Raising My Girls

Oh I remember the days of being a girl and fearing that the entire world hated me.  My siblings annoyed me, my parents didn’t understand me, and my best friend was the only person who listened to me.  Years later, when I finally became my own person, I stopped caring about what other people thought, and became a much happier person because of it.  I’ll always wish that I’d learned to do that at a much younger age than I did.

 Now, I’m dealing with my oldest daughter being in that same stage in her own life.  I look at her and see me at that age.  I remember how close my emotions were to the surface everytime she has an outburst of tears, a touch of attitude toward her little sisters, and when she expresses her thoughts that the entire world hates her.

It’s difficult to watch your children go through the same things that you did, ad not be able to help them get to a point where you want them to be.  You can guide and talk to them over and over, but they are still their own person and need to learn these things on their own.

My oldest is an “early bloomer,” as I was at her age.  She has the figure of someone a couple years older (as I did) and she’s starting to get teased at school about the size of her bosom by a couple of snooty girls.  I keep telling her to ignore them–that they are just jealous–and she tries very hard to do that.  But, it’s gone on for about four weeks now and I do believe that it’s time for Mommy to get involved.  And the principal, office staff, and 90% of the teachers in that school know me and know that I’m a hardass when it comes to protecting my children.  They don’t want me up there taking care of this!

So, I’ve gven my daughter today as the last attempt to take care of this problem herself.  She’s gone to her teacher twice, the vice principal twice, and today she’s going to the school counselor to see if that will work.  Yesterday she was so distraught when she came home from school that she ultimately bursted into tears later in the evening.  That just made me even more angr at the situation.

Today’s the day.  If this doesn’t work, then I will be up there first thing next Monday morning. 

Preteen girls and their emotions will never trump a pissed-off Mommy!  But those preteen girls will eventually learn how to be themselves and not care about what other people think about them.  It just takes us mothers to teach them that by leading by example!

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