Today we welcome author Lori Day to the Girls Succeed! blog. In a previous Girls Succeed! blog post I offered suggestions for starting your own Mother-Daughter Book Club based on Lori's book, Her Next Chapter. Because I believe Lori has many positive messages to moms and girls, I invited her to be our guest. And she accepted!
I am thrilled to introduce you to Lori Day and to share her guest blog post.
Using Mother-Daughter Book Clubs to
Raise Girls to Be Leaders,
Allies and Agents of Change
by Lori Day
One of the most fulfilling and most memorable undertakings
of my parenting journey was the formation of a mother-daughter book club, a collaboration
with my then eight-year-old daughter and four other mother-daughter pairs that
would last for six years. We all discussed the need to counteract stereotyped
and sexualized girl culture with positive messages about who girls and women really
are and what they can do.
As mothers, we wanted to work together as a village to
develop open communication with our daughters early on, so our girls would be
listening (and talking to us) when all the marketing and media messaging aimed
at girls needed to be deconstructed and kept at bay. We knew it was becoming
increasingly difficult to raise happy, healthy girls with good self-esteem in
our increasingly shallow, beauty-obsessed society. We felt we could do a better
job at this together than separately.
I
remember noticing how few books and movies for children had female
protagonists, and of the ones that did, how few of those portrayed women and
girls in strong, positive roles. As mothers, we wanted more for our daughters
than stories that revolved around the adventures of boys and men as the
default, leaving the stories of girls and women marginalized as chick lit and
chick flicks.
In a culture that
is not always healthy for today’s girls, and that can make the job of raising
girls feel intimidating or isolating, it is crucial for mothers to join
together to guide daughters in ways that are uplifting and enjoyable. The
teaching of media literacy is critical, and is accomplished very successfully
within clubs that use carefully chosen female-centric books and media as side
doors into crucial conversations about growing up female.
While mother-daughter book clubs can do a lot for girls, I
can’t stress enough how much these clubs can also do for mothers. Raising kids
today is hard, and raising girls comes with a unique set of challenges for
mothers. This learning from other trusted and respected mothers is perhaps one
of the least discussed but most important benefits to a mother-daughter book
club today.
I have huge concerns about the parenting culture we have now,
especially for mothers. Mothers are under constant media bombardment. You
cannot open a magazine or browse articles online or tune in to FaceBook without
reading some version of how mothers are doing it wrong. Or can’t have it all.
Or should have it all. Or are not following the “right” method for potty
training or breastfeeding or violin instruction or fill-in-the-blank. And none of them, it seems, can regain their
figures quickly enough after giving birth, like celebrities do. It is endless. Mothers
need to seek less validation for their parenting decisions, to judge each other
less, and to find more ways of forming genuine connections with other women who
sincerely want to be their allies, not their “mompetitors.”
Mother-daughter book clubs are a way to sidestep some of this
noise and instead listen closely to other chosen mothers that you trust. They
can provide a measured amount of communal upbringing that is sorely lacking in
today’s world, and are a fantastic way of building community among mothers as
well as daughters. Mother-daughter book clubs are not only a way for girls to
find their inner voices, but for mothers to do the same.
Together,
from one generation to the next, we can change the world—one girl at a time,
one book at a time, one voice at a time.
Welcome
to the village!
ABOUT LORI DAY
Lori Day is an educational psychologist and consultant with Lori Day Consulting in
Newburyport, MA. Previously Lori worked as a psychologist, teacher and school
administrator for over 25 years in public schools, private schools,
