Customer Reviews

The Wonder of Girls : Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I wasn't exactly thrilled to be reading a book called the The Wonder of Girls - especially as it's written by a chap - novelist, poet, neurobiological researcher, psychologist, husband & father of two girls notwithstanding! I was dreading it would be either incomprehensibly technical or a sappy, feel-good read. I should have known better because I had already reviewed Michael Gurian's A Fine Young Man & had found this author to be personable, charmingly thoughtful & invaluably informative.

Through research, memories, poems, letters, family moments & professional cases Michael Gurian sets out to inform us Why Girls Are the Way They Are. In his simple, direct & pleasant way he starts at the beginning of the search for A New Logic of Girls' Lives. He presents precisely & calmly that it is time for Feminists to grow up & become Womanists.

As an erstwhile rabid Feminist, I have long since outgrown its angst. In Looking Beyond Feminism: Old Myths and New Theories, Michael Gurian catches up to me & explains how Feminism might now be what's keeping us back. Biology, Feminist ideals notwithstanding, still rules supreme & if we don't know how we work, then we don't know why we're doing what we're doing.

One vital passage: Girls' Stress Responses needs to be read by everyone: "When a child is under inordinate stress for a prolonged period...her brain development will definitely be affected. She will be "rewired" neurologically...The stress hormone, cortisol,(as well as adrenal and other "lower" brain functions) have dominated brain growth...and this affects normal brain growth patterns." Why then, are we surprised by the depression in all our early adolescent girls?

In Part II: What Girls Need, we explore The Artful Mother: What Girls Need from Mom. "There are natural stages to a woman's life, and every daughter wants to know what they are...The womanist philosophy, concerned heavily with the natural stages of a woman's life, is useful...because it is a path to freedom, not social constriction...It is a middle ground between the old view: a woman must stay home - and the feminist view: a woman must conquer the workplace." In this section we think about Providing Childcare; Discipline; Spanking; Teaching Manners; The Importance of Chores; The Beginnings of Spiritual Life; Media Use; Holding Clear Authority; Dealing With Whining; Teaching Your Girls to Enjoy Their Noble Failures; Handling An Angry Girl; Your Daughter's Sadness; Her Pulls to Autonomy; The Issue of Privacy; The Battle Over Clothing; Rites of Passage. There is even a section on How to be an Artful Stepmother!

On to The Gifts of The Father: What Girls Need from Dad. A Father's Love "can make or break a girl." Father-Attachment; Our Fatherless Daughters; The Gift of Presence; of Independence; of Adventure and Laughter; of Affection; of Discipline and Self-Restraint; Helping a Daughter Manage Peer Relationships. In Fathers, Daughters, and Divorce we think about the gifts separated fathers can give. Given how many marriages end up in divorce courts - this is a vital segment! In The Stages of "Dad" we watch a hero become a dolt become a mentor! Heady stuff!

While we all know of the hero's journey to Self, Michael Gurian explains The Goal of the Journey for girls. While boys are more interested in autonomy & morality, girls are more drawn to identity & intimacy. Ergo The Intimacy Imperative & The Future of Femininity.

Knowing how we're wired is half the battle; the other half is sifting through what people think we ought to be & do with our lives. Biology is older than Religion & Feminism by a few millions years & until we truly get that, then we're setting our girls up for a lifelong battle with their inner natural inclinations. Politically correct folks want girls to surmount biology, as if it's a recent discomfort imposed by thoughtless fools - it isn't - it's the biggest thing around!

There is so much to think about in The Wonder of Girls that I regret the limitations of a review. I've come away knowing more about why I am than ever before, a profound read indeed!

The Wonder of Girls is a book for a lifetime & I heartily recommend it.

Gurian has written am enlightening book on understanding and raising daughters. The book takes a look at both the biological differences and psychological apsects of raising daughters in this follow-up book to "The Wonder of Boys" (also, an excellent book for those parents rasing sons.)

The author addresses the emotional, social and physical needs of daughters and gives readers a better understanding of how to fulfill those needs. There are a few apsects of the book, however, not all parents may agree with, particularly when Guirian suggests parents should prepare their daughters for "the sacrifices of motherhood." While it is true that mothers often put their children's needs before there own, I am not sure they consider this role in terms of a "sacrifice". That statement conjures up visions of mother being martyrs, and few mothers actually think of themselves in that light. Most mature and responsible parents would consider the time, energy and financial resources it takes to raise a child, a small price to pay in return for the blessings and joy of having a child, regardless of the challenges that come with parenting.

The book does make some very valid points, and whether one agrees entirely with the author or not, the book is worth reading and, on the biological side at least, it is quite informative.

What is up with people? I am stay-home mother, a very independent soul, and have an education background in early and elementary education. i found this book to be wonderful. i have referred it to all of my friends. i learned not only so much about my daughter and our relationship but also about myself and my relationships growing up. It is a book written with great insight from a father with girls and an extensive research and education background and a wife with the same. It is also approached from a standpoint from mostly biological research and parallels in cross-cultures. A must read!

There is not a mysogynistic cell in my entire anatomy, and yet I've never quite been able to accept that 'feminist' dictum of Helen G. Brown and her crowd. Camile Paglia at least makes sense to me, though I really had no hard facts to back up my feelings. Well, Michael Gurian certainly does. This book isn't an attack on feminism in any form; it's a celebration of the the differences between girls and their other primate companions, referred to as boys, males, or sometimss men. We are not the same, and this book explains why without apology; it applauds the female person for her wonder, her specialness, and her many advantages in life, without diminishing her male counterparts in the process. I've watched women all my life, including three daughters who are now out and on their own. That development is a compendium of miracles and unfathomable mysteries to me. How I wish I'd had this book when they were a bit younger, back when they came to me hoping I might understand what I could not at that time. If you have a daughter, buy the book!

"The Wonder of Girls" is about listening - listening to the inherent nature of a girl and how that nature is informed by her biology, her family, her culture, and her own sense of self.
The author begins by giving us an intelligent discussion on the importance of feminism as it has attempted to make the lives of women safer and more fulfilling. Mr. Gurian then pulls us forward into a new form of feminism, "womanism", that balances the independence of feminism with the natural relational needs of females in a way that can be respectful to both men and women.
He makes several provocative statements throughout the book that will likely enrage many women, As an example, his statement about a female's "natural need for dependency on men," (p. 13) must be taken in the context of his surrounding words about establishing a vision of a life for girls that will provide them the equal status of men but won't rob them of the need to have a mate. Michael is saying that women deserve to be respected for wanting connection and strong families and for creating those relationships in a world that sometimes seems to esteem only "corporate thought and deed." On page 101, Michael discusses the support that he gave his own wife as she "assumed her right to become a mother of her own children... I, as a man, knew that her internal call-her 'biological clock'...was in fact a sacred thing, a voice of spiritual importance." Many women will not take this path in their lives, but for the women who do, what better mate can they have than the man who will honor and support their creativity in making this biological clock into a loving family?
Michael provides a good chapter on female biology and two chapters that can help guide mothers and fathers about using this information to be more conscious about the needs of their daughters. He offers concrete ways for parents as they help navigate their daughters' journey into womanhood.
Many people will not like this book. Many people will not be able to use the information in this book in a way that helps them raise their daughters. But many others will find inspiration and courage (and the ability to listen) in "The Wonder of Girls" as they tackle the tough challenges of raising their beloved daughters in a world that is oftentimes dangerous and unforgiving.

I am a working mother of three children - a son and two daughters. I bought The Good Son, Shaping the Moral Development of our Boys & Young Men by Michael Gurian, and picked up The Wonder of Girls, Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters, also written by Gurian, simply because if I'm going to buy a book about the boy, as an Equal Opportunity Parent, I feel compelled to buy a book about the girls, even though I generally feel much more confident in my ability to parent my girls than I do my son. After I bought these books, I checked some reviews and was a little put off by one review that classified The Wonder of Girls as an attempt of a man trying to tell women what their nature was when he, by nature, could never have a true understanding of women. I decided to start with The Wonder of Girls because, frankly... it's the shorter of the two. And I was a girl once upon a time, so I figure reading it will be like eating cotton candy... sweet but requiring little effort. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I find myself rereading passages many times. Gurian includes a great deal of scientific detail, neurological information about how male and female hormones shape our reactions and development, and debunks a great deal of the argument that boy and girl behavior is all due to socialization. Gurian doesn't dismiss it entirely, nor does he try to assert that generalizations about the biological nature of women are absolute for every woman, but makes a very strong case that while socialization plays a role in behavior, socialization has been overemphasized and biology has been grossly underemphasized. I don't know a mother who hasn't lamented on the difference between her boys and girls... even mothers who, like me, have been committed to raising sensitive young men who are not afraid of their emotions and who, like me, are committed to non-violence... mothers who have banned toy weapons and violent media, only to find her preschooler happily shooting her with the pistol he made from Lego's or Connex (you know, those toys we buy in part because they are CONSTRUCT-ive rather than DESTRUCT-ive) in a gleeful game of cops and robbers that he is happy to play all by himself. If these mothers are also blessed with girls, they've often compared and contrasted stories of their girls turning their brothers' toys into babies, and sticking baby dolls under their shirts to nurse them.

Sometimes I reread a passage several times to fully let the meaning sink in, or to examine some of the knee jerk reactions I feel and separate what I have been taught from the truth that I have always felt to be true. There is a very strong emphasis on mothering in this book (and for the record, there is also a section in the same chapter about fathering), and also an emphasis on the fact that was we mother our daughters, we are shaping future mothers. I'm not so young that I don't remember being told, perhaps not in such blunt terms, what and where "my place" is. At the tender age of five or six years old, I asked my mother what college was. She told me it was where girls go to meet their husbands. So there are certainly times when the Femi Nazi in me rises up at any hint, no matter how remote, of what my role or "duties" are as a woman or mother.

But even in the midst of those knee-jerk reactions, I sense truth in this writing, and also realized that this is a book written BY a parent, FOR other parents... would it be complete if there wasn't an emphasis on the importance of mothering? A comment someone made to me keeps coming to my mind. A good friend of mine, who is not a biological mother, asked my then 6yo daughter what she wanted to be when she grew up. My daughter responded, probably with little hesitation, that she wanted to be... a mother. This child has been telling me, since the tender age of three, that she wants to be a mom... and not just a mom, but a mom who cooks. Imagine that... thirty years of fighting for women's rights, and my daughter wants... no, she yearns... to be barefoot, pregnant, and standing over a hot stove.

My friend relayed this story to me, with the lament that "they" sure start conditioning girls at a young age. I was not offended, but I was definitely at a loss. I had no idea how to explain to my friend how incredibly proud I was that my daughter thinks the highest aspiration... above being a dancer or cowgirl... is to be a mother, or why I think that's such a GOOD thing. I almost felt like it was time to surrender my feminist card and oust myself.

I was raised in a very dysfunctional family by a woman who very clearly had grown to resent the imposition of responsibilities that she had chosen for herself. Watching her anger and bitterness as she pushed more and more of the responsibility for mothering my siblings onto me, I vowed time and again that I would NOT be having children. I remember overhearing my grandmother lament sorrowfully that she was sure I would never have children of my own because my mother had robbed me of my childhood and forced me to become a parent far too soon. That I have become a mother, and done it with such grace that my daughters, as well as my son, want to have children of their own is a source of pride, the depth of which I cannot even begin to explain. They can see the pleasure it brings me to nourish not just my children's minds and hearts, but their bodies. My daughter's desire to become a mother is not a result of social conditioning... she, like my son, sees the joy that mothering has brought to me, to my life... and despite how hard the job is, they both see, through my living example, a sacred purpose in it.

So back to this book... there were many times where, while reading this book, my eyes stung with tears. When terms like "womanism" are defined and expanded upon, when the concept of the intimacy imperative and the three family system are offered as vitally important to women and girls... concepts that fellow mothers and I have discussed in different terms, but at length. There were times where I felt a sweet ache in my throat as well as I read something that filled me with a sense of pride in the job I am doing and complete awe in the sheer sacredness of the task I have undertaken. I'd like to share one such passage.

"...even as I study world cultures, it strikes me powerfully that we are, should we choose to assert our ability, capable of helping to innovate a sacred role for girls and women that is among the most unlimited, and also among the most well ordered, in the world.

...In all languages, whether moder, mater, meter, maternus, or matr - mothering is the highest ideal in female life, the most universally respected. And one etymological fact that is perhaps of greatest interest to us in the wake of thirty years of experimenting with the possibility that women didn't need to define a sacred role for themselves is this: In its linguistic roots, mothering is associated with being a woman of authority as well as being a female parent of children. For our age, this expansive definition of mother seems most fitting."

Needless to say, if you have daughters, I highly suggest reading this book. Even if you are not a parent, I think you'd find this book informative and enlightening.

Wow, there sure are a lot of angry feminists out there. They obviously need to get a "3 Family system" going in their lives! But enough, here is the book review.

I felt that this book lent many insights into the makeup (emotional and physical) of girls in a very positive light. Being the Dad to a 7 yr old girl, I have noticed sooooo many differences between her and her twin brother. Why does He like sports, she likes dolls? It has been this way her entire life and now it makes sense. It is very biologically based with hormones leading the way.

This book will help you prepare for the future; for me, the adolescent girl. It will help you understand what to expect, prepare for, and handle as your girl gets older.

My only critique is that the book has little in the way or charts, pics or tables. It would help those of us who are time pressed, like we full-time Dads!!!

Enjoy this read...........I am going to get his book on "Wonder of Boys" next......

A father of two daughters recomended this book to me. I really like its take on gender and raising my own daughter in this day and age. The Gurian book about boys was really great for insight into my son and men in general. I like Christianne Northrop's Mother-Daughter Wisdom for the mother/daughter relationship.

Did you really think that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice? Well guess again. There is much that makes girls the way they are, and another factor that we need to pay attention to in order to help our daughters be the best they can be.

The book, "The Wonder of Girls," by Michael Gurian, describes many things about girls that would help us to understand why we act the way we do. There were many ideas in the book that were of no surprise to me -- being a girl I had some "insider" information :). But readers who really want to get an insight into the "nature" of girls, will find this book interesting. The author explains that there is another element we need to pay attention to in order to help our daughters exceed in life. Not just exceed in the business world, but exceed in their personal lives as well. The book goes on to explain female biology; how we attach emotionally; our approach to intimacy; stereotypes; and gives a lot of advice on how parents can learn the "nature" of their own daughters.

MyParenTime.com recommends "The Wonder of Girls," -- for one reason, the topic is interesting enough :). It also helps parents learn the best way to respond to their daughter's behaviors, and how to deal with the challenges that come along with each stage of their daughter's life. What parent wouldn't want help in this area? I'm certainly looking forward to using some of the information with my daughter as she grows :).

Wow, this must be a love or hate tome. I really enjoyed it and found it refereshing that the author so often cites the hard sciences instead of reverting to mush-brained New Age feel-good philosophies that so many psychologists refer to.

Positives: Dispels some of the misguided feminist ideas that have been harmful to girls/women over the years. He treads carefully in this area, tipping his hat at times to the aspects of feminist theory that have validity (i.e. have some basis in reality and the physiological realm). Also, I think the fact that a male spoke out on the topic was very pleasant, because I never got the feeling that he had a particular agenda to push or had some stake in trying to push equality while turning a blind eye to the facts.

Negatives: I agree with another reviewer that the reader gets beat over the head with praise for the Gurian Institute. Sorry, never heard of it until now and didn't need to hear that much about it. If anything, I think he was too gentle in dismissing some of the feminist ideas. On one hand, he would dismantle certain feminist ideas with his physiological evidences, but then he would qualify his remarks by saying the feminist theories had still fulfilled an important role. Huh? That link was never very clear to me. Theory A has taught many women to believe erroneous things about their nature; however, being blinded by these falsehoods has been good for some, so that makes
it okay in the long run.

In summary, I think most readers will appreciate the intellectual honesty that went into it. If, however, you're hung up on the idea that "equality" means that we need to disregard the physical evidences for performance differences that exist in many areas between the genders, then you'll no doubt resent Gurian's findings. Gurian cites plenty of feminist authors that you can retreat to if you want to delude yourself with those notions.