A friend recently linked to this article about mean girls and what we can do to protect our daughters from them.  Ugh.  It’s so scary.  Adeline is only nine months old and already I’m dreading her pre-teen and teenage years.  Why are girls so mean?  I was at the pool with Addie the other day and there were a few groups of teenage girls around.  We were next to one group and I overheard them talking shit on another group.  They looked like these sweet, innocent little girls, but they were being vicious and cruel.  It was so disheartening.  I’ll do my best to prepare Addie for this kind of thing, and to make sure she knows it will pass.  But that probably won’t make it much easier for her to go through.

As I re-read what I’ve written so far, I notice that I am, of course, assuming that little Adeline will be the victim and not one of the mean girls herself.  And upon further reflection I still think that.  For one thing, I’ll be sure to raise her to be kind and thoughtful.  And then there’s the fact that she’ll be smarter than just about all the other girls (I mean, that goes without saying, right?).  And mean girls don’t like smart girls.  I know this from personal experience.  So I think poor Addie is screwed.

But what about the raising her right point?  Maybe the most salient question isn’t why are girls mean, but who the hell is raising these mean girls, anyways??  What parents want their daughter to be a heinous bitch to other girls?  And can we do something about it?  I guess it’s probably last generation’s mean girls all grown up, passing along the tricks of the trade to their daughters.  And if we learned anything in high school it’s this: you just can’t win against the mean girls.  Yep, Addie is still screwed.