Rated by buyers 
-
I just finished reading a fabulous parenting book by Alfie Kohn ("Unconditional Parenting") and desired to explore more works from like-minded authors. On the back flap of Kohn's book jacket, I came across praise for the book written by Gurian. I mistakenly assumed Gurian was in the same enlightened parenting camp and decided to give this book ("The Wonder of Girls")a try. BIG MISTAKE.
As I read, I began to get an uneasy feeling. His suggestions about girls' nature (the role of hormones, blood flow in the brain, biological longings, etc.) seemed just a bit too pat for my liking. When I finally got to his chapter on being an "artful mother", I really began to get uncomfortable. He urges parents to begin taking charge of their toddlers lives by creating sleep schedules, referring us to Richard Ferber (of "cry it out" sleep method fame) for further advice. Regarding disciplining, he suggests we "show, rather than tell" when misbehavior occurs. For example, if your child continues to pull on a cat's tail, "...you can lightly pinch your daughter, showing her what it feels like to have a 'tail' pulled." He is quick to note "this cannot be a violent pinch, or it is abusive." Later on when discussing spankings (an action he ocassionally condones, he adds the suggestion, "...it is best to leave the child's pants of skirt on-- making your daughter strip naked... before being spanked is unneccessarily humiliating and thus can be emotionally damaging."
I contest that any act of violence on a child is emotionally damaging no matter how small or measured the action may be. To truly appreciate the wonder of our daughters, we can begin by treating their entire persons (physical, emotional, and mental)with respect and honor.
As a concerned parent and proud female, I found Gurian's insights to be more frustrating than helpful.
Rated by buyers 
-
I am so grateful for The Wonder of Girls and Michael Gurian's insightful perspective into the hearts and lives of girls. As a counselour for girls and their parents, this is a book I recommend wholeheartedly!
Raising Girls
Rated by buyers -
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 endeavor 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.
Rated by buyers -
We are thrilled to have this book! It was referred to us by our Dr. so as to help us understand the interworkings of our two little girls. I am sure that we will be reading and rereading this book for years to come!
Doug Vogel
Rated by buyers -
I was thinking this book was written from a Christian perspective. WOW, was I wrong. If your desire is to raise a WORLDLY, EGOTISTICAL, SELFISH and IMMORAL daughter then this is the book for you. I gave this book 1 star because zero and below was not an option.