I'd like to reitterate my request to the moderator for a forum specifically for all things family & parenting. : )

Anyone care to comment on this article? Where do you agree or disagree?

Also, has anyone here read The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers?

Good girls beware
By Elizabeth Foss
 
 Dr. Meg Meeker, author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters and Boys should be Boys has written an excellent new book for mothers of all ages: The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers. There is a plethora of thought-provoking, excellent advice, drawn from her own experience and decades of work with mothers. I highly recommend the book and I’m hosting a discussion of it on my blog.

There is one observation early in the book, however, that is very specific and very important, I think, for young girls and for the families who are raising them. Dr. Meeker writes, “Be careful if you have a really nice girl; they are the ones who get into trouble. Girls who are kind, polite, ethical, and bright find themselves doing things that they don't want to do simply because they don't want to hurt others' feelings.” As I write it is Friday morning. Tonight, all over the country, really nice girls will be going to high school football games; they will engage in silly talk; they will be sweet and friendly and maybe even flirty. There is a fine line between goodness and danger. This quote — seeing it in print — is an impetus to open dialogue, to clearly explicate for our daughters that they don’t have to please everyone. Nor should they.

We spend so much time when our girls are little teaching them how to be kind and obedient and good-hearted and nurturing. And those are all valuable qualities in a friend and in a wife (or girlfriend). I think though, that as mothers teach those attributes, they must intentionally teach others as well. They must teach girls not to be one-sided friends, not to do all the giving in a relationship. Dr. Meeker goes on to share, “An astounding 40 percent of girls ages fourteen to eighteen have unwanted sex because, they say, they don’t want to hurt their boyfriends’ feelings.” Expanding on the thought, “Gracious, ethical, intelligent women often end up with one-way friendships because they are so nice. There is nothing wrong with having friends who need help constantly. You know the friends I’m referring to — the ones who ask (if they’re going to ask at all) how you are doing half an hour into the conversation. These women are the takers — the needy ones who are always in crisis modes.” A girl whose social experience is full of nothing but takers is a girl who is in trouble — a quiet trouble that can creep up and surprise.

As mothers, we need to teach our daughters, preferably by example, that their entire self-worth isn’t tied up in making someone else feel happier or better or more content. We need to teach them to recognize that some boys will exploit their good will and some girls will drain them dry of kind deeds. Girls need healthy friendships with both genders. They must learn to recognize that some people will take all that they offer and demand more without ever balancing the relationship. Girls (and their mothers) need to acknowledge that it’s nice to be needed and rewarding to help, while also being wary that the relationship might take them into the dangerous territory of being manipulated and used.

As the mother of four daughters — all of whom we are raising to be kind, polite, ethical and bright — I know that I am more conscious of the connections between good girls and dangerous relationships. And I’m looking at their teen years with my eyes wide open.

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Women tend to value inordinately the opinions of their social group.  To be inordinately influenced by them.  So the most important thing for a girl to retain her innocence is to avoid the society of bad companions.

The problem arises of course, that reputation and reality are two different things.  How can one really know that a daughter's girl companions are not vicious companions, merely going by public reputation? It is human nature to want to think better of one's children than is likely to be true.  That is not a bad thing, but it becomes bad when it leads to a disconnect with reality.

People who are well-meaning and good-hearted are more likely to be tricked, more likely to be deceived, and are more likely to be trusted inordinately when the fact of the matter is that nearly everyone, nice or not, is subject to temptations.

Innocent and good hearted/ well meaning persons are not necessarily stupid. Sorry.

Quote from: s2srea

Innocent and good hearted/ well meaning persons are not necessarily stupid. Sorry.

Thinking the best of others and being innocent of knowledge of the depth of human depravity is not stupidity, but it often leads to being tricked.

No it doesn't. You're leaving out many factors like experience and intelligence.

You can not declare a statement and use it as a blanket for everyone. Stereotypes is one thing, but is usually a conclusion which is built over time.  There's no proof that people who are good willed and well meaning are deceived easily even a majority of the time. This is the real world, not a novel.

I think the idea that "nice girls" are more likely to get into trouble is not true.  The problem is this idea of "niceness" that really doesn't correspond to the true character of people.  People who are well-meaning and good-hearted are more likely to be tricked, more likely to be deceived, and are more likely to be trusted inordinately when the fact of the matter is that nearly everyone, nice or not, is subject to temptations.

To explain more clearly what I mean here:

People are more likely to be surprised when "nice girls" get into trouble.  I don't think nice girls are more likely to get into trouble.

Quote from: Telesphorus

I think the idea that "nice girls" are more likely to get into trouble is not true.  The problem is this idea of "niceness" that really doesn't correspond to the true character of people.  People who are well-meaning and good-hearted are more likely to be tricked, more likely to be deceived, and are more likely to be trusted inordinately when the fact of the matter is that nearly everyone, nice or not, is subject to temptations.

To explain more clearly what I mean here:

People are more likely to be surprised when "nice girls" get into trouble.  I don't think nice girls are more likely to get into trouble.

Ah. I can agree with this easily.

I've read some of it.  It is mostly common sense but Ive been around the block a bit, it probably has more value to a younger mom or one who is feeling very lost.

I have an 18 yr old daughter, who most would consider a 'good girl'. She is a pretty, quiet bookworm. She isn't naive though. She may not have had the experience of being proppsitioned, pressured to drink or do drugs, mugged, scammed. etc.. but we have talked about them and she is a very self assured young lady. She has been in situations where she has had to stand up for herself, her beliefs, her morals and she has done just fine. She is perfectly comfortable.with who she is and doesn't seek approval from her peers or boys.  I see this kind of healthy, happy sense of self in a lot of homeschoolers, definately moreso than institutioally schooled girls who seem to tie their happiness to whether they have a boyfriend and their popularity-yes including trads in trads schools.
The answer is not to throw young girls into the world to sink or swim nor to raise them in an ivory tower but to introduce them to problems and chllenges
 as they are ready and to guide them through how to deal with them.