What's a Girl to Do?

My daughter is almost eight and is blossoming into such a girly girl. I’m both happy and dismayed. The ambiguity I feel about her love of all things pink, her fondness for styling hair, and her interest in fashion pulls to the surface all the conflicting messages we send and receive about women.

The public and private debate rages on. Is it nature or nurture that makes a girl get girly? And when does being girly become a problem?

Unlike her brother, E-Grrrl has had a strong sense of gender from the time she was a little over a year old. She recognized her own femininity and gravitated to her own sex early on. She has always been an alpha female. She started nurturing baby dolls and bossing her brother around before she could walk. Unlike me, she loves to cook and is eager to learn to sew. She thinks shopping is a great way to spend a day and trying on shoes is a vacation. She saw a “spa kit” in a toy catalog and put it on her birthday list. I shake my head and wonder where all this came from—but I have to admit, the nut doesn’t fall too far from the tree. (I’ve got the shoe boxes and spa products to prove it.)

In my own life I try to walk that delicate line between being concerned about my appearance but not getting obsessed with it, enjoying good clothes but not blindly following fashion, wearing makeup and not letting it wear me. In my 40s, I’m getting better at being comfortable in my own skin—even if it’s sagging. I guess if I’m still figuring out how far to nurture my own feminine instincts, it makes sense I’d struggle to guide my daughter as she does the same.

As a preschooler, I banned the kiddie makeup kits and lip gloss and said no to letting anyone paint her nails. I never fought with her over her hair or insisted she wear it a certain way. We had no little hip hugger jeans, miniskirts, shirts that showed her stomach, satin pajamas, or bikini underwear in her dresser drawers. She had cute clothes but I allowed (even encouraged) her to get dirty and be active and have fun.

And even if I was privately trying to drop a few pounds, I never talked about my weight (or anyone else’s) in her presence. The word “diet” is taboo at our house. I try not to pass my neuroses to her, though God knows, I’m a mother and so I MUST be passing on my neuroses to her, even if I think I’m not. I took her to a girl’s basketball game so she could see women athletes in action and instead her admiring eyes were glued to the cheerleaders on the sidelines and their perfect ponytails. I let her dress as a cheerleader for Halloween but refused to sign her up for a cheerleading camp for six-year-olds.

For the most part in those early years, there seemed to be a good balance between being a girl and being a girly girl. We even managed to live a mostly Barbie-free existence until this year when she discovered the Web and Barbie.com. There the unseen forces behind the Disney princesses unleashed a powder puff assault of pink estrogen on my vulnerable little girl. At Barbie.com, E-Grrrl discovered she could dress and undress virtual Barbies, apply makeup to faces online, and choreograph ice skating routines for Figure Skater Barbie. It was here she was introduced to Hillary Duff, ‘tween queen, for the first time and started playing her videos over and over again. Now she’s like a junkie who needs a fix and is looking for a new drug.

I’ve caught her poring over In Style magazine and reading Bridget Jones’ Diary—at the tender age of 7. “This is so funny, Mama!” she said about Bridget, and I wondered what parts she’d read. Suddenly I’m concerned play time will never be the same. Barbie will be shagging G.I. Joe, who will be seeing one of the Bratz girls on the side. Who knows what’s going on in the toy tent at night?

From In Style she gleaned helpful fashion tips. She tells me with great authority, “Denim is ALWAYS in style” (though E-Grrrl personally hates denim and won’t wear it no matter what anyone says.) She pages through the designer’s new collections and critiques the dresses and hairdos on the models. At one point she says something catty about the woman in a photo spread. I immediately call her out on it—I’ll take a girly girl but not a MEAN GIRL (loved that movie—have you seen it?). In my best Southern Goddess voice I tell her: “Darlin’, the Roberto Cavalli dress may be TRASHY but that doesn’t mean the model is! Remember, she’s getting PAID to wear that dress—we’re sure she’d never wear something so TACKY in real life!”

(My mom would be proud of me. Her message to us whenever we’d say something mean was, “Let’s be charitable!” I’m sure she’d find something nice to say about that Roberto Cavalli dress. “You could use it to dust with. The ruffles will trap the dirt!”)

What can I do with E-Grrrl but sit back and enjoy the ride and tap the brakes when things go too fast or too far? For now, I’m going to admire her good fashion sense, accept that at this stage she may think Hillary Duff is cooler that the Dixie Chicks and Sheryl Crow, buy the Barbies AND the baby dolls, and let her revel in all things pastel. I will, however, hide Bridget Jones and the Chick Lit.

(“Darlin’, I’m not ready to go there with you yet; let’s go check out shoes instead.”)

September 15, 2005