Magic

Read Angie’s Review of Your Daughter: A guide to Bringing Up Girls

As a mum of two girls I thought this was an opportune time to review a book for my Book Club that really caught my eye.

Your Daughter

Jamie Oliver – being the father of 3 daughters – says “this is a brilliant book”.  Sarah Ebner from The Times says the book is “comprehensive but easy to read”.

Being the mother of 2 daughters, I would agree with both statements, however, as with all reference books I tend to take what I need for my own personal situation and leave the rest - which I may dip into as and when required.  

Your Daughter is divided into 3 parts:

Relationships

Relationships with mum and how they differ with dad!!  Differing relationships as your daughter changes school and gets older are also highlighted, as are emotional and sexual relationships and how we as parents need to “deal” with this issue.  I was really pleased to see a section on your daughter’s relationship with FOOD!!!

Growing Up

We never see our little girls grow, and there’s a great section on how as parents we need to “let go” and allow our girls to grow up.  Yes attitudes are completely different now to when we were younger; I can remember my mum being concerned that I wanted my ears pierced, my pre-teen is having conversations with me about having her belly button pierced.

Education

An extremely important factor in any child’s life, and Your Daughter will give you tips on choosing the right school from Reception upwards.

This is a very complex book and you could drive yourself crazy reading it wondering if you’ve made the right choices for your child.  Every living individual is different, and there were some issues which I’m not sure that my own personal culture would agree with, however, as a guide to giving your daughter some stability I can’t recommend it enough.  Relationships work both ways, they are give and take, and what I got from this book – especially in the Growing Up section – was that as a parent I need to listen to my daughters a little more, give them room to breathe and know when to let go ……….. BUT IT’S HARD!!!!

One area I would challenge in the Education section is single sex schools.  I really don’t believe that EVERY living girl is comfortable in that environment and I’m also not sure that school is the place where girls should learn about having a relationship with themselves before they go out into the wide world to have relationships with the others and the opposite sex.  There are some lessons, verbal and non-verbal, which are taught at home, and I think self-esteem amongst others is one of them, and  yes, there are lessons at school which compliment that, but Home Is The First Classroom of Life!!!

Tags: Your Daughter | A Guide to Bringing up Girls | Book Club |