Raising a girl

Imagine this:

"The #1 wish for girls ages 11 to 17 is to be thinner.

"One study of Saturday morning toy commercials found that 50% of commercials aimed at girls spoke about physical attractiveness, while none of the commercials aimed at boys referred to appearance.

"25% of high school seniors reported using illicit drugs in the past 30 days.

"Nationwide (in the US) 46% of students in grades 9 to 12 have had sex.

"14% of all 13-year-olds have had sex.

"Nearly 35% of all young women in the US become pregnant at least once before reaching the age of 20 -- almost 850,000 each year."

Quoted from: Vicki Courtney, Your Girl: Raising a Godly Daughter in an Ungodly World (Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 7.

Isn't it worrying to be parents, especially of girls, at current times? While these statistics are for the US, I suspect that Japan isn't too far off. I picked up this book a few months back and finally got down to reading it. While it's targetted to parents, particularly mothers, of preteen, teenage and tween daughters, I just felt I had to read it now to help prepare myself for what I have to battle ahead. I'm still only in the midst of it but I'm already convinced of what I used to joke about all along... the world is out to get the girls.

And oooh.... the weight of parental responsibility! Chasing after a 2-year-old toddler even when pregnant doesn't even begin to describe it.