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How We Raise Our Daughters - 21st Century [W:87,158,368]

We should be raising our daughters


  • Total voters
    86
To be confident enough to practice working on their picker by merely claiming to want to be girl friends and help us work on our abs, every once in a while.
 
Who here (besides Tigger, of course) would actually support raising their daughters to be "weak and defenseless?" :screwy
Exactly! I think the op was rather disingenuous, and a knee-jerk reaction to some of us who don't necessarily buy into the notion that American women are the perfect model around the world.
There are plenty of decent American women around, but our entire culture is based on a rather self-centered pov these days, and this gets extended into our personal relationships, with women thinking that being strong means they don't need anyone else.
 
How should we be raising our daughters these days?

Should we try to instill independence, strength, common sense, confidence, perseverance, self worth, and a strong desire to achieve great things?

Or should we raise them to be dependent, submissive, shy, and always in need of protection? Wallflowers?

Should we push them towards greatness?

Or should we teach them that their place is always in the background?

Should we have a desire for them to be the leader, the captain, the driver?

Or should we teach them to accept always being the passenger, along for the ride but never making the decisions or steering the boat?

Should we raise our daughters as achievers? CEO's? Entrepreneurs? Bosses?

Or should we raise them to be followers?

Should we tell our daughters they can be ANYTHING they wish to be? Whether it be a mother of 5 kids, or the scientist that cures cancer while stationed on Mars after having piloted the first mission to Mars?

Or should we tell our daughters their place is to be a good, quiet, and submissive "second" to their spouse?

Should we raise your daughters to be strong?
Or are they to be weak and defenseless?

How do you think our daughters should be raised today?

I have two kids. A son and a daughter. It's funny how opposite of gender stereotypes they are in lots of ways. My son is a creative, sensitive young man. He is athletic ( played football up through high school ) and now plays in a band and writes music. He is a mix of what many would consider classically male and female qualities. My daughter is very independent and tough, very academic, driven, not particularly creative and about the least athletic human being I have ever seen.

Point is, I ignored gender roles when raising them. Let their strengths rise to the surface and encouraged them to attempt everything that caught their interest. Gender roles are straight jackets. I suggest we help them discover whatever unique combination of qualities they have, take pride in what they uncover and help them learn not to be afraid of failure. (so long is she isn't an ax murderer under all those pink bows)
 
There are plenty of decent American women around, but our entire culture is based on a rather self-centered pov these days, and this gets extended into our personal relationships, with women thinking that being strong means they don't need anyone else.

When you say "entire culture" then why single out women as being the ones with issues?

Also - why should anyone be taught that they "need" someone else?

This "you complete me" bs is crazy. Why not we compliment each other?

To be successful does a woman need a man? Does a man need a woman?

Are you defined by your "significant other"?

Individuality and independence are great for guys, but not so great for girls?
 
well according to some, we dont raise them to get married to american men ...
 
When you say "entire culture" then why single out women as being the ones with issues?

Also - why should anyone be taught that they "need" someone else?

This "you complete me" bs is crazy. Why not we compliment each other?

To be successful does a woman need a man? Does a man need a woman?

Are you defined by your "significant other"?

Individuality and independence are great for guys, but not so great for girls?

I don't single out women- I see women as being where the societal change has taken place, and although it was a good thing, there were negatives about it as well.

I'm not saying teach people that they need someone. I am saying that often we do need someone- not to fill in the gaps, but to give us someone to share with. There is nothing wrong with doing life solo, but there's also an advantage to being with someone that you trust and count on like no other. We (as we typically do in America), swung the pendulum widely, rather than moderating and improving the lot of women. We used to tell them they needed a man to survive. Now we tell them that they don't need anyone at all, and it's led to a sort of self-absorbed view in general.

As for need- yes, I think it goes both ways. Men and women need each other- not because either is inferior, but just because it adds a really nice dimension to life to have someone you can trust and relate to completely. I was married for a long time. I am fine without a husband, and I can support myself without any problems. That being said, I miss having intimacy (psychological as well as physical). It's not that I NEED a man. It is that I enjoy having that type of relationship.

I am independent and assertive regardless of my relationship status. When I was married, my husband told me on more than one occasion that one of the things he loved about me was that I was not afraid to stand up to him. He was a highly intelligent man, with a mind of his own, and had I been passive, I would have been completely irrelevant. That is not a healthy relationship. I don't advocate for people to marry their opposite, due to some need to fill in their own blanks, but for people to form relationships which challenge them to grow and improve as humans.
 
Exactly! I think the op was rather disingenuous, and a knee-jerk reaction to some of us who don't necessarily buy into the notion that American women are the perfect model around the world.
There are plenty of decent American women around, but our entire culture is based on a rather self-centered pov these days, and this gets extended into our personal relationships, with women thinking that being strong means they don't need anyone else.

Too often, I think people buy into the notion that these kinds of distinctions have to be strictly binary in nature. They have been fed the message that there are basically only two types of women in this world; those who are "empowered" and do not need men, and those who are "codependent" and are doomed only to do be bred into an early grave by misogynistic patriarchs, and they have gobbled it up without question.

No one seems to want to acknowledge that there is space between these two extremes, no one wants to believe that traditional notions of femininity and masculinity might hold any merit, and basic notions of familial duty and civic responsibility have come to be held as being all but anathema to the "me" centric vision of the world modern culture tries to put forward.

While I'm not sure if I'd even know how to raise a girl to be a "princess" (I'm a bit too rough around the edges for that myself, I suspect :lol: ), I wouldn't see any problem with raising one to acknowledge the reality that she is, in fact, a girl, and shouldn't be afraid to act like one.
 
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At my wife's instance, we raised our Daughter to be able to stand on her own should the need arise.
To that end She is well educated, married, and seems like a well adjusted adult.
I considered myself a success as a parent, when I found my adult children were not just good
people, but interesting to be around and have a conversation with.
 
While I'm not even sure if I'd even know how to raise a girl to be a "princess" (I'm a bit too rough around the edges for that myself, I suspect :lol: ), I wouldn't see any problem with raising one to acknowledge the reality that she is, in fact, a girl, and shouldn't be afraid to act like one.

I would pity the poor girl whose lot it would have been, to be born to me. She would not have been pampered and pooed over. She would have learned to take the heat, think on her feet, and be as great as she could be. The warrior spirit runs deep in my veins, and any child of mine would be exposed by default. :lol:
 
At my wife's instance, we raised our Daughter to be able to stand on her own should the need arise.
To that end She is well educated, married, and seems like a well adjusted adult.
I considered myself a success as a parent, when I found my adult children were not just good
people, but interesting to be around and have a conversation with
.

Omg, same here. My son is one of the few people that I can have a meaningful conversation with, with full disclosure of what I think and believe. I know a handful of other people that I think the same about, but they are rare gems.
 
Worst thing in the world is a needy and clingy woman. Teach girls a moderate level of independence.
 
Moderator's Warning:
Personal attacks and partisan stupidity stop now.
 
I voted to raise them as strong individuals and independent. But I also wanted to click on the princesses choice. Let me explain why. Girls are not like boys. They are 97% of the time more sensitive than boys and need a hell of a lot more attention, especially from the father. With boys you can just teach them the basics and let them find out the rest.You cant quite do that with girls. You have to teach them to be strong willed when it comes to schooling and college. If my daughter wants to be a doctor, great. If she wants to small business owner, fantastic. You have to teach them from a very young age that they should be treated like princesses as long as they deserved to be treated as such. To date boys and men that have respect for them and treat them with much love and care. You can't be brute nor aggressive with a girl. If you do as such they will go up and be very different from other women if you like it or not. A woman is not to be an aggressive, cold-hearted being. And the more independent they are the farther they will go in life. I will never teach my daughter to be fully dependent on a man.But will encourage her to look for a man that she can lean on during her tough times in life and likewise with him. These are just my thoughts on the subject, but what do I know I'm still a young dad and have a whole lot of issues ahead of me.
 
We're only looking at 1 or 2 of them. If they disappoint me, they essentially get erased from the family history, as if they never existed in the first place. No skin off my nose.
No, I said her job is to support her family, and especially her Husband. Love is irrelevant to the concept, and if I did mention that idea, it was in total error.

You may change your attitude when you do become a parent, Tigger, parenthood can change people.
Your fiance is going to marry you knowing that you do not love her? That's sad.
 
You may change your attitude when you do become a parent, Tigger, parenthood can change people.
Your fiance is going to marry you knowing that you do not love her? That's sad.

She doesn't believe in Love either, LM. For different reasons we both learned that Love does not really exist before we were 15 years old. We got to see the darkness in the human heart very early in life and understand that the only person anyone looks out for is themselves. She'll be 33 this year and I'll be 40. Neither one of us has found anything to change our view on Love over that period of time.

The idea that parenthood changes people is one of the reasons I've never had a significant interest in it.
 
She doesn't believe in Love either, LM. For different reasons we both learned that Love does not really exist before we were 15 years old. We got to see the darkness in the human heart very early in life and understand that the only person anyone looks out for is themselves. She'll be 33 this year and I'll be 40. Neither one of us has found anything to change our view on Love over that period of time.

The idea that parenthood changes people is one of the reasons I've never had a significant interest in it.

Love exists, Tigger, I can assure you of that. I love my son, my daughter and my four grand daughters with depth and sincerity. I do not look out for just myself or exist for just myself. Romantic love I have had little of....I loved and lost (my ex-husband walked out one day when the kids were very young) and have not been fortunate enough to have loved, or to have been loved by a man, again. I would (almost) sell my soul to be loved, to have what I see my married colleagues at work have. Tis not to be and I know that leaves me with a hole in my life. Like me, I think that you and your fiance probably wrap a coat of cynicism about love around you...it helps to ward of hurt and disappointment and it means one can avoid all the pain that goes with that. To let one's guard down requires a leap of faith that is difficult to take, but there is a sadness of the soul, an emptiness that comes from spending one's time, in my case decades, protecting ourselves from the hurt that we think love brings.
I wish you and your fiance happiness if not love in the future.
 
Love exists, Tigger, I can assure you of that. I love my son, my daughter and my four grand daughters with depth and sincerity. I do not look out for just myself or exist for just myself. Romantic love I have had little of....I loved and lost (my ex-husband walked out one day when the kids were very young) and have not been fortunate enough to have loved, or to have been loved by a man, again. I would (almost) sell my soul to be loved, to have what I see my married colleagues at work have. Tis not to be and I know that leaves me with a hole in my life. Like me, I think that you and your fiance probably wrap a coat of cynicism about love around you...it helps to ward of hurt and disappointment and it means one can avoid all the pain that goes with that. To let one's guard down requires a leap of faith that is difficult to take, but there is a sadness of the soul, an emptiness that comes from spending one's time, in my case decades, protecting ourselves from the hurt that we think love brings.
I wish you and your fiance happiness if not love in the future.

Thank you for the kind words LM.

For our own, separate reasons both she and I have hardened ourselves against the world around us. Mine has been a journey of almost 4 decades and hers is approaching the end of its second decade in another month or so. It's amazing what one can survive through, and even appear outwardly to thrive after, while one has gone totally cold on the inside.
 
How should we be raising our daughters these days?

Should we try to instill independence, strength, common sense, confidence, perseverance, self worth, and a strong desire to achieve great things?


Or should we raise them to be dependent, submissive, shy, and always in need of protection? Wallflowers?


Should we push them towards greatness?

Or should we teach them that their place is always in the background?

Should we have a desire for them to be the leader, the captain, the driver?

Or should we teach them to accept always being the passenger, along for the ride but never making the decisions or steering the boat?


Should we raise our daughters as achievers? CEO's? Entrepreneurs? Bosses?

Or should we raise them to be followers?


Should we tell our daughters they can be ANYTHING they wish to be? Whether it be a mother of 5 kids, or the scientist that cures cancer while stationed on Mars after having piloted the first mission to Mars?

Or should we tell our daughters their place is to be a good, quiet, and submissive "second" to their spouse?

Should we raise your daughters to be strong?
Or are they to be weak and defenseless?


How do you think our daughters should be raised today?

I think with skill and wisdom, both but with a qualifier. I think girls should have independence, strength, common sense, confidence, perseverance, self-worth, and a strong desire to achieve greatness instilled in them however if there's a chance she'll be married some day I think its important that she understands the power she has to either propel her husband to greatness or demoralize him. How a wife relates to her husband is often the deciding factor on how he sees himself. If mishandled she can be a key factor in defining HIS self-image and can lead to underachievement or his seeking out affirmation from inappropriate places that then has the potential or harming or even destroying her marriage.

The easy part is I think the qualities that are instilled are more caught than taught. I'm of the opinion girls don't need to have this explained to them. All they really need is to see it modeled in her own family. If her mother treats her dad like a king, Dad will be literally addicted to Mom in every way and be willing to die for her if need be plus when she grows up that'll be her understanding of how a marriage operates.

One of my biggest takeaways of the 2012 Presidential election is very likely the reason Mitt Romney has a net worth of $250 million is his wife, Ann Romney, honestly thinks she's married to the greatest man alive today. He so admires her because she's beautiful, strong and intelligent, my guess is he determined she must be right in her assessment of him and has acted like it away from home leading a career in business that has raked in hundreds of million of dollars. She never felt it was personally humiliating to relate to her husband in a way that convinced him that she, the person who admires more than anyone, was his biggest supporter and cheerleader. No, he didn't become President but she still gets to live in a mansion, has a personal staff to cook and clean for her and has a $250,000,000.00 bank account. At the same time there are lots of examples of men who where torn down by their wives who focused on his faults rather than his strengths and have led mediocre lives because the person they looked to most made it clear she had very little respect for him nor his potential or might have been highly successful because they've sought and found affirmation elsewhere.
 
That's interesting. Are you calling American a child-abuser?

How many children do you have?

Do you know what it's like to be a child? Right back at you.
 
Do you know what it's like to be a child? Right back at you.

Literally everyone does :).


But I notice you didn't answer the question. Given that apparently you know American's daughter and how to raise her better than he does, how many children have you, yourself, raised?

Because the answer that you gave indicates that number is zero, and that you are still caught in the teenage angst of being angry at mommy and daddy.
 
And if your daughter says,

"Nope - I want to go to college, major in biology, then go to grad school and study genetic-engineering so that I can become a scientist and work on finding cures for childhood diseases."

What do you do then?

Pack her in the car, drive to a local hospice, walk her into a room with two dying people. She can see the rich single woman, dying all alone and then look at the grandmother surrounded by her children and grandchildren who love her dearly and who will live on as a testament to her presence on this earth and will keep their love for this woman alive until their own dying dies.

Then ask my daughter which fate she prefers - to be alone with her money or her memories of being stuck in a lab working with cultures or with the people who enriched her life?
 
Pack her in the car, drive to a local hospice, walk her into a room with two dying people. She can see the rich single woman, dying all alone and then look at the grandmother surrounded by her children and grandchildren who love her dearly and who will live on as a testament to her presence on this earth and will keep their love for this woman alive until their own dying dies.

Then ask my daughter which fate she prefers - to be alone with her money or her memories of being stuck in a lab working with cultures or with the people who enriched her life?

Now tell me why does wanting to be microbiologist lead to a life of loneliness? You can have both. Why do you not want your daughter to live her own life?
 
Raise them to be women, to embrace their femininity and not try to teach them to be like men.
 
Some people obviously think girls should be raised differently.

Some people don't think girls should have equal opportunity to chase dreams like boys do.

It's not just Tigger. My own mother-in-law once told my oldest daughter she should not go to college, and that what she should really do is get married and start a family. I almost lost my cool over that and started a massive family dispute. Almost.

Oldest daughter will be graduating college in May with just under a 4.0 gpa in biology.
Still waiting on replies from medical grad schools at this time.

The criticism being directed at you regarding the poll is that the poll is grotesquely slanted. The mark of an honest debater is to make the very best case that can be made for the position that they oppose and then to attack the opposing position's strongest case.

If you really think that those with a vision opposed to yours make their strongest case by pointing to the 17th Century, then you're deep into an ideological bubble.
 
Now tell me why does wanting to be microbiologist lead to a life of loneliness? You can have both. Why do you not want your daughter to live her own life?

I know quite a few women who are professors in the biological sciences. The road from university, to graduate school, through the thickets of conducting original research for a dissertation, hopping from one post-doc appointment to another until one can snag a faculty position and then having to scour around for funding doesn't leave much room for romance nor for a dual-career couple working in the same city. The upshot is that it's much easier to travel that road as a single woman than as a married woman. Science really is a lifestyle choice.
 
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