Adolescent Girls in The Real World Relation or Separation?
For many adults reflecting upon adolescence is frightful; often it reveals surviving treachery. Its tightropes are woven with the finest of lace and go on forever. The word “adolescence” conjures up implications of volatility. It is a strangely ubiquitous time when constantly new and challenging life situations accompany unrecognizable emotions that bombard the fledgling adult. Faced with peer pressure, parental pressure, and academic pressure, the child automatically assumes a self-pressuring role, attempting to be everything to everyone. Most often the child, if only unconsciously realizing the impossibility of this feat, gives up in one or more areas. While some adolescents maintain high degrees of achievement, others are drawn to methods and means to release steam during these intense years. This is a period when rampant mood swings abound and when a child’s intellect is not yet developed enough to absorb and articulate such raw feelings. When the pressure from many stress areas becomes too great, eliminating the most difficult or least pleasant situation eases the load and is a natural solution. Then, the child just checks out or withdraws, builds stronger fortresses in the areas she finds tolerable or necessary, and goes about her business. The pressures on boys versus girls are much different. While a boy is often encouraged toward competition and self-mindedness, girls are subliminally taught to think of others and not be too smart, lest someone else get hurt. Intelligence in some cases is a hindrance to popularity. Girls begin hiding their true natures in order to acquiesce and comply to the perceived desires and standards of others. Carol Gilligan calls this process “going underground” (Apter 195). Part of the disruption in the adolescent’s life is the naturally occurring stage of separating from parents and finding self. Some psychologists are prone to think "that adolescence is an artificial phase, thrust upon us by an industrial society" (21). They consider this artificial phase more difficult since youths, today, are faced with decisions of career and defining who they will become upon entering the world. Faced with these early decisions, choices are much more vast than a hundred years ago, especially for young women. Most households require the support of both partners. Young women face choices about their own definitions in relationships and home life; they are no longer automatically expected to marry in late adolescence. They are also more able to move about freely in the work force, therefore, further education beyond high school is usually required and becomes yet another consideration requiring thought, planning, and decision. For a young woman, these points of concern, and more, are part of clearing the pathway to learning who she is to become. Her perception of herself in relation to these areas, and her views of herself fitting in or not fitting in to the norms as she interprets them, are very weighty findings. More than likely these embryonic discoveries are unclear and undefined in the thoughts of a young girl just starting the seventh grade. Of course, her view of normal is perceived through subjective eyes, and is usually closely connected to her parents’ moral and ethical beliefs, or rules. This may continue as she grows to maturity. Often, though, the child begins needing reasons why her beliefs should agree with those of her parents. She begins to question that which has been presented to her. Her own morality takes precedence as she develops opinions of her own. She develops friendships outside the home, which help to either confirm her parents’ beliefs or to support what she views as suspect. There are varying theories about the ways in which growth occurs in an adolescent girl. While some theorists state that individuation occurs by separating from the parents, others believe that growth only occurs through relationship with the parents, particularly the mother. Feminist theories claim that a young girl continues growth not by severing all ties with her mother, as do most boys, but by keeping these ties strong, and even building upon them. Janet Surrey defines “attachment” and “separation” thus:
This does not mean that the daughter wants to remain umbilicaly tied to her mother throughout her lifetime but, as a relational being, she unconsciously desires to learn through their imminent interactions. A daughter’s inclination to use her mother as an example for her own life is fundamental. Again, Surrey explains:
In Altered Loves, Terri Apter suggests that adolescence is viewed as a time of growth and a time of loss (53). Both boys and girls, instead of separating from their parents, continue "to develop through their parents" (2). She suggests that a boy is more inclined toward actual separation in that he "works to define self-boundaries, to mark a distinction between himself and others" (4). Whereas, a girl, "defines herself in terms of how she is with others, not in 'objective' or autonomous terms" (5). This is consistent with such early feminist Jungian theorists as M. Esther Harding and Irene Clairmont De Castillejo. Women--when they are young girls--are concerned with the relational world and often act as mediators, keeping the peace. This behavior is said to be part of the inherent nature of women. This mediation can sometimes be literal as in the case of a disagreement between two friends, but perhaps most mediation takes place within the context of self-editing. It is said that this peace-keeping instinct is inherent. Hence, their ability to be nurturing mothers and to provide a sense of security to a child. On the other hand, society often views a woman who speaks her mind and does what she pleases as irrational or bitchy. Young girls are expected to learn the mediating rules of nice and kind (Brown & Gilligan 60-62). Learning the protocol of pleasing others becomes mandatory for survival. “Don’t rock the boat” is a well learned maxim and is described in more detail within the pages that follow. A Harvard University study of young girls from the Laurel School in Cleveland, Ohio, conducted by Lyn Brown and Carol Gilligan, revealed that pre-adolescent girls, around the ages of eight and nine, were able to define and defend abuses in relationships. The girls were unafraid to speak out against things they observed as being unfair or unjust. As the study progressed and the girls grew slightly older, the researchers found them becoming more reserved, more reticent. Things they had known to be true in the past, suddenly seemed unknown to them. They lost the confidence of their earlier years and became awkward in their speech as they attempted to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. The main reason for this change was understood to be related to a fear of losing relationships. Making a girlfriend angry is tantamount to losing her friendship. The girls learned that niceness and polite conduct are the only behaviors rewarded with friendship (Brown & Gilligan 42-88). As girls approach adolescence they feel “pressure to become selfless or without a voice in relationships, and the experience of self in the sense of having a voice [becomes] central to girls’ experience of authentic relationship” (Brown & Gilligan 21). While experiencing an inner need for authentic relationships, outwardly they become adept at hiding themselves due to
To avoid conflict, it is common for girls to hold inner imaginary dialogues to anticipate the responses of others that they may encounter as a result of speaking up. When this imaginary dialogue happens, a girl often decides to keep things in her own head, and to work it out by herself as opposed to dragging someone else down. Since it is non-confrontational, this sort of behavior is applauded and rewarded at home and school. Selflessness is the cornerstone of maturity. Silencing the self is the backbone of good behavior. When deciding whether or not to be vocal, girls become concerned about being called irrational or out of control. Fear of abandonment and rejection from friends takes precedence over being true to self (98-99). As their fears of rejection play into their unconscious minds, girls secretly begin desiring friends they consider real with whom they can be natural. They wish to be understood, and to relay understanding to another. Janet Surrey defines authenticity in relationships as
As girls begin withdrawing from their true selves, they become discordant with their own sense of falseness. While often regarding certain others as phony or fake, they fail to see themselves as inauthentic. This dichotomy is brought on by confusing double standards they are assimilating. While they regard themselves as honest, or at least striving to be honest, they are caught in the trap of hiding their true feelings so as not to hurt anyone else’s feelings. White lies are acceptable when used for the purpose of being nice. Many girls in the Harvard study expressed concern about gossip starting if they are rude or mean to someone. This could tarnish their image, perhaps to the point of exclusion from a clique or group--a sort of banishment. Since the dominant charismatic girls within a clique take the lead, they set the pace for other girls to follow when rejecting a former friend. Exceptions include those girls who remain sensitive to injustice, e.g., those who have not lost connection to their true selves. These girls may follow the rejected girl out of the group. While gossip is a concern for girls, girls in more popular cliques are inclined to be friends with as many different girls as possible, even, and sometimes especially, with the ones who start the gossip. This is often the very reason they are popular. Their unnatural ability to be friends with everyone makes them popular. Extra measures of niceness and polite behavior are expressed while winning the friendship of a person who may not be liked, all for the sake of keeping up appearances. Cliques can be viewed as micro-cults that have in miniature, some aspects similar to larger, destructive cult formats: the charismatic leader who decides the rules, dress codes, behavioral dictums, and beliefs. Individual members may experience fears about leaving the group, e.g., losing popularity; and members often practice self-suppression to avoid rejection. Of course in adolescent girls these tenets, instead of rigid and total, often change daily or weekly. As children get rejected out of these groups for unacceptable activities, like talking to the wrong people, or wearing the wrong clothes, a form of shunning takes place which very much affects the psyche-spirit of the victim. Where she once had acceptance and friendship, she is now ignored by her peers as she walks down the hall to her next class or finds herself eating lunch alone. These things send a girl into a state of withdrawal, especially if she gave up friends from previous groups to go with girls in the group from which she is now shunned. If she was thoughtful or aware of the possible consequences, she will have the company of a new support group. This makes expulsion from the last group more tolerable since she is able to talk with her new friends about her experiences, and they can join her in chiding the former friends. A need for “involvement with others who ‘are real friends’ or with an adult who appears as ‘a person,’ is unusually intense among girls who come to be called delinquent” (Brown & Gilligan 236). While also true for the non-troubled girl, many times this yearning for a real friend is glossed over or ignored by the more popular girls since they are able to glide through sticky situations superficially unscathed. Brown and Gilligan suggest that as girls “respond to subtle and overt pressures to cover strong feelings with ‘calm’ and ‘quiet’ behavior, words like ‘friend’ and ‘love’ and ‘relationship’ become slippery and begin to lose their meaning” (91). These contradictory circumstances undoubtedly lead most girls into uncertainty about their own feelings, the world around them, and their culture. Often, this confusion is detectable in patterns of speech used by adolescent girls. Young girls commonly make a statement only to negate themselves within the next couple of statements. They also work their feelings out as they speak. Phrases such as “I don’t know” invade each sentence and original thought. They talk themselves out of their own opinions, sometimes for the benefit of the one with whom they are speaking. Speaking in circles, or indirectly, as they do, is a direct way of avoiding problems. By this inconsistency of expression, girls are able to deflect responsibility. By not accepting responsibility for their true feelings, they protect themselves from their own perceptions and ultimately betrayal, scorn, and lost friendships. They imaginally mark themselves in scarlet before the concept becomes reality. In doing so, they warn others of their bad thoughts and let them know they are in control of these thoughts. They feed into their false selves by honoring their imagined idea of what another may think and overriding what is true within. As Brown and Gilligan state, “Voice which has the capacity to reveal the inside world of thoughts and feelings seems increasingly untrustworthy to girls who no longer can imagine saying ‘go home’ when they mean go home” (173). Growing and gaining maturity is accompanied by a loss of spirit and unconscious freedom. It is a midway point between two worlds: the deep imaginative world of pre-pubescence when learning is experiential, and the literal and deeply complex world of adulthood when learning becomes submerged in rigid thinking and memorization. Psychologists and those creative writers who have indulged the human spirit, often see adolescent girls as withdrawing, becoming invisible, and losing the spark of their earlier years. The theories following from this perception are vast. Perhaps the most famous theory about this stage of development is the Oedipal phase. Freud, who studied boys in this stage, had a limited view of a girl’s Oedipal complex saying it acts “merely as a defective counterpart to male identity and conscience formation. He believed that girls, as they establish their gender identity, had to come to terms with a deep resentment of the mother” (Apter 52-53). The theory behind this female Oedipal stage is that a daughter falls in love with her father, and realizing his degree of unavailability, begins resenting her mother. Some up-to-date feminist theorists, adhering to the relational view, have challenged this by implying that instead of longing for father, the girl remains attached to mother. The girl draws from mother to formulate her own feminine definition. The girl’s primary example of womanhood is that set by her mother. If her mother falls short of her daughter’s ideal, it will lead to certain periods and methods of rebellion in the youth’s life. Mothers are role models of passivity or activity and strength or weakness for their daughters. They are role models of equality, dominance, or submission in their relationships with the man or men in their lives. They are perceived as rigid authority figures, or supportive, nurturing guides, or indifferent. How a daughter ultimately relates to figures of authority depends on the experiences she shares with her parents, and especially her mother. A girl will assimilate ways in which her mother reacts or responds to various situations with authority figures, e.g., how her mother speaks to a teacher or a police officer. A daughter will unconsciously learn to value herself as her mother values herself. A daughter follows her mother’s lead when defining ways in which she relates with peers. How a mother views her own body and her daughter’s body will partly determine her daughter’s own body-image. If a mother rejects herself, or the daughter, the daughter may grow up with a feeling that her body is repulsive to others; therefore, she is sadly repulsed by herself. Conversely, if a mother’s self-esteem is strong and she lovingly supports her daughter, her strength and love will likely be assimilated by her daughter. With the proper amount of encouragement, balanced by a freedom to make her own mistakes, a young woman can come out of the craziness of adolescence, strong and unscathed. Unfortunately, all good intentions aside, this is rare. That a daughter finds herself through her mother does not mean she will share the same personality type or respond to situations similarly as her mother. A daughter is very much her own person, but it is through her mother that she learns her own behaviors. Sometimes this only occurs through the process of elimination. If the mother is too submissive, the daughter may overcompensate by becoming excessively aggressive. If the mother is, in her daughter’s eyes, too wild, the daughter may limit herself by being ultra-conservative and self-restrictive. In this way of over-compensating, a daughter can live her life glued to her mother’s image by the constant attempt to be dramatically different or opposite. It is unfortunate that most studies supporting this relational view of development have highlighted adolescent girls from primarily middle and upper-middle-class segments of white society. Abuse is mentioned very little within these studies. There seems to be a lack of material comparing how girls from abusive families fit in with these relational theories. I must question if growth through relationship is possible if a child does not learn or experience, within her home life, healthy ways in which to relate. Perhaps it is possible within the context of learning what she does not want to become, what she does not want to project or disclose to society, peers, and colleagues, and what she does not want to pass on to her own children. But where does she go from there, and from whom does she learn? This involved process can certainly be a long, drawn out crap-shoot. It is considered normal for an adolescent girl to accept her parents perception of her, providing she has parental support. Apter states, "when an adolescent does not care [what her parents think of her] . . . it is because the parent has rejected or abandoned her" (51). This uncaring attitude is often brought about by the parents’ authoritarian dominance and refusal to allow the child personal freedoms that prompt self-fulfillment. In such abusive and controlling households where the child’s soul is squelched, the child, whether male or female, is forced into an autonomous separation from mother and father in preparation for leaving home. Such a separation prevents the child from developing a passive character. Separation is a mandatory step if the child wishes to break the patterns of suppression that have been sanctioned her. When the child remains attached to the abusive parent, she takes on the belief that if she tries harder (to be who she is not), she will be a better daughter. More compliance and passivity then feed into her suppression. Unfortunately, many times in drawing the lines between self and parents, the side-effects involve acting out in ways that are harmful to the child such as drug abuse, violence, running away from home, teenage pregnancy, or doing poorly in school. When no one recognizes, or cares, that the child is in soul-pain, the child is labeled “delinquent.” This is an unfortunate term that all too often overlooks the hope of rehabilitation. Once a child’s soul is murdered, the child usually makes up her mind that she is all alone or that the world is against her. Hopelessness then sets in. While relating with other people, or living in relation to others, is very much a part, if not the most important part, of human development and every day living, there are many cases of parental rejection that lead children to non-involved, non-relational, non-authentic adult lives. In these cases, for any hope of individuation and healing, children must come to realize their lack of involvement and, at some point in their lives, seek out means to break the cyclic nature of this self-suppression.
Leaving Home The consensus states that adolescence begins at approximately age eleven and ends at around age twenty-one or twenty-two. Due to financial advantages, more girls choose to stay at home longer than was typical ten or twenty years ago. Most still leave home between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. Usually by this time, girls have a keener awareness of their own emotions. The tidal waves of their earlier years usually subside and give way to a more stable and secure consciousness. When a girl begins trusting herself, it is considered healthy for her to begin pushing her parents away. She may keep pushing just to see how far she can go. The stronger the parents push back is the degree to which she will test them. If they encourage her to sail forward on her own course, they may find that a natural ebb and flow sets in, which will eventually lend itself to balancing the relationship. Finding this course is no easy task for a young woman moving out on her own. She may find herself reticent in life, or taking too many chances. She may become lonely due to separation from her family. This can create potentially new problems for her. Commonly, Apter states, a “side-effect of loneliness, of being apart from the mother and being anxious about that separation, is weight gain. Feeling that she has no available source of human comfort, she can turn to food as that primitive comfort source” (186). Gaining weight also stems from forming new eating habits and schedules. This can compound feelings of low self-esteem or depression. An adjustment period is necessary to accustom herself to a unique sense of balance in matters of routine in her new life away from home. If a young woman is aware of her own vulnerabilities and tendencies, she is better able to turn negative life situations into challenges instead of problems. Many crises and blunders are preventable if she has a sense of herself in relation to her parents and others close to her. She is then better able to assimilate positive outlooks and experiences, which in turn aid to boost her sense of confidence and ability to lead a rewarding and productive life. If given the chance at home to express a wide range of emotions, including love, anger, hate, boredom, frustration, joy, apathy, confusion, jealousy, bliss, and all feelings in between which are normal to human development, she will have had the chance to learn about who she is, who she is becoming, and what makes her tick. College life, finding gainful employment, and confronting relational issues on her own present a host of new challenges. The means by which she finds her own sense of equilibrium outside her parents’ home will become clearer to her over time. This will likely happen much faster if she has parental support. |