Please tell me it's possible to have a teen DD who doesn't post pouting selfies and

[ASeriesofFortunateEvents]

responds to photos of friends' selfies with comments like "gorgeous girlie" "l❤️v u loads"

I have several goddaughters dotted around the country and look at photos on their twitter accounts (only chance I get to see them theses days!) and they're all HD brows, cleavages, knicker skimming dresses and babyish talk.

Now I know I might sound like Great Aunt Prudish but DD becomes a teenager next year and I need stories from MN about teenager girls who are NOT like my godaughters.

I know I did daft things as a teen but the pouty thing is spectacularly daft. It just looks really stupid. As does the sucked in cheeks fish thing.

I wore daft cloths and thought I was cool when I was a teen when I'm sure I wasn't but I still think it was less daft than being obsessed with pouty selfies.

She took herself off with boys and was never involved in any bullying issue

Because boys don't bully? Please don't start with any of that 'girls are so bitchy' rubbish, boys are just as bad, it's just their nastiness usually gets called something else.

Why is being friends with boys better than being friends with girls? I have never understood women who have this attitude. Is the crux of it that men have a higher status in society, and so being accepted by them elevates a woman's status by proxy?

Home no longer being a respite from the long teen performance/judgement culture must be a concern.

My dd is nearly 18 and has never done this or seen the need to do it.
What kids do on social media is up to them however.
Was slightly alarmed to read a CV at work a few months ago however which had attached a full on selfie duck face cleavage photo, for a secretarial position

Nearly, was she (or he!) from a European country? It's standard practice there to include a photo with applications, even for non-customer/client facing roles

Shout.. no she wasn't , was. 20 yr old U.K. Applicant
It was a very inappropriate pose

GreenGinger2 Sun 22-Jan-17 11:02:57
"So how do you teach your daughter what is not self respect online,how ridiculous much of it is without examining it?"

So do you discuss the drawbacks of teen pregnancy by encouraging your children to sneer at individual teen mothers of their acquaintance? The dangers of alcohol by taking them to A & E to laugh at teens who have over-ingested vodka?

Is it really not possible to discuss a problem in the abstract without using it to put down people they know? I don't seem to have found this necessary, and mine are of an age where I have had to discuss a lot more than online safety.

It has been explained several times that it is not against any individual but the activity.

Looking at examples is necessary. I can't help it if they look and sound ridiculous.

I am glad that I am not the only poster who felt it was quite revealing that when GreenGinger wants to establish her daughter's moral credentials she cites as proof that she "took herself off with boys". A low estimate of women often goes hand in hand with the kind of moral crusade we see here (equating a pouting face with online porn).

I have a son as well as a daughter, and while I love him dearly and like most of his friends, I can't say that I have ever felt that they would be some kind of guarantors of real values, just by virtue of being male. For one thing, ds was bullied quite badly by the boys in his class, while dd's friends were mostly very supportive through difficult times. But of course when it's boys we don't call it "bitchiness", do we?

She has seen photographs in the media of the results of binge drinking in streets. They teach more in 5 minutes than I could in an hours lecture warning against the perils of drinking.

GreenGinger2 Sun 22-Jan-17 16:11:24
"Looking at examples is necessary."

No, it isn't. It really isn't. A discussion can quite easily be held in terms of "what do you think is acceptable on a forum where everybody can see it? What do you think would be problematic?".

And even if you did use individual examples (can't say I've ever felt the need), you could still do it in a calm and dignified manner ("I think this could be unwise because...what do you think?") and make it clear that jeering is not an activity that is encouraged in their home.

My closest friend was a boy at school, because I liked doing the same things as he did. I didn't avoid girls because they were 'bitchy'.

DS had some real nastiness from boys when he was in yr 9 and had a lot of support from a friend who happened to be a girl.

Boys, girls... they're all just kids working things out.

Have I missed it? What does Peng mean?

She went off with the boys because they weren't engaging in the continuous toxic shite many of the girls were in her class. Who knows what happens in other classes.I was discussing her class not the make up of every class in the land.

Yes, but you expected a bunch of complete strangers to accept that going off with boys was a good thing to do and a sign of her moral uprightness, without feeling the need to explain to us that those individual boys in her individual class were nicer than the individual girls. Why did you expect that?

No I wasn't pushing her moral uprightness but explaining to posters who don't know her and inferred she was mean that she wasn't,giving an example that illustrated this.

Crikey Nearly' you probably got a shock when that landed in your inbox then! Not what one expects to find on a Monday morning I'm sure!

My DD doesn't do this at all and we often take the mickey out of those that do, sad lives we lead . but my DD isn't one of those "type of girls", all contouring and pouting. She doesn't even take selfies . I must have done something right...

I love my teen daughter's selfies. She looks beautiful actually. She's confident and happy with tons of friends and never has a bad word to say about anyone. I must have done something right...

I think it's quite depressing to see how many mothers are raising their girls to be in constant suspiscion of other young women, always defining themselves against such banal cliches of female acceptability - 'girls are bitchy so I hang around with the boys', 'most girls are vain and superficial but I'm special because I don't take selfies'.

My girls rise up, they don't put down. I'm doing something right.

High fives shoutout

How do you get from" the selfie culture is worrying and I'm teaching my daughter to see it for what it is ie ridiculous" to "most girls are vain and superficial but I'm special because I don't take selfies".

Some serious word twisters on this thread.

For the record I don't think most girls are vain and superficial I think they are pressurised into the selfie culture and it's wrong. Seen it on here- your daughter will get bullied if she doesn't participate in it and sees it for what it is.