture are missed: the photo of all the white, male scientists; the assumption that the doctor is male, or that the picture of Sotomayor hanging from a rope in a cartoon was supposed to be funny because she was depicted as a piñata.
But just because we miss what is being said to women in subtle and not so subtle ways, do those images still influence us? A recent study about teens links stress with pregnancy. While researchers thought that teen moms were often stressed after the birth of their child, the studies point out a good predictor of teen pregnancy, is often stress before the onset of pregnancy. Higher levels of psychological distress in their teenage years led not only to pregnancy, but lifelong issues with depression.
This study, coupled with the Centers for Disease Control’s report a year or so ago about the increase in suicide and suicide attempts in girls 10-17 makes me wonder if living as a girl in our society, whether you know it or not, can be hazardous to your health. If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, I am grateful I am doing the work that I am doing: working with girls to develop their voices and to build their leadership muscles, can only help them as they encounter the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
Girls who participated in focus groups on leadership after the presidential election in 2008 pointed out that it was much harder for women leaders to succeed in this country than men. But perception is everything. And the lone man in the room felt that we had taken over.
Once, while teaching a college class on Adolescent Female Development, I led a guided imagery to the class, asking them to go back and connect with the 8-year-old self that they were, before body changes and social perceptions changed how they may have perceived themselves. Since it was a class on female development, I used the pronoun “she” as the generic term instead of “he.” Right away, the three men in the class fidgeted until the quiet imagery part was over. Immediately their hands went up: “We can’t do that.” “I could not translate ‘she’ to ‘he.’” said another.
Do we women even think about that? When the word “mankind” is used, women have no problem including themselves under that terminology. Unless you were somehow blessed with the perception to question the status quo (I sometime want to figure out why I liked the “emperor has no clothes” story so much!) most of the ways women are disconnected from or denigrated in the picture are missed: the photo of all the white, male scientists; the assumption that the doctor is male, or that the picture of Sotomayor hanging from a rope in a cartoon was supposed to be funny because she was depicted as a piñata.
But just because we miss what is being said to women in subtle and not so subtle ways, do those images still influence us? A recent study about teens links stress with pregnancy. While researchers thought that teen moms were often stressed after the birth of their child, the studies point out a good predictor of teen pregnancy, is often stress before the onset of pregnancy. Higher levels of psychological distress in their teenage years led not only to pregnancy, but lifelong issues with depression.
This study, coupled with the Centers for Disease Control’s report a year or so ago about the increase in suicide and suicide attempts in girls 10-17 makes me wonder if living as a girl in our society, whether you know it or not, can be hazardous to your health. If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, I am grateful I am doing the work that I am doing: working with girls to develop their voices and to build their leadership muscles, can only help them as they encounter the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
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