The girls are all right

A new book says that teen girls aren't the drug-addicted, eating-disordered monsters that the media makes them out to be.

By Corrie Pikul

Apr 20, 2005 | When her daughter was on the verge of adolescence, journalist Karen Stabiner was warned by an acquaintance that "life between a mother and a teenage girl gets as bad as it once was good." At the time, Stabiner's daughter, Sarah, was an affectionate 10-year-old who made daily declarations of love for her mom and wrapped herself around her mother's shoulders "like a vine." Could it be true that soon she would suddenly turn into an insecure, angry parent hater? The kind of disaffected girl whom Stabiner read so much about in the newspaper and saw portrayed on TV and in the movies?

Stabiner was suspicious -- but frightened nonetheless. So she decided to turn her reporter's eye on her daughter and document her entry into adolescence. Stabiner, the author of four nonfiction books, spent three years observing Sarah and her friends, taking daily notes on everything from the tone of voice they used with their parents to the way the girls interacted at birthday parties. She interviewed other mothers (most of whom she knew personally), delved into research on adolescent girls and spoke with experts in adolescent psychology, all in an effort to uncover what really happens to girls when they hit their teens.

The resulting book, "My Girl: Adventures With a Teen in Training," is a touching exploration of what it's like to be the mother of a preteen girl. Nervous parents who had nightmares after watching "Thirteen" will be relieved to learn that Sarah made it through her early teen years without acquiring a wicked best friend, an eating disorder, a drug addiction, a baby or a pierced tongue. Stabiner asserts that her experience with her daughter -- mostly smooth, though punctuated by small triumphs and disappointments -- is the norm. Sure, Sarah experienced some difficulties with navigating the coolness hierarchy at her middle school, and she occasionally snapped when she felt like her mom was being overbearing or clingy, but overall, she was just fine. In fact, many times in this journal-like book, the anxious mother is the one who seems to need the self-esteem boosting, the reassurance and the encouragement.

Stabiner spoke with Salon by phone from her Santa Monica, Calif., home about how stereotypes can obscure the joys of raising a daughter, why girls are fed up with how they're portrayed in the media -- and why moms should be, too.

Around the time Sarah turned 10, you started to worry that life would change for the worse once she hit her teens. What did you fear might happen?

I thought to myself, if I'm to believe what I see in our culture, then she's going to turn into Linda Blair from "The Exorcist" overnight. She'll be mean to her peers, she'll develop every diagnosable disorder, she'll want to dress like a slut. She's going to stop talking to [me] -- and even if she does talk to [me], it's only going to [be to] say something nasty. She's going to be involved in sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. I mean, rock 'n' roll's fine, but the other two aren't.

And you think the culture spurred your feelings of dread?

All you have to do is look at titles of books and magazine articles. There was this rash of books that came out in the spring and summer of 2002 with incendiary titles such as "Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut." The movie "Thirteen" is another good example. If you believe the headlines, you should be worried. But I also got a lot of it from other mothers of older girls. There was this horrific Greek chorus of doomsayers. The happier we seemed, the more they wanted it to end.

Why do you think these moms said these things?

I think there are three groups of women who believe the hype about "bad girls": women who did have bad experiences themselves, women who have sons -- "Oh, you poor thing. Little Freddy/Joe/Bob is so much easier than I imagine a girl would be" -- and women who don't even have children. They'd heard all this stuff and couldn't figure out why I was being so blind to it.

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