Lisa Graham McMinn - Growing Strong Daughters: Encouraging Girls To Become All Theyre Meant To Be

GROWING
STRONG
DAUGHTERS

GROWING
STRONG
DAUGHTERS

REVISED EDITION

Encouraging Girls to Become
All Theyre Meant to Be

LISA GRAHAM MCMINN

2000, 2007 by Lisa Graham McMinn

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287,
Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McMinn, Lisa Graham, 1958
Growing strong daughters : encouraging girls to become all theyre meant to be / Lisa Graham McMinn.Rev. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 10: 0-8010-6799-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-8010-6799-0 (pbk.)
1. ParentingReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. DaughtersReligious life.
I. Title.
BV4529.M387 2007
31dc22

2007004717

Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NRSV is from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

to Rae, Sarah, and Megan
three strong women

CONTENTS

T he telling and hearing of personal stories allows us to connect our experiences with others experiences. And from the composite picture of those stories we come to better understand the impact of social currents and trends on our personal lives. I am indebted to my students at Trinity International University and Wheaton College for their willingness to share their stories, first with me, and now with you. Their stories are true, though names have been changed to protect their privacy. I am also indebted to my daughters, Danielle Rae, Sarah, and Megan, who have graciously given me liberty to discuss them in the following pages. From them I have learned much about Gods love. They have shaped me as surely as I have shaped them.

This book is a composite of the wisdom of friends like Marcile Crandall, Donell Campbell, Jana Sundene, the Wild Women, Zondra Lindblade, Ruth Bamfordthere are so many. Their questions have been insightful, and their challenge to me profound. Publishing a first book requires a publisher willing to take a risk, and I appreciate Baker Book House for doing so. The editorial staff encouraged, supported, and taught me; I especially want to thank Natalie Hart for her excellent copyediting and probing questionson both editions of Growing Strong Daughters. This is a better book because of their involvement. I am also thankful for Jana Sundene, Adrienne Buchanan, Patti Mangis, and Deborah Butman, who read and commented on all or pieces of this manuscript. Finally, this book is only possible because of Mark, my husband and parenting partner over the last twenty years. Together we have struggled with the questions, sometimes answering them in ways foreign to those around us. We have laughed, cried, prayed, and celebrated together in parenting, and pondered what we would have done differently if we were to begin raising daughters again. The message that we can raise strong daughters in the context of Gods creative design for women needs to be celebrated and embraced.

M ark and I are officially empty-nesters, and we have been for a good four years now, according to our accounting. Megan, our youngest, graduated from college in 2006, and it has been some time since we had more than one child home for a summer.

In the years since Growing Strong Daughters was first released Mark told me I should write a sequel called, Coping with Strong Daughters. Mostly he meant it as a joke. We do have three daughters who are strong, confident, and using their voices in various ways to partner with God and others to leave the earth a better place for having lived. Our hearts are full. Parenting was messy during various seasons, and like many parents, at times we spend too much energy thinking of what we would have done differently if we had it to do again. I imagine we would have overcompensated in ways that created other messes. At the end of the day our daughters knew (and know) that we love them, and that covered a multitude of other sins, errors, and foibles.

When I wrote the first edition we were inclined to place more confidence in the persevering power of the individual and to value autonomy more than we do now. This edition reflects some thinking that has changed in the last decade. I, along with a host of other social scientists, am more convinced now that one of our greatest needs as humans is to feel connected, to feel that we belong to something bigger than ourselves. We do not discover who we are in isolation as we pursue some personal quest, but from the commitments we make and the relationships we keep. Many of us are coming to believe that we will satisfy our longings more by investing in various communities than by pursuing individual aspirationsespecially if our aspirations cause us to neglect, or turn away from family, church, or community. So a subtle change in this edition is an emphasis on community. One of the best gifts we can give our daughters is a strong sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, first to God, then also to others. This does not diminish their confidence or voice, but calls it forth in stronger, more significant ways. They are indeed partnering with God for the good of all.

When I started writing Growing Strong Daughters, Mary Pipher had recently released Reviving Ophelia, and parents of daughters were increasingly aware of the dark hole too many girls fell into as they entered adolescence. I have more optimism now than I did ten years ago. Girls are outperforming boys in school, are more likely to graduate from college than boys, and are holding strong expectations for success and significant engagement after they finish their schooling. Daughters are more likely to be connected to their parents, and less likely to believe they are supposed to rebel than they were ten to fifteen years ago. Many are finding involvement in sports as a way out of some of the obsession with appearance that continues to plague girls.

Some things havent changed much and have perhaps grown more challenging. For instance, the pressure to be beautiful, body-sculpted, well dressed, and sexy is still strong, and it is impacting girls at very young ages; girls fear growing fat in early elementary school. But I will hold on to my optimism and believe that parents, teachers, youth leaders, and church and civic communities have a lot of power when it comes to shaping and changing the nature of the social environment in which we raise our daughters.

I appreciate my editor, Bob Hosack, for his encouragement to revise Growing Strong Daughters. It has been a satisfying and hopeful experience to revisit and revise. May you find this second edition helpful as you work with young women, or raise your daughters, and may it enrich your own sense of being created an image-bearer of God.

Lisa Graham McMinn