Corner Brook -
My three-year-old daughter has suddenly taken to cutting her hair. She already sports an ultra-short, but I think of it as an ultra-chic pixie cut (a result of the last misadventure with scissors). Now, she's done it again. There are a few bald spots that Mommy self-consciously tries to cover by brushing her hair over.
The little girl who had her first hair cut only a few months back - as she was terrified of the salons - now needs to have all scissors hidden from her. I thought it was because I sat her on the bathroom counter one day and cut her bangs - maybe she was just trying to imitate Mommy and cut her own hair.
The real reason is much more troubling. You see, when we had her hair cut a few months ago we explained to her that cutting her hair would allow it to grow better - thicker and longer. I had completely forgotten about that until, after the last misadventure, she tearfully admitted why she had cut her hair.
"Ariel (the Little Mermaid) is better than me, Mommy."
"What do you mean, honey? Ariel isn't even real and she's certainly not better than you."
"Yes Mommy, she's better. She's prettier. Her hair is long and beautiful and mine is short."
It turns out that she thought by cutting her hair she could make it instantly longer. Thus she would better resemble one of the Disney princesses.
You have to understand, our daughter has had limited exposure to such things. She has watched the occasional Disney movie. She once had a chair with the princesses on it and we recently had some clothes handed down to us. But she's not one of these girls who live Disney day in and day out. We've always been very careful to limit our children's exposure to "brands."
And yet, at three, she has already judged against herself that the princesses are pretty and she is not. She doesn't fit their "type." So, despite the fact that she receives daily compliments from strangers that she is - and this isn't just me talking - heart-breakingly beautiful, her self-talk is already telling her that she doesn't measure up.
She's also upset that she's not as big, strong, or fast as her older brother. She's not as tall as her best friend. She's not as good at computers as her cousin.
Let me reiterate that she is three years old. Three. It only takes that long, apparently, for societal pressures to bear down - even after we've done our utmost to shield her from such influences too quickly: no cable TV, no magazines, no heavily branded merchandise.
I wonder if it's my fault. Because she is always being told how pretty she is, I am careful to also tell her that she's strong, smart, kind and funny. I think it's important that her self-worth be based on more than her looks. Now I wonder whether instead of giving her well-rounded ideals to aspire to, I've just set impossible standards for her."
We expect our girls to be strong. They have to measure up to boys. We push dump trucks on our two year olds and send our 10 year olds onto the hockey ice.
We expect them to be smart. They're just as good at maths and science as boys and we want them to prove it.
We're worried about girl-inflicted bullying and violence, so we say that though they must be strong and self-confident, they must also be kind.
It's important that girls not fall into gender stereotypes. But what we're asking them to do is be everything at once. Adult women complain that they can't be superwoman: great career, great mother, great wife and look pulled together. Yet, we want our girls to be supergirls.
They must be feminine without being risquÉ; they must be strong without being butch; they must be smart without being saucy; they must be kind without being pushovers; they must be confident without being over-confident.
Isn't this a little too much to ask of three year olds?
Teenage girls are twice as likely as teenage boys to be depressed in adolescence. This may, in part, be due to the way girls internalize pressures more so than boys. And I'm certainly not saying boys are not under pressure as well. However, it seems to me that in our efforts to ensure our children become good adults we sometimes forget that they are still children, exploring and engaging with the world and their understanding of it.
If our little girls want to play at being pretty princesses, perhaps we can let them do that before reminding them that they must also be the kind of princess who rescues herself and doesn't depend on a knight in shining armour. Although we want our daughters to grow up to be all the things I've told my daughter she is, we need to realize that they need the time to grow into those ideas.
Media and society place enough pressures on our girls to conform to a certain image of femininity - to accomplish and be competitive in a man's world ... to be strong and self-confident.
Perhaps as parents we need to just let them be who they are and hope the rest falls into place when they become comfortable with their emerging selves.
