Why Does Grannie Play Such an Important Role in this Teen Girl's Story?

Why Does Grannie Play Such an Important Role in this Teen Girl’s Story?

"The secret to being a matriarch, as best as I can tell, is having two things. The first is radical authenticity, which, over time, begets a certain fearlessness. The second is a kind and compassionate heart … And some of them will do nothing more radical with their lives than being authentic and kind. But acts of authenticity and kindness in a world of artifice and cynicism are nothing short of revolutionary and are the best kind of civil disobedience.”   Lynn Beisner

One of my nieces asked me when I was starting to write my e-book, “Why are writing a book about teen age girls when you are so old?” 

"Good question,” I said. ”Because I have a lifetime to share with a teenager that is so long, rich and full of flavor with only a few years left. The teen girl has a long, thin, hungry timeline with less experience but perhaps she can find some maturity from mine."

From a Big Picture perspective, the grannie and the teen girl share a common womanhood through time. Women have been caretakers of the home and family from skinning the buffalo to working in the fields to skilled labor in factories to five-star executives in big business. Many have developed talents and skills beyond raising families to earn significant spending powers, decades before the advance of the internet. They are Olympians, prime ministers, entrepreneurs, famous designers, social and political activists, artists, and Nobel Prize winners.

Some have changed the course of history like Marie Curie who founded the new science of radioactivity; or Rosa Parks who challenged race segregation and sparked the civil rights movement; or Clara Barton, a nurse who established the American Red Cross; or Wangari Maathai who became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on sustainable development and democracy in 2004.

Now there are more women enrolled in colleges than men. The grandmothers of the world will not be invisible. Many are in retirement mode expected to live into their 90’s. Ageism can be an asset. It’s a choice to make beauty get stronger with aging.

However, women do not forget their past struggles, living through tough times of inequality with limited rights to vote, discriminatory wage practices versus men, and job advancement. From 1960’s to 1970’s the feminist movement sought to reform issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay and sexual harassment. The recent #MeToo movement continues to express gender equality and prevent sexual imbalances especially at work. But who will advocate for teen girls to stop online sexual exploitation?

Our female empowerment was our strength in using our intelligence, courage, and resourcefulness.  We were able to excel and contribute so much before the age of this internet extravaganza.

So, do we dare to ask, what is the source of female empowerment now for our teen girls? Statistics show there is a drop in the percentage of girls who say they feel confident between Grades 6 and 10 from 36% to 14%.

In 1959, Ruth Handler’s company launched the Barbie doll, one of the first dolls made to look like a grown up. Within six years of Barbie’s launch, Mattel had become a Fortune 500 company. Young girls were fascinated by these hard plastic, slender dolls with long blond hair and tiny perfect features. They could now pretend to be perfect young women with a perfect man by her side. It was not a soft, chubby baby doll to feed and nurture but a slender goddess to grow into ... to be a princess in a make-believe world that they may, or may not, grow out of.

Disney princess products can total 4 billion dollars annually. The message again is to spend time, energy and money to look pretty and popular. Check out the kiddie lingerie aisle with flirty bras and panties for 8-year-olds so tweens can start acting like teenagers who want to act like adults. What a sad unacceptable conundrum for a culture to feed on its youth before their time.

How terribly sad when you do a worldwide web search with the words “teen girls,” and after the first 3 titles about clothes, shoes and accessories, the next items are about real teens twerking; why teen girls crave older partners and a Facebook page for hot teen selfie shots.  Even pornographers have found that they can get more clicks and  views, whenever it is extreme enough often involving encounters with teenage girls and boys.

So, turn on the channels … cable TV, MTV, sitcoms, websites, social media, negative news stories. What do you expect to happen to tweens as they grow into teen girls in a hyper media culture so greatly concerned about body image and feelings of inferiority if not a Barbie doll or Disney princess?  Is their strength to be found in this filtered imagery of vain girly-girl culture based on physical objectives on a conveyor belt to early sexualization?  Is their potential to be determined by a full face of make-up or belly-piercings to get more LIKES from a virtual strange mob?     

Teens only have 6 short hormonal years of maturation to transition from total family dependence to independence as a young adult to live independently. They need the experience of being a teenager with personal opportunities to be exploratory on their terms and working together with other unique selves with mutual respect. They really do not need pressure to play the consumer role, the sexual role or competitive cosmetic world as promoted by companies for profits. They need to establish a value system to carry forward to their own families. Their adolescent  brain hasn’t yet developed the prefrontal cortex for logical, deductive judgement skills until their mid-twenties.  

How sad to say there are too many examples of increased  teens’ risk for social and behavioral problems, school adjustment issues, teen pregnancy, smoking, and drug and alcohol abuse.

As a society, we must do better for our teenage daughters on their journey to womanhood. As older women we must show them the precious value of their time and how to spend it wisely. We need to discuss the progression of time in elements they can understand. In this information overflow we need to help them make smart choices to avoid making mistakes that can derail a lifetime of possibilities. We need to encourage teen girls to be stand tall, strong and proud of who they are, more aligned with the universe than social media.   

Perhaps, it’s true that matriarchs are women who have stopped trying to meet social expectations of what a woman is supposed to look like and act like. They are what femininity really looks like when you strip away much of the cultural artifice to the pure soul of unselfishness beneath. Perhaps that is their power of truth to share with teenage girls. 

It’s definitely worthwhile to talk with a grandmother ... whenever and if possible.

Questions and comments are always welcome, especially from grannies, daughters and granddaughters.

Sincerely,

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com   

Check YouTube video: 10 Rules for Teen Girls

Excerpt from Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand 

 ”You know how all the great myths about superheroes are about their journeys to   overcome problems and teach us morals between right and wrong.

Today the real tragedy with young people is how to overcome the huge problems created by a Giant Media Monster; like a Medusa manipulator using her vast army of words and images to twist, to seduce and undermine the ability of people to think critically and freely. It's like a vast army of fake selfies attacking what's good and normal.

The great personal tragedy is made worse because most young people do not use their real characters to take offensive action but rather create their own fake Selfies to closely reflect what the Media Monster promotes.  These are soldiers on the same side with the same goals which means the Monster wins every time. Like I said before, the Monster has no regret for what it is doing; it will never apologize as long as you keep liking her artificial ugliness again and again."