Trustworthy Mentor Is Essential
“We can talk about anything.” When mothers talk about their daughters in this way, I start to worry for both mother and daughter.
As a mother myself, I know how close these women feel they are to their girls. But I also know there are some things an adolescent girl simply will not tell her mother.
An adolescent girl needs an older woman, a mentor, to share key choices and experiences with. All too often, she doesn’t get that mentor.
Too many mothers are convinced that, because they’re “close” to their daughters, serious problems will always be raised openly and no outside mentor relationship is needed.
These mothers are in for an unpleasant surprise. As a social worker and youth counselor, I know how desperately girls need women besides their mothers to talk to.
In many cases, girls between the ages of 9 and 18 find themselves facing important decisions that can have devastating consequences.
All too often, our daughters must fend for themselves in addressing crises that, despite their seriousness, will never come up in discussion with their mother until the key points of decision are long past.
As a mentor, I have discussed these crisis areas with hundreds of girls over the years, most of whom have enjoyed strong, healthy and seemingly “open” relationships with their mothers.
Yet because of the entirely natural process of distancing from parents that takes place in an adolescent girl’s life, these girls will choose not to tell mothers (or fathers, for that matter) about a host of issues:
Initial sexual activity.
High-risk sexual practices.
Experiments with drugs or alcohol.
Feelings of worthlessness or self-loathing (perhaps fueled by impossible media standards about what does and doesn’t constitute female beauty).
Thoughts of suicide.
Early signs of eating disorders.
Sexual overtures from significantly older males (including male relatives).
Long-term sexual involvement with a significantly older male.
Physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a current partner.
Even a daughter who “tells you everything” often will not share the details of such experiences with you or even raise them in the first place. Much as they might like to, mothers usually cannot help their daughters through these kinds of crises, at least not on their own.
The period when a girl responds primarily and predictably to direct parental influence has all but vanished by the age of 9. Those may be difficult words for you to read, but you may rest assured that they are just as hard for me, the mother of a 9-year-old girl, to write.
It takes another woman, a woman who has age, experience and wisdom and who is not the girl’s parent.
This woman should listen while the adolescent girl talks, then respond and provide tactful direction in five essential areas of growth: physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and fiscal.
On their own, girls and young women will seek out sources of emotional support, allies to help them make sense of the difficult choices they face. The question is, will the woman your daughter finds to talk to be thinking of your daughter’s longterm interests, or her own?
If you doubt the woman’s agenda could be dangerous for your daughter, consider the media firestorm that has descended on the once blissfully anonymous Lewinsky family, thanks to the actions of one Linda Tripp. A mentor figure, she decided to betray the confidences of the young woman who made the life-shattering mistake of trusting her.
Most mothers, whether or not they approve of Lewinsky’s reported decisions, can only recoil in horror at the prospect of a daughter’s “confidante” acting with such apparent disregard for the younger woman’s long-term welfare.
Such betrayals happen every day in America, and they happen to girls whose parents had always assumed would never be at risk for major life crises such as rape, drug abuse or long-term psychological problems.
These crises can be every bit as shattering as the nightmare of waking up as an instant media figure in a global sex scandal.
Girls and young women need to be able to share the details of their most challenging choices and experiences with trusted, valued, wise women who are not their parents.
If mothers take an active role in helping their daughters select the right role models, then there’s a significant chance that the choices our daughters make on their own will be ones that sustain and support them.
If mothers and fathers don’t point the way toward mentors who support positive values, there is a very real possibility the results will be poor choices, followed quickly by fear, jealousy, miscommunication and an array of agonizing experiences no daughter should have to endure.