Copyright

All content in this book is for the purposes of discussion and awareness only. No advice should be taken without making your own judgement, or in the case of serious problems, seeking professional advice.

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

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First published by Thorsons 2013

This edition published 2019

© Steve Biddulph 2013, 2019

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

Illustrations by Kimio Kubo

All photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise stated

Extract in Chapter 7 from Kim McCabe’s From Daughter to Woman, Robinson 2018. Used by permission.

Section on self-harm in Chapter 10 adapted with permission from the Lifeline Australia website: www.lifeline.org.au/get-help/topics/self-harm

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Steve Biddulph asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008339784

Ebook Edition: May 2019 ISBN: 9780007455676

Version: 2019-04-02

Contents

1  Cover

2  Title Page

3  Copyright

4  Contents

5  A Flight Manual for Your Girl

6 Meet Kaycee and Genevieve

7  Part One: The Five Stages of Girlhood

8  1 Creating a Total Girl

9  2 Right from the Start

10  3 Learning to Explore

11  4 Getting Along with Others

12  5 Finding Her Soul

13  6 Preparing for Adulthood

14  Part Two: Hazards and Helps: The Six Big Risk Areas and How to Navigate Them

15  7 The Rush We’re All In

16  8 Too Sexy Too Soon

17  9 Mean Girls

18  10 Bodies, Weight and Food

19  11 Alcohol and Other Drugs

20  12 Mirror, Mirror on the Screen

21  Part Three: Girls and Their Parents

22  13 Girls and Their Mums

23  14 Girls and Their Dads

24  What Happened to Kaycee?

25  Special Bonus Section: Where Do I Go from Here?

26  Notes

27  Contributors and Acknowledgements

28  Also by Steve Biddulph

29  About the Publisher

LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

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A Flight Manual for Your Girl
Will she fly or will she crash? It’s up to you!

What’s it like being a girl today? Well, as you must have noticed, it’s not like when we were kids. It’s different in good ways and bad. On the plus side, many girls are soaring. A huge battle has been won for the rights of girls; they can aim for a life which even their mothers couldn’t have, let alone their grandmothers or the women of centuries before. Today around three out of every five girls will turn out just fine.1 They will power along through their growing-up years, with just the odd minor challenge that we all need to help us grow, and head off into a happy adulthood. If you are reading this book, then you are the kind of parent who is motivated and open to ideas – and your daughter will likely have a great start.

But your daughter will have friends whose lives will not go at all well. One girl in five, during her teenage years, will encounter problems, usually with her mental health or – somewhat less often – with behavioural issues such as substance abuse, lawbreaking or risky sexual behaviour which will put her in jeopardy. And because the mid-teens are the peak time for hormonal activity and neurological meltdown, this age is when it will probably show up. If a girl is going to go off the rails, you will know it by fourteen.

Fortunately for this one-in-five girl, her family will mobilise. They will get help and make changes. Caring teachers, the family doctor or a counsellor might help. And that girl will ‘come good’. She will pull out of the dive she is in and become stronger and more secure. Kaycee, who features early in this book and is the heroine of my Raising Girls talks, is a real-life instance of this. Everyone in her family made changes and her life was turned around.

So that’s four out of five girls who are going to be okay. But if you’re keeping count, that leaves one more. One in five, still a huge number of girls, don’t do well. They have problems starting in their teens, and those problems don’t go away. They will have impaired lives right into their twenties and beyond. Mental health professionals have been on full alarm mode for several years now because this is an awful lot of girls having a really terrible time. This is new, and it’s a big problem. Something has gone wrong.

We’ve all seen this happen to girls we know. Once-rare conditions like eating disorders, or self-harm or out-of-control anxiety are now present in every classroom in the western world. Schools have teams of psychologists now. They build ‘wellbeing centres’ and have wellness programmes, but it’s a euphemism for ‘don’t commit suicide’. In some schools I have visited, if a girl disappears during the day a counsellor is sent, quickly, to the railway station to check she isn’t standing on the platform in a state of acute distress. These are precious kids and it’s terrible to see the pain and danger they are in.

But why is this? For years I struggled to try to get across to parents what the girls I was talking to were experiencing. But here’s my best attempt – it’s like being out in an open wasteland, alone and exposed. There’s a cold wind blowing. It’s getting dark, and predators are circling. Girlhood has never felt more lonely.

Even though they have loving and devoted families, many girls today feel emotionally abandoned because their parents and teachers simply no longer have enough time or peace to really connect with them. So they are left to the wolves of the peer group, the internet, and a corporate machine that wants them insecure so they will buy more stuff. We adults have not provided what they need – in fact home and school combined have often piled on pressures and expectations that makes things worse.

From 40 years of working with families I have become convinced that a big part of the problem is the way we live. We have, little by little, slipped into an overbusy, overloaded and overwhelmed life, with some crazy values and ways of spending our time. Our daughters need something more, which we are no longer providing – rich and varied adult connection, mentoring and chances to contribute. Instead, they have taken to the online world for affirmation and comfort, but it isn’t a good or caring place. Instead of finding encouragement that they belong, they are blitzed with media and have become much more pressured to achieve in every way, look good, be amazing and be perfect. The rushed way of life of today is not what humans were designed for. We feel it as adults, but our children – from the littlest toddler girl to the most sophisticated looking (but inside oh-so-fragile) teenager – are being hammered.

We have to change how we live in order to save our girls. We need more heart and time if we are to help our youngsters grow strong. It begins when they are little babies, and continues until when they are fully adult. It’s made up of small things you do every day, which this book will help you to put into action.

Once you put some fences around your life and embrace happier, slower rhythms, then girlhood will be much more natural, smooth and happy. She will love and laugh through her growing-up years, and even the teens will be more adventure than angst. We will teach you all about these stages and how to make them happy and rich in the pages that follow. But the real magic is built into your girl. You just have to release it.

As we free our girls from the monster machine that life has become, we set ourselves free too. Kids change us, and for the better. So your daughter – and her friends – can learn to fly.

Good wishes and my love goes with you,

Steve Biddulph

Meet Kaycee and Genevieve

There are two girls that I would like you to meet. Their names are Kaycee and Genevieve. Both are 17, and both are in Year 12 at school. They are great kids, friendly and bright, you would enjoy talking to them.

These two have known each other since nursery. They were best friends all through primary school and everyone thought they would be that way forever. But around the time Kaycee and Genevieve moved up to secondary school, something went wrong between them. The reason is hard to say, I am not sure they could even pin it down themselves, but today, if they pass in the school corridor, there is that awkward feeling that comes from having once been friends, but no longer being so.

Kaycee and Genevieve’s lives have taken very different paths. I’m going to tell you their stories, because they make really clear the dangers, and the hopes, of girlhood today.

Kaycee’s Story

Let’s meet Kaycee first. On first impression Kaycee seems a very grown-up 17-year-old. She wears carefully applied make-up and ultra-fashionable clothes, and she speaks fast and in a clear voice. This much confidence in a teenager may be quite genuine, but if you know young people well, you might wonder if Kaycee has possibly become ‘too old too soon’. And there is something else that you might notice. It’s in her manner. Her expression is world-weary. When she speaks she sounds rather cynical and hard. For a 17-year-old, she doesn’t seem to be having a lot of fun.

Back when Kaycee was 14, something big did happen. It wasn’t the stuff of newspaper headlines, but it was a significant experience that affected the direction of her life.

Halfway through Year 9, Kaycee was invited to a classmate’s birthday party. The parents hosting the party had implied a somewhat higher level of supervision than they actually provided on the night. So the party went pretty much as it would if 40 or 50 kids of varying ages were left in a house at night with lots of alcohol and no adults in sight: loud, chaotic and out of control. Kaycee found it very exciting; in particular because a boy whom she knew, Ciaran, aged 17 and two years above her in school, was there. Kaycee and her friends had often admired Ciaran at school, with his good looks and cool demeanour, but tonight there was something different – he was noticing her. Then, amazingly, it got better still. He sat with her, and they talked and had a few drinks. They talked and snuggled a little in the garden. She could hardly believe her luck (it was all she could manage not to take out her phone and text someone!). After a while, Ciaran stood up, took her by the hand and led her upstairs to one of the many bedrooms in this big, fancy house apparently devoid of adults. They had sex.

It all went faster than Kaycee had imagined her first sexual experience would, and it was less tender too. Blurred by the alcohol, Kaycee’s brain wasn’t really working very well; she was aware though of the shift from the excited feeling of being special and the centre of Ciaran’s attention, to physical discomfort and a sense of being pushed about, invaded, not really noticed as a person. When it was over, which was quite soon, Ciaran managed a kiss before straightening his clothes and leaving the room. When Kaycee got herself together and went out into the party, she felt unsure and shaky. Then she saw Ciaran, standing with a group of friends, who all looked at her and smirked. She realised in an instant that he had been telling them of his ‘conquest’. Tears burned her face, she fled from the house and ended up in the garden, sobbing. A friend tried to comfort her, but Kaycee wouldn’t say what had happened.

She went home that night in a kind of icy rage. She hated Ciaran now, and for a while boys in general. Kaycee was a spirited girl, she had been independent all her life, her busy parents valued self-sufficiency. She told no one what had happened. (When her parents finally learned about it three years later in a family counselling session, they were saddened and shocked.) But like millions of girls before her who had first sexual experiences they regretted or did not enjoy, Kaycee hid her wounds and got on with her life. But she was a changed girl.

Did the experience put her off boys? Not at all. What it put her off was vulnerability, being the one who was used. She began sleeping with boys on her own initiative, and on her own terms. She chose them, and she called the shots. By the age of 17, when she first spoke to a counsellor, Kaycee had had sex with seven different boys. Possibly eight, there was a night where some alcohol-affected confusion had occurred, and she wasn’t sure.

Now, in Year 12, Kaycee has stabilised somewhat, she has a steady boyfriend. But she doesn’t hold him in very high regard, and confides that she is ‘planning to ditch him sometime soon’.

We know from research, (and from most people’s recollections of their own teenage years), that Kaycee’s experience is not uncommon. Perhaps, one could argue, we just need to be less uptight about teen sex and let them make their own mistakes, and learn from them. (That is also a convenient argument for those parents who prefer not to get involved, or are too busy to keep a close eye on their kids.) But let’s stay with the story …

Kaycee’s life, at this point in time, isn’t going very well. Her parents sought help not because of her sex life, which they were only vaguely aware of, and in a sense didn’t want to know about. Their concern was that her drinking was getting out of control (she was not yet, of course, of drinking age) and she was failing at her expensive private school. She was halfway through Year 12 and the school was concerned about her poor marks and her many absences from class. The family had been advised to ‘see someone’ about her problems. When she arrived with her parents to meet with a counsellor, Kaycee looked angry to have been brought there. But within half an hour, and given a sympathetic listener, she was pouring out her feelings.

The family’s seeking help – not just for Kaycee, but for themselves – was a brave step, and in fact proved to be a turning point. We will return to Kaycee and her parents at the very end of the book, to let you know how it all worked out.

A Marked and Sudden Change

In the last ten years there has been a big change in the lives of girls. And it’s affecting them at every age, from babyhood to teens. While the same wishes and dreams are there for girls journeying towards womanhood that we had in our day, the world is forcing changes on them that are on a whole different scale. In particular, things are beginning to happen when they are younger.

This is a key point to keep in mind about girls’ situation today, and it was first made by Maggie Hamilton in her book What’s Happening to Our Girls? To understand our daughters, we have to realise that their childhood is not like ours. To put it bluntly, our 18 is their 14. Our 14 is their ten. That’s in terms of the pressures, the behaviours, and what they are supposed to be, and act like, according to the peer norms that exist today – and our failure to protect them, for we are partly responsible. We – and that’s all of us, parents, relatives, friends and society – are not supporting girlhood in the way we once did. We haven’t put enough adult time and care around our daughters, or taught them well enough.

In the last ten years a greedy corporate world has realised that girls, and especially pre-teen girls, are a soft target. Companies saw that there were enormous profits to be made in exploiting their anxieties (or in fact creating those anxieties) about everything from skin to weight to friendship to clothes to even making it into adulthood. In boardrooms and advertising agencies, magazines and media outlets, the war on girls began. And it succeeded. Everywhere she looks, today’s young girl sees messages that make her feel she is not good enough, that imprison her in cramped and narrow ideas of how she is supposed to look, think and act. Never before has girlhood been under such a sustained assault, ranging through everything from diet ads, alcohol marketing, fashion pressures, to the inroads of hard pornography into teenage bedrooms.

The result is that many girls have lost four years of childhood peace and development. They are being forced out of childhood when they have not yet completed it, or even fully enjoyed it. The result is girls in enormous pain and confusion. They try to act grown-up but they can’t. They are filling up the mental health clinics, the police stations and emergency rooms, the alcohol and drug treatment programmes in numbers never seen before.1

If we are awake to what is going on, we can prevent this. Partly it’s through the love we give, partly the environment we create for them with support and interests, and partly the protection from the stupid and exploitive media messages from the world around them. I have a favourite saying that has often helped me: ‘We can’t stop the birds of sorrow from flying through our lives, but we don’t have to let them make nests in our hair!’ We can live in this world, but we don’t have to swallow everything it offers us. We can choose for ourselves and for our daughters the experiences that make us strong, happy and alive. That’s what Genevieve and her parents did …

Genevieve’s Story

Genevieve, like Kaycee, is also 17, also in Year 12. On first meeting, Genevieve seems a little nervous and shy, but she soon relaxes when she gets to know you. Her conversation is full of ideas, concerns and funny stories and perspectives on things. She switches in a moment from excited child to thoughtful young adult, as is typical of someone just on the edge of womanhood. She doesn’t have the tough exterior of Kaycee, but then, perhaps she doesn’t need to. Her story is a very different one.

Genevieve does not have a boyfriend right now. She would love to, but is wary; she knows that young love is not always easy. Also, she finds the boys of her own age frustratingly hard to hold a conversation with, and longs to meet more mature, communicative boys when she goes to university.

Genevieve’s friends at school are a warm and friendly bunch, not the high flyers, but the quieter, more natural kids. They look out for each other and also, if there is a newcomer or someone left on the outer edges of the group, they are more likely to include them and make them welcome. As a result, they are a large, ramshackle group, slightly dorky and uncool but not too worried about it.

Genevieve did go out with a boy at 15, and this was an intense experience for her. Justin was her own age and they met early in the school year. They spent time together as often as they could, taking long walks, holding hands, having soulful conversations. He was more experienced sexually, though, and after a few months, began pressuring Genevieve to ‘go further’ when they were alone together. Other girls had had sex with him in the past and he really wanted this with Genevieve too.

Genevieve is close to her mother, and accustomed to talking over pretty much everything in her life with her. In fact, her mother joked that for every hour spent with Justin, Genevieve spent another hour discussing what had taken place, what he said, what it might mean, what she said back, and so on! While many girls do this detailed debriefing with their friends, Genevieve was used to discussing her innermost thoughts with her mum, and so this new problem naturally became part of their ongoing conversation. As a result, her mum was involved in dealing with this new sexual pressure on her daughter, and able to offer her help.

To her great credit, Genevieve’s mum did not panic, and did not try to take control of the situation by telling Genevieve what to do. She later told me that she would, if necessary, have brought in some limits on how and where the pair could meet, since they were below the legal age, as well as the wise age, to start having sex. In other words, she would not allow her daughter, at just 15, to be out of her depth in a situation where she might not be emotionally and physically safe. At the same time, Genevieve’s mum supported, cautiously, her wish to have a friendship with a boy. She would drive her daughter into town to meet Justin to go to a movie or meet up with friends, or bring him over to visit their house.

This remarkably sensible mother had a low-key but thoughtful response to her daughter’s questions. Instead of ‘laying down the law’ as a first strategy, she simply helped Genevieve to explore her own wants. What did she feel she wanted? What was her body telling her? What did she think was the course of action she would feel good about, long term?

She did this in a quiet, casual kind of way that gave Genevieve real space to reflect. Her mum had that knack of listening intently without pressure, so that Genevieve knew that she had her full attention, and so her thoughts and feelings tumbled out effortlessly.

Genevieve’s inner signals were quite clear. She really liked Justin, she liked being with him, but she felt uneasy and rather crowded when he was too physical with her. It was all a bit too intense. She hoped their relationship would strengthen and grow, but she wanted it to take its time. Her mother listened, and nodded, and reflected back to her daughter, ‘It sounds like you really aren’t ready to have sex with him, you don’t want it to go that way right away?’ Genevieve said no, but she was worried what would happen if she rejected Justin’s advances repeatedly. They talked over how she could let Justin know her feelings and wants.

Over the next few weeks, Genevieve and Justin did have a kind of debate about this. He basically gave his own ultimatum, in response to hers, and there was a real testing of wills. Justin knew plenty of girls who, though not quite as interesting or special as Genevieve, were willing to offer him sex, and in the end, he ‘walked’. Genevieve had known this was a real possibility, but that did not prevent her from feeling crushed. She was an open-hearted girl, almost totally without hardness or shell, and she took a long time to heal. But she did heal, and six months later, when Justin phoned to try to get back together, she was kind but clear in her refusal. She had moved on.

A Reality Check

When I was young I loved to travel and live in remote places. From tiny villages in Papua New Guinea to the slums of Calcutta in West Bengal. When I returned home, I was always struck by this remarkable thing: people living in tough places were happier. Life in these places was hard, but the locals still managed to laugh and be warm to each other. (When I came back to affluence, everyone seemed miserable.) The experience convinced me: we are supposed to be happy. We are not meant to be depressed. Especially not at 15 years of age.

Girlhood is supposed to be fun, with friends young and old, adventures in young love, mastery of new skills and abilities. Its dramas should be dramas of learning and growing, not being battered and damaged.

Compared to how girlhood should be, it’s clear something has gone badly wrong. Millions of parents are asking, why are our daughters so stressed? What should we do, so that their lives turn out well? As you will soon see, there is plenty that we can do.

Part One

Chapter 1
Creating a Total Girl

Two-year-old Mollie lifts a Tonka truck high in the air and is about to smack it down on her friend Jemima’s head. Even at two, she knows this is not really in the True Spirit of Playgroup, so she glances towards where her mother is watching to see how it might go down. Her mum has seen it all and is urgently flashing her a ‘don’t you dare’ frown. Ever … so … slowly, Mollie lowers the truck to the carpet and goes back to crayoning. Jemima remains blissfully unaware that anything has happened and goes on humming to herself while holding firmly onto the only yellow crayon.

Ten-year-old Elise looks at her computer screen, and sees the message bagging one of the girls in her class, a girl who is already shy and insecure. It’s mean and personal, and one of her own friends just posted it. Elise chews her top lip so hard it leaves a red mark. She hates bullying, but how can she intervene and not make enemies? She heads downstairs to talk to her mum.

Fifteen-year-old Samantha pauses during the maths exam, draws a deep breath and frowns. She has almost finished, with loads of time to spare. If she keeps going, she will probably top the class; she likes maths and always does well, but then she will be seen as a ‘brain’, which is highly uncool, especially with boys. She knows she can just stop now and leave out the last couple of questions. Nah! she exclaims to herself, then worries if she said that out loud? Nobody seems to have noticed. She gets on and finishes the exam.

Girlhood is a lot of fun, for parents and for girls themselves, but it also has its intense times. At each stage of their growing up girls have to deal with difficult decisions. They get confused and make mistakes, but eventually they learn and grow, and out of all this they become capable and strong adult women.

For you as their parent, it helps to have a map of the country of childhood, so that you know what to expect and what to do. The map in this book is drawn from the latest findings in child development and neuroscience, family therapy and parenting education, but it also comes from talking to mothers, fathers and teachers in many countries. I never quite trust experts, unless what they say matches my own heart and passes the test of common sense. That comes from talking to lots of people. Eventually, the map becomes clearer. You feel like you know where you are.

The Five Stages of Girlhood

While each girl is unique, there is still a journey that all girls have to make to grow up well. Girls seem to be different to boys in the stages they go through, and the ages at which they happen. In the chapters to come, you can look up the age of your daughter and dive into more detail about what is happening for her. But first it’s good to get the big picture and see where you are …

Stage 1: Security – Am I safe and loved? (birth–2 years)

Human babies are the most dependent babies on Earth. Born totally defenceless, babies instinctively know that the adults around them have to love them, or they may not give them proper care. It’s not enough just to be fed and clothed; machines could keep a baby alive, but she would not develop intelligence or kindness, she would be a very strange being indeed. It’s through her parents comforting her tenderly, singing and talking to her, jiggling and tickling and loving her, that a baby girl comes fully alive, and decides that life is good. In this situation her emotional as well as her physical needs are responded to. Out of all this, she makes a fundamental decision about life: I am loved and safe. And she carries that inside her, always.

Stage 2: Exploring – Is the world a fun and interesting place? (2–5 years)

This stage is when a girl learns to be confident and interested in the world around her, to be smart and creative. It builds on the secure feelings from Stage 1; if people are going to stay close and care for me, I can relax and check out the toys, play in the garden, toddle out across the grass, mess about with dirt and stones and leaves.

Babies who don’t feel securely attached to their mum do not explore very much, they are too afraid Mum or Dad will desert them.

This is the age when your daughter can be shown how to paint, poke, build, create and enjoy the world of things, animals and people. If the people who love her share some of these activities with her, she will pick up on their enthusiasm and pleasure in making and doing. Her brain becomes permanently switched on to learning. You will have taught her that life is an adventure. Strange, new and challenging things will be a joy for her for the rest of her life.

Stage 3: People skills – Can I get along with others? (5–10 years)

Other children, other adults, as well as Mum and Dad, brothers and sisters, can be difficult but are mostly fun. Your daughter finds that she can have better fun by sharing a little, giving way a little, co-operating and playing together, than if she is just on her own. This isn’t possible until about three or four years of age, and even then it’s hard. But by learning first from Mum or Dad, and then other people, she can work out that she is not the centre of the universe. Other people have feelings too.

Right through primary school, this most complex of skills – valuing yourself, but also valuing others and treating them with respect – is gradually being learned. Again, it builds on the earlier stages: being treated kindly, you grow kind; being treated sensitively, you grow empathy; being treated honestly, you grow honest.

She decides that mostly people are fine. I like them. Let’s play! Your daughter will be a ‘people person’. For the rest of her life she will know how to be with people in a happy and helpful way.

Stage 4: Finding her soul – Can I discover my deep-down self and what makes me truly happy? (10–14 years)

With the coming of puberty, a girl starts to experience a much stronger sense of being her own person, a separate and private self. She is far from being a woman, but she is no longer a child either. Like a tree in winter, she is building up reserves for when she is ready to blossom. These are the years in which she begins to strengthen the ‘inside’ of her deep self – who she really is. It’s a time when she needs help to think about what she stands for, and cares most deeply about, and also what her interests and passions are. Often at this age a girl finds her ‘spark’ – something that she loves to do and which gives her joy, purpose and a creative way to make a contribution. A reason to be alive.

By gaining an identity through doing and believing, and strengthening her inner world, a girl will be freer from the need for approval that haunts many teen girls and makes them conformist and dull.

A girl’s soul is like a wild animal, powerful and savvy, but wary too. It needs time and quiet to emerge. As a girl finds her soul, she will be equipped to face the big questions of life: choosing intimacy on her own terms, choosing her career path, knowing which peer group to hang around with. A girl who knows her own soul may be a gentle girl but also one who has steel in her, not easily manipulated by careless boys or false friends. She will be loyal, tough and protective of those around her. And of herself.

Stage 5: Stepping into adulthood – Can I take responsibility for my own life? (14–18 years)

At 18 your daughter begins to be a woman, and so at the age of 14 the preparation for that huge leap has to begin in earnest. It’s mostly practical – here’s how you manage money, driving a car, time, eating, clothes, health, safety – but it’s also a powerful shift in attitude. Sometime between 14 and adulthood a girl needs some kind of marker event, a growing-up rite, an experience or even misfortune which teaches her that she is now at the steering wheel of her own life. That she literally holds her life in her own hands. This is a frightening realisation, but frightening in a good way. By steadying herself, and by receiving the welcome and support of older women, she can leave behind childishness or harmful gullibility, and be accountable, connected to consequences and proactive in making her life worthwhile. While life itself can deliver this realisation to a girl, leaving it to chance is a hazardous and unreliable way for it to happen. She might come to serious harm. Also, some people never grow up and their lives are self-absorbed and wasted; they drift in misery, blame everyone else and never take responsibility.

Girls have to be deliberately and proactively launched into healthy womanhood. When this is done well, the results are impressive. A girl takes charge of her life and makes her unique way in the world.

Each Stage Asks a Question

I hope you’ll find the five stages clear and easy to understand. Remember that each girl is different, so the stages can vary quite a lot according to at what age they happen. Also, they overlap, because nature is efficient and starts one lesson while the other is still finishing. I hope you can live with that!

The key point is that as your daughter completes each stage, she comes to a decision about her life, which is going to either help or harm her. For example, imagine a girlhood where all five stages go badly. This girl would arrive at the following five decisions:

1 Life is uncertain, and nobody loves me.

2 New ideas and things are frightening.

3 People can’t be trusted, and they are impossible to get along with.

4 I have nothing of value inside me, I am a nobody.

5 Growing up is just too hard. I don’t want to be an adult. I don’t have any power or any choice in what happens to me. Stuff just happens.

Those are pretty bad outcomes, but they are familiar to anyone who works with girls. Every parent can look at their daughter, and her friends, and other girls in their town and city, and see the results of these stages being lived out. Some girls will make it, some will not. The decisions that girls make at each stage are profound and life-altering.

Fortunately (in case you are now paralysed with fear!), these decisions are made little by little, combining many experiences, so we shouldn’t panic about always getting things right. The stages last for years and we get lots of chances.

As a parent, what matters is that you don’t give up. Loving your daughter and keeping on trying are what will get you through. And if your daughter is already past some of the stages and you feel that she didn’t really get the message, don’t despair, those decisions can often be remade later.

Of course, if you have a new little baby daughter and she is the reason you are reading this book, then you are lucky indeed. But at any age, if you have enough caring and motivation, then you can still put things right.

GIRLS DO IT DIFFERENTLY – AND FASTER

Girls develop more quickly than boys, especially in brain abilities. The oestrogen their body creates while still in the womb actually increases the rate of brain growth, and at birth they are many weeks ahead of boys.1

The difference increases in the first five or six years. Girls learn to speak whole sentences and control their fingers, to do neat drawings or even writing, six to twelve months sooner than boys. Girls are ready to start school about a year earlier than boys. Girls do not suffer as much separation anxiety as boys if they have to go to childcare – although this varies a lot with the individual child.

Girls enter puberty about two years sooner than boys do, turning into young women overnight when the boys seem to be standing still. And finally, they become adult sooner – girls’ brain development finishes several years before boys finally get there in their early twenties! It’s as if Nature says to girls: you’d better grow up ahead of the game, you will need your wits about you!

THINK OF YOUR OWN LIFE

If you are a mother, you have a huge advantage in raising a daughter – you used to be one. If you are a dad, it’s different, but daughters don’t expect their dads to be their mums, usually, so it’s all right, you have a different part to play that is just as important.

If you’re a mum reading this, think back to your own childhood. (It’s still worth doing this if you’re a dad, though the stages would have been somewhat different …)

 Did you feel safe and secure when you were a baby? Were your parents in a good place in their lives and able to really love and enjoy you?

 Were you encouraged to play, enjoy and explore the world around you? Did your parents have the time and interest to excite you and show you how good life was as a toddler?

 When you went to school, did your parents help you and show you how to get along with others? Could they get along with others themselves? Could they look out for themselves but also respect the needs of others?

 Did you find in your early teens that your unique interests were supported, or were people too busy?

 Did you find in your mid-teens that you could get to know your own soul and connection to Nature and the universe, and be strengthened in this?

 And finally, in your late teens, did you have a clear transition to being adult, where you felt that you took control of your own life, faced the consequences of your actions, and had a sense of power as well as a purpose?

Lots of questions, but you will quickly work out where you did okay and where things fell down. Perhaps that will help you know how to get it right for your daughter, and how important that is.

Using the Stages

You use the stages by asking, what age is our girl? What is the most likely big question that her life is asking, according to the stages listed above? (Always check with your own experience, rather than letting books or theories dictate your actions.) If your gut feeling is that this IS the stage she is in, you can organise the experiences and inputs to help her along. We will teach you how in the chapters to come.

Another use of the stages is ‘remedial’; you can pinpoint the earlier stages that she might have missed out on, due to difficult circumstances. The nature of human beings is that we can often recover things that we missed out on, by getting them down the track. For example, adopted children from terrible backgrounds can gradually find security with their new parents. Overprotected girls who are fearful can be challenged and coaxed to show more courage. Girls with no people skills can learn to get along better, and so on. Be open to the possibility that your daughter may be a certain age in years, and a far younger age in development, if she missed out due to life circumstance during the earlier parts of her ‘quest’.

CLINGY FOR A REASON

Gemma, aged ten, is very clingy and always needs cuddles and closeness from her mum.

At first, her mum finds this annoying, but then she remembers something – that she was very stressed and suffered depression when Gemma was a baby. She realises that Gemma, though really in Stage 3, is going back to complete her Stage 1 ‘Am I loved and safe?’ She decides to really give Gemma all the hugs that she seems to need, and finds that it makes a huge difference. Her daughter relaxes more and becomes much more confident and independent within a couple of months.

UNDER STRESS, WE ALL REGRESS!

Here’s a handy tip. Sometimes when a family is under stress, kids will deal with this by dropping back a stage. A confident five-year-old will suddenly suck her thumb and want to wrap herself up in a blanket. A 14-year-old would rather hang out with you at a party or barbecue than mix with the other kids. Or a 21-year-old will refuse to make a decision for herself and want to be told what to do.

Under stress, we all drop back a stage or two – think of those times when you just don’t want to get out of bed, or just don’t want to deal with people. That’s quite normal from time to time. Generally, let your daughter regenerate and recuperate in this way – nobody can handle reality all of the time. You only need to worry if she doesn’t seem to ‘grow up’ after a few days. She might need nudging out of it, or some more help to find out what is wrong.

Be sure you find out the reason why she is stressed, if there is no obvious explanation. There may be something she needs to tell you that she is finding hard to talk about.

Be gentle on yourself, too, so she can see that everyone needs nurture and to slow down. Lowering your whole family’s stress levels with holidays, having one day of the week as a rest day, and less overscheduling generally, means that she won’t be as likely to go into overload. Often a stressed child is an indicator that the whole family needs to slow down.

In a Nutshell

 All girls go through five stages to become a woman.

 These stages teach her the five big lessons of growing up: being secure, learning to explore, relating to other people, finding your soul, and taking charge of your life. Adult help is needed for all of these, and the adults have to know what to do.

 Parents who know the map of girlhood can organise their lives to provide what is needed.

 It’s your daughter who makes the journey, but you are her coaches, caregivers and allies along the way. Taking on these roles is probably the best thing you will ever do.

© Barry Durdant-Hollamby

© Anastasiia Markus/Shutterstock

Chapter 2
Right from the Start
(Birth–2 years)

It’s early morning and little Lucy, just five weeks old, is lying wide awake in her cot beside her parents’ bed. Her mum and dad are both asleep, in fact her dad is lightly snoring. Lucy watches the dancing shadows made by the sunlight on the wall. From time to time, she waves her arms in sheer delight. She makes happy noises, and her head turns from side to side as she takes in the wonder of the world.

After a while, Lucy starts to feel hungry. She whimpers, and her mother, ears attuned for her baby’s sounds by a million years of mammalian history, wakes up, even though her husband’s snoring has not disturbed her all night. She reaches over and sleepily brings Lucy into the bed, then unbuttons a milk-swollen breast for her to suckle on. Lucy hasn’t needed to get upset, so she settles happily to feed, fully alert, looking into her mum’s eyes as she does so. At this age the focal length of her eyes is fixed at just the right distance to her mother’s face when feeding, about 30 centimetres, anything further away is still blurred. All she needs to see clearly is that her mum is happy and content. Then she can relax too.

Soon the day will begin. Lucy and her mum or dad will move through different activities, going down the street to the shops, perhaps meeting or dropping in on friends. There will be many changes of nappies, many feeds. But most of this time Lucy will be just lying about, or sleeping. Breastfeeding and sleeping, without any special effort, are the main events of early babyhood. And through all of this, Lucy’s brain will be growing; in just this first year of life, it will double or even treble in size. It will never grow so fast or so well as in these early months, though. It is the love, smiles, songs and playful interactions and all the other myriad natural things that parents do with babies, that help it to grow.

Learning to Connect

As her mum goes about her activities around the house, or at her computer, if Lucy gets lonely she will make sounds to attract her mum’s attention. And her mum will answer her. While Lucy will not have words for a year or so, she and her mother know exactly what the other is communicating. Roughly translated, the conversation goes like this …

Baby: ‘Are you there, beloved one?’

Mum: ‘Yes, I am!’

Baby: ‘Am I still the most important thing in your life?’

Mum: ‘Yes, you are.’

Baby: ‘Just checking!’

Mum: ‘That’s fine.’

Researchers have filmed these mother-baby exchanges using special high-speed cameras, and have given them a scientific name:1 ‘Joint attention sequences’ are the little rituals when mother and baby check in with each other, and they happen dozens of times a day. These mini ‘conversations’ help make this child not just secure in her mother’s love but, as she gets older, better able to relate empathically and sensitively to other people. The timing is incredibly sensitive, they seem to sway and move in total harmony. Researchers found that if the mum is on a video screen, it still works, but if they introduce a mere one-second delay, the baby completely panics. The rhythm of this baby and this mother are totally attuned. The delicate dance of interaction, with sounds and nods, smiles and bits of sing-song, shape this little girl’s abilities to relate well for life.

Often Lucy’s cries will be more intense, if something has scared her or she has a moment of painful hunger, or because something is not to her liking. Her mother will match this startle response with, ‘Oooh, what’s wrong?’ or, ‘Oh dear, what’s the matter?’ using the higher-pitched voice that adults tend to adopt around babies. This voice is more audible to a baby’s ears. (Though nobody knew that until recently audiologists learned how to measure it.) The mother will then shift her pitch and tone to a more soothing level. She will probably pick Lucy up and rock her gently to restore some rhythmic peace. From thousands of such soothings Lucy’s brain will learn the pathway from stress to relaxation, a pathway she can use for all her life to come.

Lucy and her parents’ time together will have a quality that is called ‘responsiveness’. Put simply, they will be tuned in to her and will get to know her ways. They will read her signals and respond, not in a panicky way, but smoothly and contentedly. Partly this is simply how love (and the hormone of love, known as oxytocin) works, but partly it’s because they have made it a priority to be not too busy or rushed in these early months. (They didn’t decide to renovate the bathroom or take a big promotion right now, knowing that babyhood was a pretty demanding event on its own.) Unless Lucy’s mum is numbed out by drug addiction, or is suffering from depression, she will most likely find Lucy delightful to be around, though certainly demanding. Parenthood may not come naturally, but it will grow and settle into a new and satisfying rhythm, if she gives it time and if she has support from those around her.

Support from grandmas, friends, aunties is very important. New mums or dads can’t easily do this stage on their own, they need a bit of mothering too. Love is like a river and it has to flow in and out of us. Being close to family and friends really helps when you have a little baby.

People Skills Start Very Young

As adults we know that people skills make a huge difference in life. We notice it most when they are not there – a hugely insensitive boss or colleague, a person in the street or a shop who is clueless and uncaring. Awareness of other people’s feelings, the timing of conversation, knowing when to listen and when to speak, are complex and advanced skills. Most of us have had moments with another person where we are awkward, where perhaps the timing gets jumbled up. Hopefully this is just momentary; often it’s when we are trying too hard, or wanting to impress. We lost our own ‘realness’. Some people we meet are extraordinarily engaged and sensitive and we feel great to be with them, noticed and valued. For a social animal like us, harmonious interaction is central to our happiness.

That’s why we start learning long before we can even speak. Interestingly, it’s the second six months of human life that seem to matter the most. This is the time when a baby gets much more fussy about who is around them. Mothers have known for thousands of years that a newborn can be shared around, but a six-month-old baby knows exactly who its mum and dad are, and often won’t trust anyone else.

Neuroscience bears this out. It’s in the second six months of life that the baby grows those areas of the brain that are specifically for people skills. Girl babies have more aptitude and awareness of social connection, which is a natural strength of girls, but this still must be nurtured and strengthened. It’s not a matter of being self-conscious or deliberate – that would actually get in the way – you just go with the flow. Your baby calls you, you respond. It’s casual, natural, and soothing for you both.

Growing the PFC

The first six months of little Lucy’s life are rather sleepy, as she just gets used to being out in the world. In the second six months things speed up. Just inside her little forehead is an area of the brain that, if you could see it, looks like a cauliflower, wrinkled and furrowed. This area, known as the prefrontal cortex, is now starting to grow. The PFC is the most complex part of the brain, and it governs some things that are very important for life. The prefrontal cortex is the seat of empathy, sociability and human contact. It’s what makes us human.

The prefrontal cortex couldn’t grow earlier, because it would have made Lucy’s head too big to be safely born. And what’s in there, the software, also needs to be programmed by Lucy’s parents or carers, because they are unique to her family and culture and will help her live with them for the many years it will take to raise her.

Along with its social functions, the prefrontal cortex also controls two important abilities:

1 The ability to focus, to pay attention.

2 The ability to calm yourself down.

Babies can’t calm themselves for one important reason: they are wired up for panic. In the wild (the way we used to live for a quarter of a million years) babies were carried about for most of the day, because that was the best way to keep them safe and give them good care. And often the adults were walking for much of the time, so it was just a practical necessity. (Even today, in the so-called undeveloped world, babies are rarely put down. They also rarely cry.) In our long pre-history there were plenty of predators about that would love to snatch a human baby for their dinner. So if a baby found herself alone or, worse still, a big hairy muzzle suddenly appeared in her face, dripping saliva – and it wasn’t dad – she was probably in trouble. Babies who cried loudly were more likely to be rescued fast. So fearfulness and noisy panic had a survival value that became part of our design.

This alarm system in babies left alone has a very important message for us as parents. For just as we are told right from birth to keep babies warm – since they can’t regulate their own temperature – we have to keep them calm because they can’t regulate their emotions. So dozens of times a day, a baby gets upset, whimpers or cries, and her mum, dad, grandparent or sibling picks her up, soothes her, and helps her relax. ‘It’s okay, everything’s fine, there, there.’ Gradually this soothing becomes part of her, she learns how to do it herself, but this takes several years of receiving the gift of calmness from others. It’s all gradually building into strong mental health for a lifetime.

The Gift of Calm

Your little girl learns calmness for life from the ease and comfort you bring to her early months and years. (Even in the womb, your adrenaline crosses over into her body, so a calm pregnancy can pay off in terms of giving you a more restful and happy baby.) This means planning as much as you possibly can to spend the time before and after your birth and right into the first year or two, with reduced pressure and the luxury of time with your little one.

This is so different to our idea of how to live: rush, hurry and busy-ness are the keystones of modern life. But our babies are Stone-Age babies, and modern madness does not serve them well. If you possibly can, make this time a break from the rush-about world you may have lived in all your life.

WHAT IS CALMNESS?

Calmness is not a character trait, it’s simply a skill. You have to decide that it matters, that the quality of your presence would be better if you slowed yourself down and were really connected to people and the moment you are living in. Then you practise until gradually it becomes part of you. It benefits everyone around you – they feel peaceful and happy in your presence. It’s exactly what children need in a parent. And it benefits you – with less stress hormones, you live longer and feel better. Calmness is well worth cultivating.

Calmness is made up of certain actions; breathing deeper, dropping your shoulders, settling your muscles, feeling your feet strongly planted on the ground, focusing your thoughts on the job in hand in a steady easy way, and not going off into panicked thoughts. Even just counting three or four breaths, in and out, will slow your heartbeat and calm your mind down. Calm people are actually doing these things automatically; when an emergency strikes they intentionally calm themselves more in order to counter the tendency to panic and do the wrong thing.

Self-regulating your level of emotional arousal is an incredibly valuable skill for life. All you have to do is notice, am I calm? If not, breathe a couple of times consciously, feel your feet on the ground, and notice how, as the last burst of adrenaline clears away, the calmness response starts to kick in. Practise this for a few days, and soon the natural appeal of calmness will pull you more and more to that peaceful and steady place. Everything is better – the taste of food, the scent of flowers, the feel of the water in your shower, warm on your skin. You will find that time slows down, and you can think more in the pause before you open your mouth. And that has real benefits!

Crying and Sleep

Feeling okay in the world is the first lesson you teach your baby girl. ‘You are loved and precious, I am here for you, and everything is okay’. A frightened or lonely baby won’t learn to calm herself if she is just left to cry – this is a common misunderstanding. She will go quiet eventually, but this is because of another survival pattern. ‘Nobody is going to come!’ A baby’s prolonged cries ‘in the wild’ might attract danger, so if her cries are not successful after a few minutes, the baby shuts down and becomes physiologically ‘depressed’. If parents are unresponsive – through suffering untreated postnatal depression, or being drunk or stoned, or just not caring – and if this happens often enough, the baby decides that ‘my efforts don’t have any effect on others’. This pattern will become part of how she responds to difficulty in life. It is called ‘learned helplessness’.2

It’s not a pattern you want your child to have, because she will lack a sense of mastery or hope in difficult situations. ‘Depression’ is often misunderstood – it is simply an ability of the human body to shut down, from ancient times when we had to sit out bad weather or endure long winters of cold and dark. At such times, with little food about and no energy to catch it, moving little, eating little and doing little was the best way to survive. But the depression response can easily become overdeveloped. Teaching depression to a child by ignoring her is not going to help her. She may lie still, but she is actually very unhappy.

© Pavels Rumme/Shutterstock

There is a middle road here; especially when getting babies to sleep, which can be an important part of parents’ survival. Sometimes a baby in her cot will make sounds, trying to bring the adults to play with her after she’s been put to bed. It’s fine to let her whinge and whine a little as part of her giving up on ‘game time’ and letting sleep take over (especially when mum or dad is totally knackered and just needs a rest), but if the whingeing turns into full-voiced distress, that’s not good. She needs calming and settling. The caring bond between you is endangered, and she needs to know you are there. (In the notes you will find some good reading suggestions on how to get more sleep for your baby, and for you, without using harsh methods to do so.)

You Also Have to Excite Your Baby!

After all this talk about calmness, it’s important to remember the opposite message too: we don’t always want our babies calm. Babies and toddlers also need to learn to go into higher states of excitement, to increase their emotional range and enjoyment. From time immemorial, parents and siblings will just naturally tickle, tease, excite and stimulate babies. Your little girl will giggle and ‘come alive’ when you energise her in whatever way works for you – singing to her, playing peek-a-boo by hiding your face behind your hand or a magazine and popping out again. Tickles, cuddles and dancing about with her in your arms will help her coordination and body sense, but don’t do it for that reason, do it for the fun of it. Put some music on, and let yourself go!

Even the rough and tumble play that dads do with small children helps this along. Dads are notoriously prone to exciting kids by tossing them about, chasing and wrestling and swinging them around. Your daughter may get a little stressed by this, but if it is done in the right way (which you can tell by watching her face for signs of real distress, and backing off a little) she will get over it and start to giggle. Research has found that little girls who play with their dads when they are toddlers are much more stress-proof than those who had it all too safe and gentle!3

(A cautionary note, especially for dads, when a baby is little, be careful with their necks – and their body generally. A baby cannot support the weight of their head with their little neck for many months and it may flex to the point of injury or sprain. Always support their head and neck firmly as you move them about.)

© Stocklite/Shutterstock

There is something else even more important: setting an example of fun. Your daughter learns most by watching you. If you are happy, exuberant, silly and fun with her at those times that it is appropriate (i.e. not when driving the car), then her capacity for being happy will grow. If you are friendly to people you meet, enjoy getting your clothes on, sing while you shower, are kind to people in shops or in the street, speak well of people, get cross when you see something unjust or wrong, then your daughter will be taking in and making these attitudes her own, from a surprisingly young age.

It’s worth checking up on this – especially for mums, who are the number one role model for their daughter’s whole approach to life. Spend a day having a close look at yourself; do you frown, stress, grump and hurry your way through life? If that is so, being the mother of a newborn little girl might make you want to change that.

THE HORMONES OF LOVE

Many of us today feel unprepared for parenthood. A hundred years ago, most families had seven or eight children and their homes were noisy and crowded places, but often very happy ones. Everyone grew up with babies and toddlers around them and knew how to handle them. Today it’s very different. One study found that one-third of new parents have never held a baby before they get their own!

Luckily our hormones help with this inexperience. New mothers’ bodies flood with a hormone called prolactin. If you are lucky and can breastfeed your baby, then prolactin goes much higher in your bloodstream and makes you feel dreamy and slowed down. It helps you to focus and be there for your child. Other hormones help too; when you hug your baby, or your partner or a friend hugs you, the hormone oxytocin (the love hormone) makes you feel contented and settled.

Oxytocin is a remarkable hormone; it is released when we have an orgasm, it is released when we greet a friend, and when we eat food with someone, sitting together at a table, it increases in our bloodstream. At birth, if it’s a relaxed environment and we feel safe, it floods into us. You need all the oxytocin you can get! When people talk about bonding, it’s oxytocin at work. People who did not get enough love, and therefore enough oxytocin, often can be found seeking that satisfaction in other ways – through fame, doing drugs, compulsive sex, shopping, stuffing our face with unhealthy food. Or writing books!

Gabor Mate, famous for his work with drug addicts on Vancouver’s East Side, says that heroin, and the rush of wellbeing as the injected drug surges into your bloodstream, is a substitute, a mimic, of being loved – but with a much different result.

It’s all an attempt to get that oxytocin we didn’t get in our mother’s arms. So giving your baby lots of affection is a great liberator. It makes her strong and independent, and a people person who will love and be loved for the whole of her life.

HOW TO PLAY WITH A BABY

With your baby daughter, even from the very first weeks, playfulness can be at the heart of everything you do. This playful mood delights her, but it also makes ordinary tasks so much easier if she sees them as fun.

For instance, babies have to be bathed. Some parents just hurry through this briskly, but most mums and dads can’t resist the urge to make it a pleasure for their baby and themselves. They make sure the room is warm; they aren’t fussed about a bit of splashing; they swish the water around their baby, singing or chatting and making noises and, most, pleasurable of all, lift scoopfuls of water and pour it down her back or front, which she just loves. Many of us can still remember this from our childhood, the delight of warm soapy water on our skin, and a kindly person patting us dry with a soft towel.

At six months of age, when she can sit up, your daughter will tip water herself, squeeze a trickle from the washer, and pop soap bubbles. Bathtime can be a wonderland for her senses.

Even getting dressed, or having a nappy changed, goes better if done in a playful mood. Your daughter will fuss less because she associates this as a happy time. She will take all her cues from you; if you are stressed, she will fuss, because she is worried about you. If you are happy, she will be too.

When you play with a child you are starting something big. Child-development experts are now convinced that playing is what brings out our brain’s full potential.4 Play unleashes lifelong creativity. The greatest discoveries have been made by playful minds being inventive and different.

© Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

A girl raised with a sense of fun will not be shy or dull, she will ‘think outside the box’ and bring this ability to whatever career she chooses. She will be able to get along with others in a happy way, because play is all about collaboration. Playfulness makes you confident and light-hearted, willing to try new things, it dispels stress and boosts your immune system. It makes you more active, which then promotes fitness and health.

If you aren’t a naturally playful person, just have a go! Play is as infectious as a baby’s laugh. You will soon find your daughter’s delight and natural capacity for fun captivates you and you both have a ball.

OUR BABY WILL FIT RIGHT IN (LOL!)

Have you ever talked with a young couple who don’t have kids, but plan to?

Often couples in that first flush of confident planning, especially those who are very success driven, will proceed into parenthood full of goals and high aspirations. ‘We will never …’, and ‘our child will …’. There’s a lot of ‘will’ and ‘won’t’ in their vocabulary, because before you have children, life actually sometimes responds to your intentions. You still have the illusion of control – something that real parents have long abandoned!

When talking to parents-to-be, it’s important never to disillusion them (you should never discourage the young!). A common claim of the not-yet-but-soon-to-be-childed is that ‘our baby will fit in with our lifestyle’. ‘If it learns to fit in right from the start, it will be that way all along.’ Experienced parents listen to these plans and do their best to contain their mirth.

I had some friends who were talking this way. They were both nurses and had put off starting a family, then when it came time to make babies, it took a while for it to happen. Finally they had their baby, and I didn’t hear from them for a while.

At the time I belonged to a trauma team, helping emergency service workers after especially stressful incidents. This work sometimes happened very late at night. One night driving home through Hobart at about 2 am, I saw a strange hunchbacked figure, shambling along the waterfront near Salamanca. There was a large lump on its shoulder, and it was clutching it and walking unevenly but resolutely along the deserted street. I have an active imagination, and I immediately thought – ‘It lives beneath the wharf! Creeping out at night to feast on pizza crusts, shunning the human gaze’. But as I drew closer, I recognised my friend! The hump on his shoulder was a baby. He was walking the streets with his baby at 2 am! He saw me and gave me two fingers and a grin – and I pulled over to see if he was okay. He just laughed as he read my thoughts: ‘This baby is fitting in with our lifestyle!’ He was walking the baby to get it to sleep, it was the only thing that worked.

Take it from me, babies do not fit in with your life. Babies take the Kleenex of your life and roll it into a snotty ball! If you do parenthood even half well, it will re-arrange your world. Babies do this in one especially important way (I’m not sure whether to whisper this or shout it, but here goes): You won’t come first in your own life for at least 20 years. If you’ve spent 20 or 30 years being a self-centred so-and-so, you will find parenthood extremely challenging. But it will be good for you. Hopefully parenthood, and your child, will reward you with enough love that you won’t mind this, but it’s important to know what you are in for.

(In our family this was definitely how it was. As mentioned earlier, we planned carefully for homebirths with great midwives and doctors on standby, and both times we had emergency caesareans. But you claw back what you can – I was there both times, trying not to faint, and I held our babies the second they emerged from behind the green sheets. A few hours after my son was born, I faced down a monster nurse who wanted to put a two-foot plastic tube into his stomach for a sample ‘just in case’. Our babies slept with me on the floor of the hospital room so that they were near their mum as she recovered from her operation. So I am not saying give up your ideals, but give up your well-planned perfect life, and learn to be flexible!)

Parenthood is so worth it, and so difficult, at the same time. Say goodbye to self-absorption. You never needed it anyway. It didn’t look good on you.

DON’T EDUCATE – JUST ENJOY

In recent years there has been an avalanche of products and programmes – DVDs, flashcards, books and expensive courses – to take advantage of parents’ anxiety to have a smarter child. Despite all this effort and expense, with babies being urged to read at two or play the cello at four, there is absolutely no evidence that these approaches have any benefit at all. In fact, such educative efforts may have real costs in making parents and child more anxious and their relationship more strained. It’s tempting to say that any product or place with the words ‘Early Learning’ in its title should be avoided at all costs. I’m not saying that, but it’s tempting!

Of course babies and toddlers love stimulation, but it’s how we go about it that matters. Studies of vocabulary acquisition (learning and using lots of words) have found something very interesting: kids do not get a larger vocabulary from being hammered with stimulating words and ideas. Researchers have found that the toddlers with the most words in their repertoire are the ones whose parents listen to them the most. It’s not hearing lots of words, but using and enjoying them that fixes them in your child’s memory. Children remember words when they experience the power of words to interest and engage others. ‘Give me the teddy, Daddy’ (Father uses the teddy to tickle his daughter, making her giggle). ‘No, Daddy, give me the teddy SLOWLY.’

So we have to take the pressure out of parent-child relating. The very best thing you can do with your little girl is enjoy her. Chatter mindlessly to her – this really does come naturally if you let it. Singing and gooing and being funny with a baby (which is exactly what makes them prick up their ears, smile or giggle) helps her attunement to language as an exciting tool that makes people do things. An uneducated rural mother in the third world, or a teenage mother with a good sense of fun often does a better job of this than someone with a degree in business administration – because they know how to relax and enjoy.

What if being around babies doesn’t come naturally to you? If you had a chilly or distant and uptight childhood with parents who had those attributes too? Playfulness may not come naturally at first but it will happen, if you don’t worry about looking or sounding silly (because that’s the point) and see what works to make your little daughter laugh and smile. She has a million years of mammalian history stored inside her, and like any kitten, puppy or wombat baby, she loves to do what develops her best – and that is play.

Not a second of babyhood is wasted. They are learning all the time and we are their teachers. These early months can feel dreamlike and unproductive to parents used to achieving all kinds of goals, but it’s actually the most productive time you will ever spend.

In a Nutshell

 Little Lucy discovers that the world is a good place because her parents can be trusted.

 Babies seek reassurance from us to manage their natural anxiety. We need to organise our lives so we can be calm and emotionally present, especially in those first six months.

 The second six months of life is when your daughter acquires the basis of all her people skills – the rhythm of interaction and how to be peaceful.

 Babies also need to be excited, played with and awakened to the fun of life. Luckily that’s not so hard.

 Baby-stimulation products and programmes are usually a waste of money and may even just add stress to your relationship. Don’t educate, just enjoy.

 Babies don’t fit into your lifestyle, you have to fit into theirs. Prepare to have your life turned on its head. Accept this and you will have a lot more fun and joy.

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