Replacing the Unholy Trinity

By Varda Epstein

Providing Our Daughters with Role Models

We’re used to being assailed by images of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton. Magazines scream their peccadillos at us from the checkout line at the supermarket, their exploits come at us unbidden on the boob tube, and we’re captives to the sound and sight of their imitators: the hormonally-charged preteens who have taken over the mall. The images of this unholy trinity, glittery and lust-ridden, have taken over pop culture inch by inch, like dogs marking territory with urine.

But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. More to the point, we really, really resent that our daughters are forcibly and beyond parental control poisoned by the influences of these media icons and the examples they set. Are we so craven that we’re just going to take it: just going to sit back and let these women take over our daughters’ collective culture?

Belly Shirts

Maybe it’s time we did more than blanch when presented with a teenaged daughter’s perfect karaoke rendition of Britney’s, Hold it Against Me. Perhaps we don’t have to just sit back and watch our daughters saunter out the door in perfect copies of Lohan’s pink belly shirt. There must be role models out there we can present to our daughters that can still pique their jaded interest after so much materialism, dubious morality, smuttiness and sex, sex, sex, rubbed in their teenybopper faces. We need women of brave good works, the kind of examples we can hold up to them and say, “Here. These are woman to emulate—here are the kinds of women we trust and know you can be.”

But it’s an uphill climb.

Some stark statistics point out the poignancy of our necessary struggle on our daughters’ behalves:

* 66% of teenage girls would consider undergoing plastic surgery and 20% would do it right away#

* Polls suggest that 63% of young women hope to become fashion models or lap dancers#

* 66% of young people learn about sex and relationships through the media#

It’s clear we have to start somewhere in countering the malignant effects of the media. Perhaps we can begin by providing our daughters with a choice. If all they see and hear about are these three celebrities, it’s no wonder our girls remain transfixed by Lohan, Spears, and Hilton. There’s nothing else to see!

Balance Tipping

Those celebrities are a constant and flashy presence. What we need to do is broaden our daughters’ perspective by making them aware of great women past and present. By offering up these other examples of womanhood, you can tip the balance—your daughter will have a fighting chance at becoming more than the sum total of what some media mogul thinks she wants to see and be.

But proceed with caution—we can’t be too obvious as we go about the reeducation of our daughters. Avoid trashing your daughter’s favorite celebrities lest you stir her natural inclination toward adolescent rebellion. Instead, just concentrate on the subtle opening of her horizons. Think of this as an ongoing project.

Go powerwalking with your daughter and as you walk, tell her the story of a courageous, strong female ancestor. Learning about heroism from a true-life family history perspective makes the tale seem more personal, more real somehow. Yet there’s no eye-contact to put your daughter on the spot as there would be in a face-to-face recitation. Walking side-by-side, you can tell her just about anything and she won’t feel pressured.

Think back to the women who inspired you when you were growing up and go book-shopping for their biographies and autobiographies. Every once in a while, you can leave one of these books on the foot of your daughter’s bed, along with an item that evokes the spirit of the woman in question. A good choice: first American female investigative reporter Nellie Bly’s book, Ten Days in a Mad-House—Under Cover, wrapped up in pretty paper, a reporter’s notepad and pen included for inspiration.

Keep your ears open for tales of everyday women who perform acts of heroism or provide good examples of the qualities you admire. Maybe a close friend is going back into the workforce after a long break to raise her children. Or perhaps a friend is volunteering at a shelter for battered women. Talk about these women at the dinner table. You can direct your comments to your spouse or to the other people at the table so you don’t seem to be putting too fine a point upon the subject. You don’t want to awaken her tendency to naysay anything a parent holds in high esteem. The main thing is your daughter is in hearing distance and gets the idea that this is someone you admire.

Keep in mind that while your lessons may seem to have no noticeable effects, your daughter is gaining perspective and absorbing this information, just as she soaks up the information the media throws at her about Lindsay, Paris, and Britney. This part of the process is, for her, involuntary. If you get the information out there, she will take it in.

The examples you provide her may not be so shiny and glamorous, but they have their own enduring power. Trust in the power of womanhood. With time and your help, your daughter will reject her flashy flimsy teen idols and opt to be what she was meant to be: sweet, gutsy, strong, kind, and independent. The embodiment of woman made flesh.

Varda Epstein is mother to four daughters and a content writer/editor for CogniBeat.