We all knew those girls in high school.
The ones who tormented other girls for sport. The ones who used friendship as a bargaining chip. The ones who always got their way. Today, society has dubbed them “mean girls” or “queen bees.” Their groupies flock around them, eager to please and happy to turn a blind eye to the mistreatment as long as they can be part of their entourage.
Yes, I knew those girls, and I vowed from the time my daughters were born that I would not raise one. I promised myself that when my children get to the teenage years, they will act kinder and better than these mean girls. I won’t let them become queen bees or wannabes, but the kind of girl who can just be herself.
But somehow in my mind, this was a battle 10 years down the road. This wasn’t something I should be dealing with in kindergarten. Right?
Well, I was wrong. The mean girl attitude started entering our lives as soon as my oldest daughter entered grade school. I recognized the signs when a girl on her soccer team brought in a medal one day and told the other girls that whoever pleased her the most during practice would earn the medal and the right to be her best friend all week.
I immediately pulled my daughter aside and told her that her job was to play soccer and not to please this girl. Be nice, I encouraged her, but don’t worry about that medal. She played soccer like normal, trying her best not to join in with the other girls who passed this girl the ball, brought her a flower from the field and generally showered her with attention.
In the end, my daughter “won” the medal. This girl instructed her to bring it back the next week and then she would get to choose the “best person” next week. That night we had a long talk with our daughter about why people act this way, and how it made her and the other girls feel. In the end, we told her she could do whatever she wanted with the medal. She conveniently lost it.
I also talked to my daughter’s teacher, who told me that what she calls “mean girl syndrome” appears as early as age 4. She said she can spot the girls with this tendency because they hold some sort of friendship competition daily, find ways to be exclusive with one best friend every day, and often bring a “reward” from home they can use to control the other girls.
Yikes. Those are some messed up playground antics for a preschooler.
So I watched my own children and had a mild freak-out moment when I noticed both of them trying out some of these mean-girl behaviors. They were little things that I used to chalk up to sibling rivalry, like trying to make each other jealous or gain control by flaunting possession of something desirable. But with my new insights, I realized that the tendency toward queen bee or wannabe starts way before the teenage years, and I am the first line of defense. I redoubled my efforts to nip this queen-bee nonsense in the bud.
First, I looked at my own behaviors. Daughters listen to their mothers and emulate them. So, I am watching my words more carefully. I don’t smile to someone’s face and then immediately turn to my husband and badmouth that same person. I treat the women in my life the way I hope my daughters will treat their friends and each other.
I also try to foster inclusion whenever I can. I used to shy away from having a playdate with three girls because one girl always ends up being left out. But now, I seek out such scenarios because it is a golden opportunity to teach my daughters how to include people and why exclusion hurts. We always talk before the playdates about how to include everyone, and then we recap after about how everyone might have felt and what we could do even better next time.
While I encourage my daughter to be kind to everyone, I seek out playdates with girls who are kind to my daughter and make her better. If she does want to play with a girl who I think may be a poor influence, I will invite her to our house so I can supervise and discuss any problems later with my daughter. I wish I could help reform every little mean girl out there, but that’s not my job. My job is to raise my daughter to be confident and kind.
And while I am working to avoid my daughters becoming mean girls, I also want my girls to know they don’t have to get sucked into the drama. They don’t have to compete for the almighty approval of the queen bee. That is a much harder task, in my opinion, and one that starts at birth with building a deep sense of confidence in my children so they don’t need to be a popular-girl groupie.
Again, they will look to mom for an example. Will they see someone who is running in circles to fit into some ideal set by other women? Or they will see a mother who does her best and loves herself no matter what anyone else thinks?
Raising girls is hard, and I know it’s just going to get harder. I’m sure I will long for the days where the biggest worry was the insecure girl with the soccer medal. My daughters will face mean girls in a world where texting and social media make social cliques that much more heinous. Perhaps they will even be the mean girl at some point.
Either way, I know that insecurity, fear and a desire for acceptance lie at the root of every bully and every victim. So I will be there, trying to be an example and to encourage my daughters to love themselves and to spread that love to their peers — queen bees, wannabes and all.
Erin Stewart is a regular blogger for Deseret News. From stretch marks to the latest news for moms, she discusses it all while her 8-year-old and 4-year-old daughters dive-bomb off the couch behind her.