It must be very difficult indeed to be young girl (or boy) growing up in today's woke craziness. It is hard enough being middle aged or elderly today but being young and impressionable increases the potential harm. The best thing that parents and other sane concerned adults (grandparents, aunts, uncles, the remaining good teachers and librarians, etc.) can do is to present kids with the truth as they are being fed lies by the ever more encroaching woke culture. Too many of these kids have never even heard the truth much less been nurtured in it.
Jul 24, 2022·edited Jul 25, 2022Liked by Jenny Holland
Such a huge and multi-tentacled topic (for me as once-girl, now-woman, now-mother, ex-left...). Thanks for your approach here. Bless those girls!
Like the wading girls, my head just swims at what kids face right now. I'm weirdly optimistic about the future, but this period (no pun intended but I'll take it) is a clusterf*ck.
I was thinking this too. It's one thing to hope your daughters will have enough character to stand up for themselves and to have the wit to navigate the predatory attention that will inevitably come their way. It's another to create an artificial culture of "fierce girlhood". To tell them in subtle and not so subtle ways that the patriarchy is out to get them. It has ever been so and shall always be, and their role is to be like the statue of the girl standing in front of the Wall Street Bull. No wonder they are cutting themselves. No wonder they are anxious. They are to be thrown into the volcano.
I remember my a friend's daughter being praised for taking part in a bake sale at her elite high school in which they charged different prices to boys and girls in supposed accordance with the wage gap. It went over everyone's head when I pointed out that if the men were were under 30 they'd be earning less than their female peers. This was snarky of me, I admit. But it was like seeing a normal intelligent girl moulded into an ideological automaton. The last time I saw her she was trying hard to look like a man and had scarred wrists.
Jul 24, 2022·edited Jul 24, 2022Liked by Jenny Holland
As usual, Jenny, you hit the nail on the head! So beautifully written. This pressing need to be different is a typical phase during the teen years ( I remember my own punk rebellion and trying to be different and shocking!) And there's nothing wrong with that per se. But nowadays the adults in the room are actively encouraging it, maybe as an extension of their own egos and belief that they themselves are different and special. And I really do believe we are all different and special anyway, without all the attention-seeking, hyper individualised behaviour which is now being encouraged. Becoming an adult is challenging enough, without all this crap.
As a mom with two “ white middle class” (ie, non special or unique ) teen girls in Brooklyn, this hit home. It’s tough, real tough. Not a day goes by where I don’t see my girls ( and their friends) struggling in this culture it’s heartbreaking and hard to know know what to do about it. Thankfully no fur pronouns yet. Thanks for the post.
For someone who doesn't have kids, I spend a lot of time thinking about what it's like to be one now, compared to when I was one in the late '50s to early '70s. The way they are raised, schooled, continuously monitored, and indoctrinated bears no resemblance to the freedom boys and girls had a few generations ago. I know a woman in her mid thirties who still talks and has the body language of a thirteen-year-old, along with a bitter resentment of The Patriarchy she received from her angry PhD mother. When I was a child, there were actual thirteen-year-olds who were more grown up than this person. If there's ever to be a return to normality, I probably won't live long enough to see it.
My other comment is about the photo. When I first glanced at it I thought it was a colorized photograph from around 1900! I mean that in the most complimentary way imaginable.
It must be very difficult indeed to be young girl (or boy) growing up in today's woke craziness. It is hard enough being middle aged or elderly today but being young and impressionable increases the potential harm. The best thing that parents and other sane concerned adults (grandparents, aunts, uncles, the remaining good teachers and librarians, etc.) can do is to present kids with the truth as they are being fed lies by the ever more encroaching woke culture. Too many of these kids have never even heard the truth much less been nurtured in it.
Such a huge and multi-tentacled topic (for me as once-girl, now-woman, now-mother, ex-left...). Thanks for your approach here. Bless those girls!
Like the wading girls, my head just swims at what kids face right now. I'm weirdly optimistic about the future, but this period (no pun intended but I'll take it) is a clusterf*ck.
I was thinking this too. It's one thing to hope your daughters will have enough character to stand up for themselves and to have the wit to navigate the predatory attention that will inevitably come their way. It's another to create an artificial culture of "fierce girlhood". To tell them in subtle and not so subtle ways that the patriarchy is out to get them. It has ever been so and shall always be, and their role is to be like the statue of the girl standing in front of the Wall Street Bull. No wonder they are cutting themselves. No wonder they are anxious. They are to be thrown into the volcano.
I remember my a friend's daughter being praised for taking part in a bake sale at her elite high school in which they charged different prices to boys and girls in supposed accordance with the wage gap. It went over everyone's head when I pointed out that if the men were were under 30 they'd be earning less than their female peers. This was snarky of me, I admit. But it was like seeing a normal intelligent girl moulded into an ideological automaton. The last time I saw her she was trying hard to look like a man and had scarred wrists.
As usual, Jenny, you hit the nail on the head! So beautifully written. This pressing need to be different is a typical phase during the teen years ( I remember my own punk rebellion and trying to be different and shocking!) And there's nothing wrong with that per se. But nowadays the adults in the room are actively encouraging it, maybe as an extension of their own egos and belief that they themselves are different and special. And I really do believe we are all different and special anyway, without all the attention-seeking, hyper individualised behaviour which is now being encouraged. Becoming an adult is challenging enough, without all this crap.
As a mom with two “ white middle class” (ie, non special or unique ) teen girls in Brooklyn, this hit home. It’s tough, real tough. Not a day goes by where I don’t see my girls ( and their friends) struggling in this culture it’s heartbreaking and hard to know know what to do about it. Thankfully no fur pronouns yet. Thanks for the post.
For someone who doesn't have kids, I spend a lot of time thinking about what it's like to be one now, compared to when I was one in the late '50s to early '70s. The way they are raised, schooled, continuously monitored, and indoctrinated bears no resemblance to the freedom boys and girls had a few generations ago. I know a woman in her mid thirties who still talks and has the body language of a thirteen-year-old, along with a bitter resentment of The Patriarchy she received from her angry PhD mother. When I was a child, there were actual thirteen-year-olds who were more grown up than this person. If there's ever to be a return to normality, I probably won't live long enough to see it.
My other comment is about the photo. When I first glanced at it I thought it was a colorized photograph from around 1900! I mean that in the most complimentary way imaginable.
The link to the frog pronoun girl whatever that means has been deactivated. What a dystopian new world we live in.