RAISING A STRONG DAUGHTER - WEEK 6 - CHAPTER 5

RAISING A STRONG DAUGHTER IN A TOXIC CULTURE: 11 STEPS TO KEEP HER HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND SAFE by Meg Meeker, M.D.

UPDATED

I have to start this chapter with the floor open for discussion before I put any thoughts up. There is so much emotion tied to the subject of social media and kids/teens in general, but currently even more is directed to this subject as our news sources are flooded with the story of Adam Raine's ChatGPT assisted suicide and the fact that his parents are now suing OpenAI. The floor is open, and I will add some thoughts in later.

I think the first thing that really struck me in this chapter was Dr. Meeker's statement, "All teen girls compare themselves to others and have deep-seated insecurities." That means none are exempt from the modern version of the sirens' song. As Odysseus had to plug his ears with wax to survive the hypnotic call, so we must make sure that boundaries are in place for our girls to protect them. In some ways, the lure of seeing how we "stack up" never truly goes away even in our adulthood, does it? After all, even Dr. Meeker herself admits to feeling like she was a "loser" when looking at her friends posts. The missing element of social media is the realness of life. With everything staged in pictures, we lose the reality that comes with face-to-face contact and relationship. Spend some time with any other woman, and before long it's clear that they might appear that they have everything together, but somewhere is a chink in the armor. Their humanness. Not so in social media land.

One of the greatest losses a teenage girl experiences when living in social media land is the loss of her value for anything more than her looks. The very core/heart of her is never known through the physical pictures she posts. One picture can lead to another and before long she is all used up as everything physically she has to offer is exposed for all the world to see with the first nude shot she posts. What's left? Nothing. The pursued rabbit is caught, finally, at the high point of the hunt. The excitement is gone. Abandoned and consumed, the girl gave all, only to find it wasn't enough (it never is). The hunters have moved on to their next prey.

This mentality grieves me deeply. Our girls must be safeguarded from it. The only true solution I know of is to go back to the very beginning. The start of time that began in a garden where God reached down and said, "Let us make man (woman) in Our image." Our value began at that moment. Each human created individually and lovingly and stamped with the image of the Creator. True value that lasts for eternity.