Focus on the Females
James Dobson explains his ideas for raising daughters, and life after Focus.
Interview by Sarah Pulliam Bailey | posted 7/14/2010 08:44AM
Between "sexting," cyber bullying, and bikinis with padded tops for 7-year-olds, James Dobson thinks mainstream culture doesn't offer girls a pretty picture. Dobson's Bringing Up Girls (Tyndale) is the sequel to Bringing Up Boys, which has sold more than two million copies to date.
The founder of Focus on the Family says that one of his favorite letters came from a 14-year-old girl. "I hate you dr. dobson," she wrote. "I had to watch the dumbest movie today about sex. You made the movie. HA! Like you'd know anything about it." Parents are producing strong-willed children, Dobson says, and he wants parents to assume responsibility. Dobson spoke with Christianity Today about his vision for shaping the next generation of women and his departure from Focus on the Family.
How have cultural expectations for girls changed since you raised your daughter? Was there advice for raising girls 30 years ago that would be bad advice today?
No, I haven't changed my views because they are rooted in moral principles and in Scripture, so they are eternal. I don't mean to imply I have a corner on God's truth, but I do draw the ideas and principles from that foundation. It's amazing that if you go back 40 years, when I wrote Dare to Discipline, and read those principles today, they are still on target. Dare to Discipline was published in 1970 in the midst of the Vietnam War and a culture of rebellion. The book was written in that context, but the principles of child rearing have not changed.
Has the rise of feminism made it harder for parents to bring up girls?
The culture has totally changed. Girls today are growing up too fast; the influences of the entertainment industry have changed. Girls are experiencing a lot that their mothers and grandmothers never experienced. That age compression thrusts girls into the adolescent experience far too early and gets them thinking about sexuality at an early age and creates pressure. We are dealing with evidences of emotional turmoil, including eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia; 90 percent of those with eating disorders are girls, some of them as young as 5.
Recently a clothing manufacturer finally took this product off the shelves: bikinis with padded bras for 7-year-olds. You also have cutting, piercing, and sexual aggression among elementary-school-age kids and early involvement in drugs and alcohol. Girls have now reached parity with boys in binge drinking, and there's a high level of violence among girls. One out of three boys and girls is either a victim or a perpetrator of bullying. We've seen news recently about girls who hang themselves after being taunted. There has never been an easy time to raise kids, but it's harder today.
Has feminism made anything easier about raising girls?
Feminism certainly addressed problems that needed to be addressed. Before the late 1960s, when the women's movement came into full force, women were treated like sex objects, and there was not equal pay for equal work. There's now a level of respect for women that was not as evident, say, 50 years ago.
In your book you write about famous women who say they struggle with self-esteem. Yet we are in a culture that also promotes self-help material. How do you teach your daughter about healthy self-esteem while not training her to be self-focused?
My concern is the model that the entertainment industry puts forward. It's a one-value system of evaluating human worth, and that one value is beauty. Girls in their adolescent and middle-school years are going through puberty, and that, of course, brings about acne and gangly bodies. Those girls look at role models like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan. If they dare be a little overweight—not even fat, but slightly overweight—they hear about it all day long. It tears into the heart and the worth of a girl who just wants to be a princess, who wants to be loved by somebody.
July 2010, Vol. 54, No. 7
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