Child(ish) Reads: Underestimated: The Power and Wisdom of Teenage Girls

I jumped on this book so fast.

Luckily, it has a nice little fit for Tuesday’s Throwback post on kids developing Autonomy. So let’s connect the two, while I share my review and takeaways.

Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls by Chelsey Goodan.

Chelsey Goodan has been an academic tutor and mentor for sixteen years, with a particular emphasis on the empowerment of teenage girls. She speaks regularly to audiences about gender justice, conducts workshops, and coaches parents on how to better understand and connect with their daughters. For this book, she compiles years of working with girls one-on-one and the common threads she has seen in their experience.

A little backstory refresher from me. I am an eldest, multiracial daughter of two divorced parents. For my last two years of high school, I attended an all-girls boarding school and it was a game-changing experience. From emotional intelligence and personal responsibility to just overall confidence and how I conduct myself, it was exactly what I needed to grow as a person. I am a huge supporter of all-girls schools and can attest to their impact.

Obviously from this, my goal as a girl mom is to create a supportive household where my daughters have this same type of nurturing and education; where they are given space.

In our throwback post, we mentioned that during the teen years, the fight for autonomy is one of the last developmental milestones to becoming a self-sufficient adult. But historically, this becomes a real point of contention with parents who want to prevent their kids from making big, life-altering mistakes and they have trouble fully letting go. For teen girls, this becomes even more difficult to navigate because you are also fighting with preconceived expectations on how young women are supposed to navigate the world.

So now that we’ve established tone, here are my takeaways from the book.

It’s not about appearance, but sometimes it is.

I really hate that after all this time, media/society/all of the above still has opinions on how girls should look. The book has whole chapters about beauty, perfection, diet and eating disorders, and social media. Even in the chapter about Compliments, Goodan points that when women compliment our friends or other girls, we immediately rely on “That’s a cute outfit” or “Your hair looks really nice today”. Somehow in this jumble, we are still grappling with the connection between appearance and self-worth.

Can we do anything about it? I think Millennial parents have grasped the point of praising our daughters accomplishments and virtues much more heavily than beauty. But, I do catch myself finding there is a blur between what are appropriate good manners and hygiene versus “that’s not a cute look”.

While these chapters may take up nearly half of the book and they go much more personal into the common struggle with image, the thesis is that we need to watch our own unconscious bias when it comes to appearance. Yes, we want our daughters to feel beautiful and confident regardless of makeup/clothes/body/hair, but we also know they are going to be bombarded with negative noise. If you can also be that armor and voice of assurance early on, they will be all the more prepared when that noise hits.

People-Pleasing

The first time my FIL asked my kid, “Don’t you wanna be a good girl?”, I snapped back so hard. Another fallacy that girls were brought up to believe was that pleasing people was going to make us more worthy/favored/prized. This goes for family members, teachers, coaches, and friends. Girls see that pleasing others, whether through good deeds, helpfulness, good grades, athletic excellence, gives them positive attention. They are a “Good Girl”. And instead of these wins boosting their confidence, girls will try to maintain that positive attention to their own detriment. This leads to perfectionism, self-sacrifice, stress and anxiety.

An extension of this might also be how popular or well-liked we are, only exacerbated by social media. How many friends/followers do you have, and how happy you get when your post has a ton of likes and hearts? That’s a hard feeling to compete with.

Goodan suggests that we try to observe the source of the people-pleasing habit. Is the call coming from inside the house? Are we unknowingly (or knowingly if you are Tigering) pressuring your kid too much? How is this affecting their emotional and mental health? What type of adult will they grow to be if this keeps going?

Parents should be able to extricate people-pleasing deeds from their daughter’s self-worth; empowering them to see that they are, and have always been, good enough.

Trust

I think it’s fairly known that girls mature faster than boys, socially and when taking on responsibility. Yet, we are so scared of (and for) a teenage girl for multiple reasons. We’re scared of her biting sharpness, of her turning into a mean girl or a princess, of her “highly emotional” decisions, that she might throw her life away for a love interest. We’re scared that she won’t take precaution when walking home or that she’s going to be crushed by the “real world”. All of these compound into growing distrust, even if the girl hasn’t actually done anything wrong. And when a girl knows you don’t trust her, she stops opening up to you and starts putting up walls.

Whether or not we are projecting our own triggers from adolescence or we’re falling into the young helpless maiden stereotype, we’re using these fears to hinder teen girls’ autonomy and not giving them space to be and learn for themselves.

Power Perceptions

The same can be said for the opposite side of the spectrum. If our daughter is displaying blunt confidence and not some learned helplessness, she falls into the trap of being a b*tch. Even if a girl is academically or athletically successful and excited about it instead of modest, it comes off a certain way. This scares us in a different way because we think they are someone who doesn’t care about others or how they come off to others. We project that she’s power hungry, ego-driven, and all of the other negative stereotypes that start pouring out.

Goodan makes a point about female success that I absolutely love: “Power is really a force of love. And when we do things through love, it brings people together.”

Not to be too blanket but she says that when men want success and power, it looks a lot like ego. How much more can I get, how much higher can I go. For women, we generally strive for success out of love. We want to excel in sports because we wholeheartedly love the sport and our team. We gain degrees, do research and create businesses that, more often than not, help communities. We volunteer and foster philanthropy out of love, not recognition. These are two very different motivations. Again, this isn’t all women or all men, but this cold, full of herself, fame-seeking archetype is tired.

Miss Representation is a 2011 documentary that covers these four points in a similar vein. Once we trace that these stereotypes are really based in fear, control, the male gaze, etc., we can see the hypocrisy of all it and actually direct our energy into something better. This goes for us as moms as well as our daughters.

Space

Similar to how we are helping our little kids explore and label emotions, we need to afford the same as our kids get older. Early on, this practice helps our kids stay regulated and better communicate their feelings. When girls reach their teen years, they need to understand that those feelings are valid, totally normal, and they don’t need to be “fixed”.

We are not in control of, nor are we responsible for, keeping our kid happy all of time. If they are feeling crappy, let them tell you why and just listen. If they don’t want to talk to you, don’t force them. This gives them space to just be in their feelings and figure them out on their own. Another part of learning #autonomy.

My parents are definitely guilty of saying “Oh, that’s not a big deal” or “Who cares”. Belittling, oversimplifying, or outright dismissing feelings can be a negative criticism and does nothing to help you maintain trust with your kid.

Instead, helpful listening is showing empathy, letting them do most of the talking, and asking non-judgmental questions. This also gives your daughter agency on how to fix these problems or cope with her feelings herself.

I listened to Underestimated on audiobook, but I really wish I had a hard copy and a highlighter. The book is filled with so many girls’ stories and they all hit like a Taylor Swift song. In one author appearance, it was said that this book will help heal your inner teen girl. I agree.

It immediately took me back to my own episodes growing up where I wished people would just listen without insisting that they knew better. I wished people would realize how smart and capable I was without selling me short. I wished my parents would just ask me how I was feeling.

Going back to the Millennial trend of self-reflection and unlearning, this hindsight allows us to be more sensitive and empathetic to girls at this age; helping them grow into their best (autonomous) selves.