Girls

A Glamour magazinevideo asked a number of girls and women on advice they would want from an older person in their life. Here are some of the questions these young women asked:

How do you become who you are today?

What should I not stress about at 14-years-old?

What is the best way to make a decision?

Looking back on your life what did you find most valuable?

What do you do when you realize that your dreams are not actually going to happen?

How do you manage having kids, being married, and having a career?

What is the secret to living a happy life?

Is having children really worth it?

(What are the) secrets to a long and happy marriage?

You can watch the entire 2:30 minute video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is important for mature women to be accessible to answer questions and serve as role models to the young women in our churches. “Older women, likewise, are to be …. teachers of good. In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands …” (Titus 2:3-5).

By most measures, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift are remarkable women. Intelligent and capable …. Both are the kind of mega pop stars who inspire convulsions of adulation and tears. They’re graced with a radiance that seems almost exclusive to celebrities, with skin so incandescent it needs no filter.

But they are not perfect. Nor do they pretend to be. A recent Apple TV+ documentary, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, offers an unsparing portrait of Gomez, now 30, and her experiences with bipolar disorder, lupus, anxiety, and psychosis. On her latest album, Midnights, Taylor Swift, now 32, sings about her depression working the graveyard shift, about ending up in crisis. In her song “Anti-Hero” she sings, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me ... Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I’m a monster.”

This combination of external flawlessness and emotional vulnerability feels like a feature particular to contemporary female pop stardom. On one screen we see impeccable glam, expertly choreographed and costumed performances and startling displays of luxury. On the other screen, admissions of anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, and sleeplessness.

For today’s teens, imagine that same relentless scrutiny—if not in quite the same proportions—and self-doubt. In the recent book Behind Their Screens: What Teens Are Facing, Emily Weinstein and Carrie James document what they call “Comparison Quicksand.” They quote girls saying things such as, “On social media everyone seems like they are far better and far ahead than me, which is stressful and makes me feel behind, unwanted and stupid.” And: “I scroll through my Instagram and see models with perfect bodies and I feel horrible about myself.” For teenagers who are susceptible to insecurity, Weinstein and James write, “going on social media can activate the ‘dark spiral.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In our society, social media and the news elevates celebrities to become role models that are impossible to emulate. Parents and mentors should realize this and help orient our young people to scriptural maturity. Each one of them is a unique creation with gifts and abilities which they can celebrate and humbly use to serve others.

After multiple fights at Southwood High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, resulted in the arrests of 23 students, a group of about 40 dads stepped up to put a stop to the violence. Known as Dads on Duty, the men work shifts, so there are always several fathers on campus from the time students first arrive to when they go home for the day. The dads are there to lift spirits, tell jokes, dole out advice, and just let the kids know there's someone looking out for them.

Michael LaFitte said he started Dads on Duty because "we decided the best people who can take care of kids are … us." Since the group formed, there have been no fights on campus, with one student explaining, "The school has just been happy, and you can feel it." Dads on Duty will have a permanent presence at Southwood High, and the group would like to see other chapters form across the country.

The consequences of the media’s unrealistic beauty standards on teenage girls are alarming. Dr. Jake Linardon, founder of Break Binge Eating and an editorial board member for the International Journal of Eating Disorders, gives a few statistics:

• Half of young 13-year-old American girls reported being unhappy with their body. This number increased to nearly 80% by the time girls reached 17.

• 0% of young teen girls report fears of becoming fat.

• Body image was listed in the top four worries for young women.

• Nearly half of young girls aged between 13-17 reported a desire to be as thin as the models they viewed in fashion magazines and reported that these magazines gave them the ideal body to strive for.

• Simply viewing a Barbie doll has been shown to reduce self-esteem and increase a desire to be skinny in girls five to eight years old.

• Girls who frequently read glamour magazines related to weight loss are six times more likely to engage in extreme unhealthy weight control behaviors (e.g., taking diet pills, using laxatives, vomiting) than girls who do not read such magazines.

In an article on Kyria, Sarah Scherf writes:

I spent last week at the beach in Florida, relaxing with my family. The week was for eating fresh seafood, sitting by the beach with my nieces and sister, throwing the Frisbee on occasion, and for catching up with my dad and his new wife.

My parents are divorced, and the process of their dissolution took about nine years. I had erratic and often intensely negative feelings for and about my dad throughout my high school and college years; those feelings have mellowed out, and as adults we get along okay. We live 1,200 miles apart and don't see each other often, but I'm always glad to visit my dad when I can. This beach trip was his and his wife's initiative, and they provided a big place for their family and me and my siblings to meet up and spend some time together.

But at the week's end my dad said something to me that left my mind quiet and full of one thought. At the end of a perfect day of hunting for shells with the little girls, making a sleeping dragon sand sculpture, and laughing hard with my sister and dad, we had to pack up the car and pass around goodbye hugs. My dad hugged and kissed me. His arms are still so strong and tight; no one's hugs feel like his. He told me again how thankful he was that we could be there, and he told me he was so proud of me.

I have to admit, after hearing those words from my dad, my 29-year-old self was filled. I think I can guess that my dad's been proud of me; I'm at least sure he's not disappointed in who I am or what I've done with my life. But hearing him say it to me—despite all our past and its residue, despite my independence from him, despite the deeply affirming relationship I have with my husband—it was like I've needed nothing else.

In the book Unprotected, an anonymous campus psychiatrist writes:

Radical politics pervades my profession, and common sense has vanished. Dangerous behaviors are a personal choice; judgments are prohibited—they might offend…

Where I work, we're stuck on certain issues, but neglect others. We ask about childhood abuse, but not last week's hookups. We want to know how many cigarettes and coffees she has each day, but not how many abortions are in her past…We strive to combat suicide, but shun discussion of God and ultimate meaning.

After reading the children's book Frindel—which tells the story of a little boy organizing a boycott of the school cafeteria—students at William V. Wright Elementary School in Las Vegas, Nevada, decided it was time to initiate a few changes in their own lunchroom. However, they insisted on doing it in a more peaceful manner. They wrote letters to the lunch lady, Connie Duits, carefully complimenting her but also asking if she could lay off the reheated frozen green beans, a staple at the school.

One boy wrote: "Anything, anything—I'll even eat broccoli."

"We love the rest, but we hate the green beans," added Vivian Palacios.

The cutest letter was Zhong Lei's: "Dear Mrs. Duits, The food is so yummy and yummy. But here are [sic] one problem. It is the green beans."

As a result of the students' peaceful prodding, the student services department selected a group of grade schoolers to sample new menu items, allowing them to vote for the foods they liked best. Corn and carrots made the cut; cooked peas and green beans were shown the door.

"They were so excited to get a response back," said Constantine Christopulos, the students' teacher. "I taught them the pen is mightier than the sword, and hopefully they will remember that forever."

On the whole, siblings pass on dangerous habits to one another in a depressingly predictable way. A girl with an older, pregnant teenage sister is four to six times as likely to become a teen mom herself, says Patricia East, a developmental psychologist at the University of California, San Diego.

The same pattern holds for substance abuse. According to a paper published in the Journal of Drug Issues, younger siblings whose older siblings drink are twice as likely to pick up the habit. When it comes to smoking, the risk increases fourfold.

Heidi Neumark, pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the South Bronx, writes:

Because of visitation to their homes and because of our open doors after school, neighborhood children kept coming to the church. Many came without parents. Some walked. Some we picked up.

When I went to pick up Shanna for Sunday school one week, she was crying and had blood on her dress. "It's my Uncle Joe!" she said. I knew that her family was "going through changes" because of Uncle Joe and his drug addiction.

Shanna had particular reason to feel bitter toward her uncle. For years, she had dreamed of owning a bicycle, and that Christmas a donation from another church made her dream come true. Shanna rode her shiny, new, blue bike everywhere, bragged on it, polished it, and treasured it. Within a month, her uncle had sold the bike to buy drugs—an ample reason to embitter a 9-year-old.

Now, on this morning, there was one reason more. Uncle Joe had come home wearing a T-shirt that read, "Say No to Drugs." Shanna commented, "Why don't you read your own shirt?" He hit her, causing a nosebleed. The white collar and yellow lace of her Sunday dress were a mess. Nothing else was clean, and everyone else was still asleep. We went to church, where her teacher washed out the bloodstain.

When it came time in the service for individual prayer petitions, Shanna's voice sounded bright and clear as a trumpet: "I pray for my Uncle Joe. He needs your help, Lord. Please, Jesus, help my uncle." What a privilege to drink from the same chalice as Shanna.

Well, the fact is, men and women are different physically, psychologically, motivationally, and temperamentally. Anyone who has had exposure to babies and children can tell you that boys and girls respond differently to the world right from the start.

Give both a doll and the girl will cuddle it, while the boy will more likely use it as a projectile or weapon. Give them two dolls and the girl will have the dolls talking to each other, while the boy will have them engaged in combat.

The human need to be well-fathered is illustrated by the enormous response to Bob Carlisle's 1996 ballad, "Butterfly Kisses." The song speaks of the tender love between a father and his daughter.

Reflecting upon the song's phenomenal success, Bob Carlisle said, "I get a lot of mail from young girls who try to get me to marry their moms. That used to be a real chuckle because it's so cute, but then I realized they don't want a romance for mom; they want the father who is in that song, and that just kills me."

Ashlyn Blocker's parents and kindergarten teachers all describe her the same way: fearless. She is fearless because she can feel no pain.

In the school cafeteria, teachers put ice in 5-year-old Ashlyn's chili, because even though her lunch is scalding hot, she'll gulp it down anyway.

Ashlyn has chewed through her tongue while eating, and once tore the flesh off her finger after putting the finger into her mouth.

Ashlyn is among a tiny number of people in the world known to have congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis, or CIPA—a rare genetic disorder that makes her unable to feel pain.

Family photos reveal a series of these self-inflicted injuries. One picture shows Ashlyn in her Christmas dress, hair neatly coifed, with a swollen lip, missing teeth, puffy eye, and athletic tape wrapped around her hands to protect them. She smiles like a little boxer who won a prize bout.

Tara Blocker, Ashlyn's mother, says, "Pain's there for a reason. It lets your body know something's wrong and it needs to be fixed. I'd give anything for her to feel pain."

Police chiefs, school teachers, and social workers are all reporting an alarming new trend in the U.S. Girls are becoming more violent, more often. Justice Department statistics show that violent acts by teenage boys outstrips acts by teenage girls 4 to 1. However, a generation ago it was 10 to 1.

Former Baltimore school police chief Jansen Robinson, commented that girls have gradually become as violent as boys. "It's a nationwide phenomenon, and it's catching us all off guard."

Lauren Abramson, director of the Community Conferencing Center, a Baltimore agency that resolves disputes through mediation, has observed that gossip is often the root of aggression between girls. "Gossip as a source of violence is understudied and little understood. But time and again, when we bring the parties together, get them to talk and dig into what started it all, it invariably comes back to something somebody heard somebody else said."

Sybella Artz, a researcher in bullying behavior and author of "Sex, Power and the Violent School Girl," has found that since girls are more verbally skilled than boys, their aggression is often displayed through malicious gossip, threats, and intimidation. "They will create factions, groups, or small cliques. And they will begin to character assassinate by creating rumors and gossip and building a consensus that a particular girl is in the wrong and deserves to be beaten and have retaliation. At the very least this will show up as exclusion or shunning. A girl will come to school and suddenly find herself excluded from a group that she once found she belonged to, and she won't be told what it's about."

Recent research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, discovered that teenage girls who are close to their moms are more likely to stay virgins. The key for parents, experts say, is not just talking with their daughters about sex, but being deeply involved in their children's lives.

The research, based on interviews with mothers and their 14- and 15-year-old girls, found that when families have meals together, when parents know where their children are, and when they know their kids' friends, it is less likely that a teenager will have sex. They found that mothers whose daughters were still virgins shared several qualities: the mothers strongly disapproved of their daughters having sex; they were satisfied with their relationship with their daughters; and they frequently talked with the parents of their daughters' friends.

Other factors made no difference in teen sex, including how religious the mothers were, how often they talked about sex with their daughters, or how uncomfortable they were talking about sex. Talking about birth control also did not appear to have any effect on teens' sexual behavior.

According to a radio report, a middle school in Oregon faced a unique problem. A number of girls began to use lipstick and put it on in the bathroom. After they put on their lipstick, they pressed their lips to the mirrors leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Finally the principal decided something had to be done. She called the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the custodian. She explained lip prints caused a major problem for the custodian, who had to clean the mirrors every day. To demonstrate how difficult it was, she asked the custodian to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled brush, dipped it into the toilet, and scrubbed the mirror. Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirrors.

When tempted to sin, if we could only see the real filth we'd be kissing, we wouldn't be attracted to it.

I had to have blood drawn at the doctor's office, and my five-year-old daughter, Mary, came along. When the nurse held up the needle, Mary never blinked. When she inserted the needle into my arm, Mary watched with interest. As the blood began to flow, my daughter acted as if she'd seen this a million times. Finally Mary winced on my behalf when the nurse, the procedure over, reached into her pocket and pulled out something my daughter did associate with pain: a Band-Aid.