I’m a bit lost having a DD

[SickOfThisSht]

Ok that was perhaps a bit of a dramatic title but I’m just lying here tonight looking at DD4 sleeping and wondering how the fck do I protect her?!

She had a birthday party recently and there was a boy who absolutely terrorised everyone. I’ve heard her talk about him in passing usually about him making this or that kid cry, pushing, her or someone else. I passed it off as kids being kids. Did an all class invite because I didn’t want to exclude anyone.

Then i saw it at her party and it just hit me with all sorts and guilt at not taking her passing comments more seriously. His mum was right there!! He pushed DD, pulled her, was in her face. Both me and DH had to step in so many times. And his mum was right there watching it all!

Then, I read local news and 3 out of 5 locally convicted people are men having committed horrible crimes against women.

Then DD is about to start school soon (preschool at present) and they ask about ‘gender identity’…i don’t bloody know, she’s 4 she doesn’t have one!

Then i have my own past filled with the serious (sa within family not fully out yet) and what I guess in my scale of serious would be termed not so much (ranging from continuous professional mansplaining to mildly coercive relationships).

What’s the antidote? I’ve signed her up to martial arts next term so she can gain some physical confidence and see just what girls can do. I just want her to have less people pleasing in her than I did (with the boy she just passively ignored him no doubt taking in the fact we’ve always taught her kind hands and that we don’t hit…although I would’ve been just fine with her ending whatever he was starting to be honest!) I want her to say ‘No’ with the confidence of an 80 year old that has no fcks to give. But how without turning her into a bulldozer that’s petrified of the world?!

I would get into a sport and something spiritual (maybe a Buddhist centre or something). I completely understand your fears. Knowing how to protect girls is terrifying. But I think the above two things could help.

Nothing like giving birth to a girl to turn you into a raging feminist. My DD starts high school in a year and I'm dreading what will happen with a labour government.

Ive been lucky so far that her church primary school has not pushed any agenda.

I’m sorry to hear that. It’s so hard isn’t it? So hard to know what they will hear and absorb from the outside world. I’m getting the sense the only thing we can do is flood them with confidence, strength and positive examples at home. That things like this are a phase we can counter with love and safety.

Good points and interesting. I am myself quite spiritual nowadays but not religious in any way. I do find my beliefs have helped me foster courage and confidence over time as well as stronger appreciation and respect for myself and the natural world. It’s a great point that perhaps I should be exposing her to that a little more. (my family was quite religious growing up so i’ve always had a bit of an aversion to applying too much influence and conditioning in that area)

@bunnypenny mine was the same with “girlyness” caught from nursery. She started there at 3, liking dinosaurs and trains, played with the boys. Within weeks she’s into princesses, pink, certain shoes or clothes aren’t “pretty” and trying to colour her nails with felt tip pens like nail varnish as the other girls (age 3!!) wear it 🤦‍♀️ says “she can’t play with George because he is a boy”. ☹️

Jumping on the spiritual idea: DD started a kids yoga group really young and that has been incredible for boosting self esteem / self respect / spiritual concepts about the universe etc. as well as a different group of friends and again focus on healthy strong bodies.

DD also has an older brother and I force myself not to jump in sometimes when they're arguing even if she's not necessarily in the right - mainly so she can practice standing up for herself and yelling at a boy!

Absolutely! I’ve done a 180 from being a young ‘pick me’ ladette (eurgh that word makes me gag now) in the 90s/early 00s to having a girl and getting a fire under my butt that we must do better for women and girls. We’ve come a long way and there is still much to do.

Something I read here which really brought me up short though: don't be distracted by the 'male default' being better. As that subconsciously gives the message that girly things and by extension, girls, are less than. So be careful to celebrate the good things about the stereotypes too. Dinosaurs and space aren't inherently better than rainbows and bunnies are they?! So we just need to watch the messaging doesn't get carried away that anything girly is bad....

I fully agree with this @FusionChefGeoff . I caught myself doing this when DD was little and turning my nose up at pink glittery things. As it was DD adores pink glittery stuff and unicorns and Barbies. She also loves dinosaurs and space and football and would happily wear a tutu with her England shirt (it’s a look and it suits her 😂).

I started evaluating my own beliefs on feminism then and have found the MN feminism board a wonderful education.

@SickOfThisSht I'm glad you've had therapy and I'm sorry if it came across rude.
I've never thought of my DD as vulnerable at all. She is really feisty and thank god. She also does karate. I love her so much.

It’s ok @hotdogcharge I didn’t take it too badly, don’t worry 😉 I just wanted to highlight (because perhaps my OP was a bit emotional in the moment) that I don’t feel like I’m emotionally vulnerable despite my past. It just took a lot of work and winding roads to get here and I would rather DD never experience what I’ve had to or take so long to know her strength and value in the this world.

As a mum of a three year old boy I'm trying to do my part by raising him to be a respectful and kind person. He's fortunate to have fantastic role models in his dad, uncle and grandfathers too.

The kind of behaviour your daughter experienced would definitely not be tolerated by me or my husband. I'm sorry she had to deal with that 😞

It is hard. Lots of good suggestions on here. Here's a list of things we are trying to do:

1 tell DD she absolutely can and should use her voice. That boy in class who pushes and shoves - she can shout if he doesn't stop or even push him back if it never stops. And if the teacher complains that she is shouting or pushing, we'll back her 100%. This culminated, for example, at us leaving a family party early once becuse nephew had, yet again, hurt her and, yet again, SIL did nothing except have a little chat with him. Interestingly, nephew has never hurt her again. The rest of the family thought we were totally overreacting ("he didn't do it on purpse" "he was just frustrated") but our view was that we're teaching her that a boy's intentions are more important than what actually happens to her if we didn't back her. And he learnt there are consequences to his behaviour.

2 Ditto, when people are mean to her, it's okay for her to decide she doesn't want to be friends with those people. We're not encouraging her to "be kind" in any and all situations. (and the flip side of this, is ensuring she understands consequences if she doesn't behave well and as a result other children don't want to be friends or whatever).

3 I have no problem with girliness and all the rest, but we talk about why she wants to wear x or what that might mean and different views on what it is/isn't important.

4 She sees me and Dh arguing, and making up, and me calling DH out and vice versa and learns that she can have these sorts of relationships. that she doesn't ever have to make herself smaller to make someone else happier or to avoid an explosion.

5 we look for female role models, female characters in books and tv and movies, female authors to read etc.

As she goes to high school, I can see some of these being harder because they're less in my control, but, for example, if her school is only reading literature from male authors, we'll be having those conversations. we'll be talking about what we think about her school having mostly men in leadership positions etc.

Thank you @TheBirdintheCave . It makes me feel better to hear that, in that there are parents who would step in. DD had not always been a perfect angel as she was growing and DH and i always stepped in to correct behaviour. To me that’s just what you should do. It was very awkward as well as angering tbh. I might have a private word with her preschool teacher as I wonder what the dynamic is in class now.

(edited to say ‘had’, she went through an angry phase where she didn’t know how to express her emotions and behaviour was challenging, but we were very proactive in helping her through that and made sure she learnt that taking her emotions out on others is not the way)

I have one of each and worry about them equally. I'm a woman of nearly 50 and honestly, my life has been brilliant! I don't pity people for being girls. My teenage daughter is living her best life and is so happy, just as I have always been.
Of course I hate to think of shit she might go through because of men (or women) but I think generally she will have a great life.
I also have a son who is very shy and anxious. I worry about him as a boy. How he will always feel societal pressure to suppress his emotions, to be tough. I worry about his mental heal and suicide risk (boys are at more risk). I worry about him being beaten up because he's so timid - again, boys are at more risk of being attacked than girls are.
Whether you have a boy or a girl, there's plenty to worry about.

Great list @IdLikeToBeAFraser , I’ll definitely be saving this as reference! Well done for standing by your DD as you have. I must admit I haven’t always had the courage to do that in favour of ‘keeping the peace’. But i can see what message it sends out to DD and it won’t be happening again! Fck what anyone else thinks.

I worry too, mine goes to Muay Thai.

Also agree with pulling up any child that hits her and I’ve told her she’s fine to yell at anyone who does that and we aren’t there. I actually told her to shove them back but she’s a softie so she will just tell them off.

We always step in, I think it sets the tone for how she expects the world to treat her. My big fear is her internalising that she is deserving of lesser treatment or should not make a fuss. Fuck that. I don’t want her to ever have the mindset that it’s on her to soothe people.

Also agree with only bother with people who are kind to you, we always say to DD be nice to everyone but if they aren’t kind they aren’t your friend and you don’t need to be kind to them either. I think there is too much of a focus on being kind to mean kids in schools these days, it becomes “kid is mean to your kid, they should make up” which inevitably involves the injured party having to give ground. The consequence of being mean should be others don’t bother with you full stop.

She’s actually become really confident recently and will tell boys to back off if she’s on something or playing somewhere first if they are trying to muscle in, if she can’t handle it I’ll step in.

DD is now 24 and I hope I've raised her to own her rights (and responsibilities) and to be (sadly) mindful of her personal safety. I also hope both of us would be confident to speak out / step in to protect vulnerable girls and women.

Positive things you could consider in the years to come:

Sign her up to Girlguiding. I acknowledge that some people might argue GGHQ is "captured" but at grass roots level you will find women like me delivering truly empowering "girls can do anything" messages through our sessions.

When she's older, I unexpectedly discovered that the cadet forces are amazingly diverse and inclusive regardless of sex, neurodiversity etc. DD had equal opportunities and built some incredibly valuable relationships with lads there, there was zero tolerance for the disrespect of the female sex within the organisation.

I know none of this mitigates the toxicity we all face but it's a little something

I concur with girls secondary. Ok it’s not perfect there are downsides but both mine far more confident academically than they would otherwise have been. And sadly due to porn etc the behaviour of some teenage boys is not great towards girls and if they are in your class you are stuck with them.

Then DD is about to start school soon (preschool at present) and they ask about ‘gender identity’…i don’t bloody know, she’s 4 she doesn’t have one!

Protecting your daughter starts with you. Challenge the school on this. The Cass report says that social transition is not a neutral act. See what resources are on Transgender Trend or Safe Schools Alliance to help with this. Just like toys should be toys, let kids be kids.

I agree @Ocymoroniclife . I’m keeping my eye actively on this for the new school.

What a brilliant list - thank you.

One thing my mum did for me and I will do for DD is seek out female centred stories etc and fill her bookshelf/film watching with them. Don’t make a big deal of it, just do it. Was about 20 when I realised she’d done this on purpose and not ALL girls were reading the same things.

Yup, in a situation like the one you were in, these days, I would be very firm with the boy and would probably call the mother over to deal with it. Yes, people would probably think I was making a scene, but DD would know that I'm not going to expect her to put up politely with people hurting her.

And also - teach her about feminism! As in, explain about sexual discrimination and that this is something that women have been fighting for a long time and things are improving but it’s not all done yet (I know it’s a mixed bag but hopefully if we tell the girls this they will continue the work) x