Michael Gurian - The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters

INTRODUCTION

Truth tends to shake us to our very bones.

Marilyn Sewell

I was thirty-two years old, and knew little about what it means to have a daughter. I knew next to nothing about girls, though I thought I knew a lot about women. I had not yet acquired the wisdom to know that knowledge is never certain, and children are the best teachers.

I had specialized thus far in two kinds of work: writing itself mainly novels and poetryand the teaching of writing and literature; and psychological and neurobiological research, preparatory to becoming a therapist and educator in child development. Now here I was, father of a baby daughter; it was time to learn what that really meant.

My wife, Gail, also thirty-two, knew a great deal more than I did about girls, and yet, she too felt inadequate. What parent, upon having their first child, does not feel lost?

Now, many years later, I know from experience and research somewhat more of what it means to have a daughter. Yet so often, still, I feel that what I know is even too subtle for poetry. It exists in a wordless quiet when one of my daughters is reading silently beside me on the couch. It weaves through words while Gabrielle tells me about the latest discomfort shes had with her friends, or Davita, three years younger, details her day of exuberant events. My intentions with my daughters are less green than they were at Gabrielles birth, but they are no less passionate.

Recently I asked Gabrielle what it should mean to me to have a daughter. She answered, affecting an actresss pose, To love me beyond measure. I asked Davita the same thing. She giggled, I dont know, and gave me a bear hug. Not poetry, not science, not even flawed memory can do justice to the emotions that surround the love of parent and child.

It is a love that is lived as one soul embraces another throughout the life journey.

The Wonder of Girls hopes to become a comprehensive part of your own answer to the question, What does it mean to have a daughter? While ever respectful that no book can be a complete answer, I will cover everything I can think of that a daughter needs yet still there will be more.

The Wonder of Girls has grown not only from my own research and my own care for my daughters, but it has grown from my interactions with other parents and caregivers. If one is going to try to write a book that hopes to aid the life journey in a comprehensive way, it must be one that grows in that place where an experts ability to serve and an audiences need come together. Even though there are numerous books about girls on the shelves these days, I think youll quickly discover that this one is needed, because it reveals the nature of your daughter.

Because I am fortunate to meet thousands of people every year, and receive numerous e-mails and letters, I am constantly learning parents needs from them. As both a parent of daughters and a professional, I came to fully realize that the book you are about to read both grew in me and was needed in the world when I read this beautiful letter from a mother of four, Cheryl McKenzie.

Dear Michael Gurian:

I have three daughters, 16, 13, and 9, and a son, 12. Ive read a lot of books on parenting. Im writing you because your book, The Wonder of Boys, changed our family. Im hoping youll write a book like it for raising girls.