Posts tagged ‘puberty’
Rites of Passage for our Daughters
No offense guys, but today’s blog is probably not your cup of tea, unless you are a single dad raising a daughter..or two. If so, continue readings and pay close attention.
Daughters: Have you had a ceremony to celebrate your passage from young girl to womanhood? That’s right I am talking about a rites of passage that celebrates the start of your menstrual cycle. You are probably wondering – “Who celebrates the start of the curse?”. It’s not a curse, it is a blessing. The beginning of your menstrual cycle is when you becomes fertile and are able to bear life, like Mother Earth. Maybe if we had ceremonial rituals for our girls entering womanhood, there might be more reverence for our bodies and more care put into having children and our roles as nurturers.
Historically, different Native tribes celebrate this time with symbolic ceremonies. The Apache tribe calls their rites of passage, “Sunrise Ceremony” and include many activities and rituals that signify a young girl becoming a woman. The Navajo tribe conducts an elaborate four-day celebration called the “Kinaalda“. The celebration includes dances, different rituals, and cake (I love any celebration that includes cake). Many other Native American tribes celebrate their girls crossing a bridge into womanhood. http://bit.ly/1p6SZt7 In many African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries, a female rite of passage called female circumcision or female genital mutilation is practiced. While a traditional custom, female circumcision is controversial because it poses a health risk and is carried out not only on pubescent girls, but right after birth. Tissue is excised from the vulva of the female. http://tiny.cc/5szxgx
In today’s American culture, this kind of positive association with womanhood is generally not considered with the possible exception of the bat mitzvah. However, I don’t believe the bat mitzvah celebrates a young girl’s first menstruation, (my Jewish readers – please let clarify for me), instead it holds a girl accountable for her actions as an adult.
When my daughter’s cycle began, I wanted to celebrate her ‘bridge‘ to womanhood and not have her consider it a curse. I bought a small, beautifully colored journal, and asked each of the significant women (aunts, grandmothers, godmother, close family friends) in her life to write their thought of her or something special that she would be able to read then and reflect on later. We had a special dinner and and she was given gifts and cards. Since no one else in our family or friends had done this before, there was no precedence and she was embarrassed “Mom how could you tell EVERYBODY!”. I just told her how special she was to me as my precious daughter. Feel free to read more about raising a daughter in my latest book: Raising Your Daughter Through the Joys, Tears & HORMONES! available at Amazon.com.
I would love to hear from you if you have conducted your own rite of passage with your daughter, niece or granddaughter. Email me at cgwwbooks@gmail.com.
Warm wishes,
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Author & Parent Coach
www.clynnwilliams.com
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
Raising Your Daughter Through the Joys, Tears & HORMONES! (220 Communications, 2013)
When Parents Make Mistakes
Parents are invincible…infallible…Human!
My husband and I saw Black Nativity last night and I am glad we did! Being a person of color, we usually support movies with African-American actors, directors, film writers during the first weekend the movie airs to support it financially. While I love, Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett, I’m not crazy about musicals, so I almost missed a golden opportunity. If Black Nativity is still playing in your area, go see it! Anyway I digress… There was a line in the movie that absolutely spoke to me about PARENTING! Rev. Cobbs (Forest Whitaker), the estranged father of Naima (Jennifer Hudson) said “Parents make mistakes…I am so sorry that I meddled in your life.”
Have you ever felt that way about something that occurred between you and your teen or adult child? Were you able to admit it and have an honest conversation with your son or daughter? Or did pride keep you from opening the doors of communication with that person that you love with all of your heart and soul? The movie had another theme that has been really messing up my parenting theory about our teen (or twenty-something) daughters getting pregnant and having children without being married. When my daughter was a teen, we had the ‘SEX’ talk a few times. I wanted to make sure that she understood the consequences to getting pregnant. I felt (and told her) that she would have to move out if she got pregnant before getting married. I felt that way because she, her dad and I talked candidly about waiting until marriage to have sex; if she couldn’t wait then use birth control. I know you’re thinking OMG – it’s okay for her to have sex??? She did not get pregnant, but what if she had? Would I have made her leave home for this mistake? Would we have been estranged? What about her future? Would she have gone to college, grad school, or become the professional woman she is today?
Well, no I didn’t want her to have sex, but let’s be honest here; part of the teen experience is that LOVELY puberty that starts to occur to our kids when they turn 12 or 13. The boys you couldn’t stand in fifth and sixth grade, now start to look a little less like wimps and more like hotties! A kiss on the lips, turns into raging hormones! Right?!? If your daughter loses control (and has sex) she’s screwed (no pun intended) unless she is taking birth control. Again I digress. So for mothers like me who take that hard line, what are our daughters supposed to do if they find themselves pregnant? That was the dilemma of Mary (Grace Gibson), the very pregnant and homeless teen in Black Nativity. She said, “I made a mistake and was kicked out. I have nowhere to go, so here I am pregnant and homeless.”
The other theme that caught my interest was the relationship between the mom (Naima) and her teenaged son (Langston). God, she really loved him (and he loved her too), but as a single mom trying to make a living for the two of them, she was unequipped to offer him the masculine discipline & love that he needed to grow into a man. Well I won’t tell the entire story, but I’d like to end with this: if you, and your son or daughter have not spoken to each other because of miscommunications or disappointments, reach out and call them and begin to mend the fences. There is nothing worse that not having an opportunity to say “I’m sorry” and having regrets for the rest of your life.
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Author & Parent Coach
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
Raising Your Daughter Through the Joys, Tears & HORMONES! (220 Communications, 2013)
Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens 
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