Forming Our Daughters to Be Women of God

It would seem that the days of my daughter’s unicorn comforter are numbered. 

My only girl is approaching double digits, and so we are edging into a new season of both her life and mine. For years now, well-meaning people in grocery stores have seen me with my young children and told me to enjoy this stage of life, because it’s only going to get harder. I’m sure they intend to help me appreciate the joys of the present, but the way the warning is typically delivered—that is, with a sense of impending doom—suggests otherwise. 

I can only speak for myself and not for parents in general, but I love my kids not only because they are mine, but because of the people they are. The front-row seat to their growing up is an irreplaceable gift, just as each of them is. It is to be expected that some stages are going to be harder to navigate than others. 

Yes, adolescence is a monumental shift in a child’s life and in the life of his or her family. And yes, change is usually challenging, messy, and painful. But if parents and children are both cognizant of where that change is headed, of what the goal is on the other side, those struggles are crosses we can not only bear but carry with purpose and grace. That’s the lesson I found at the heart of Beautiful Girlhood. 

Century-Old Wisdom

Beautiful Girlhood was published in 1922 out of “a desire to help and encourage our girls who are struggling with the problems that come up in teens,” per the author, Mabel Hale. A friend shared this title with me in a discussion about resources to help us form our daughters who are in this age bracket. I bought a copy right away. Unbeknownst to me, the book is a bestseller among homeschooling families. 

The book’s thirty-three chapters offer girls in what today we’d call the “tween” years advice on building character, developing friendships, following their dreams, prioritizing reading, and learning basic household duties. It teaches readers to “seek goodness and purity first, then strive to keep the body in harmony with the beauty of the heart.” The book could be taken as a kind of retreat for mothers and daughters to work through together. Each chapter is aimed at guiding the child reader to become a 

grown woman who stands at the door of life’s responsibilities, ready to enter in upon her life-work, [who] represents powers and possibilities set free. Her influence in the world is certain to continue to the end of time. It is impossible for a godly woman of influence to live entirely for herself.

The key is in that first line: The woman this book looks to form is aware of the responsibilities of life and ready to take them on. She seeks neither the easy way out nor the prestige without the effort. She is grounded and whole; she is confident in who she is and appreciative of what it took to get that way. You won’t find her scrolling #selfcare or #livingmybestlife on social media. The values that inform her decisions and way of life are based in timeless, rather than timely, values. 

I appreciate that the author’s voice is pitched to the girl, rather than to the mother. The tone is direct, but gentle, interwoven with stories of girls the author has known. This stage of life is one in which children must take on more responsibility for themselves—but in the right way. Much of the rhetoric around educating our young people today involves their experiences and desires and looks to let them make many of the decisions that used to be in the domain of the parent. 

Beautiful Girlhood recognizes the agency of the girl, while making it clear that her choices will have consequences. It is imperative that she makes decisions today based on who she wants to be tomorrow. 

Colliding with the Present

To read the one-star reviews on Goodreads, you’d get a very different impression. There, readers find the book’s advice to be the ticket to controlling and abusive relationships down the line. The role of the parent is taken to be unreasonably harsh and the demands placed on the daughter to be stifling. 

I can understand this perspective to a degree. The book was written a hundred years ago. The 1993 edition I read was revised and expanded by Karen Andreola, who meant “to replace tactless phrases, to make the meaning more clear, the reading more smooth. Even though improvements were necessary, the old flavor and intent of the writing remains.” There are some examples that don’t translate perfectly in the twenty-first century. Still, I think they have merit. Just as we have to learn about the culture surrounding shepherds in Jesus’ time to really appreciate some of his parables, we need to remember that this text was created in a different age. Rather than rejecting the advice wholesale, we would do better to consider how the spirit of such advice could be relevant today. 

In my reading, this book appreciates what it is to be young, promotes how important it is to look ahead, and graciously offers the wisdom of someone who’s been there, both as a girl and as an adult. There’s a lot of talk about being married, running a household, and raising children, but to my eye this was balanced with advice on working toward a career as well.

The only real misstep I found, as a Catholic reader, is the omission of religious life as a vocation, though there is talk about being a missionary in the chapter on dreams. If it had been me writing this book, I also would have included more wisdom from the saints. The one quote from St. Augustine is a good start. 

The Glory of God is the Living [Wo]man

Church Father St. Irenaeus wrote, “For the glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.” It is this kind of human being that Beautiful Girlhood aims to inspire. Some chapters are more explicitly Christian than others, but they all stem from a sense of traditional Christian values. A chapter on coming to own one’s faith—described here as being “born again”—ends this way: 

The Christian life is the only worthwhile life, and that can be attained only by coming to Christ, forsaking the things of this world, which are contrary to His will, and following Him all the way. Beautiful girlhood must make room for Christ and the precious Word of God. There is beauty untold in God’s service.

Here it comes as no surprise that contemporary readers take issue with this book. The culture our girls are coming of age in has no room for God, at least not for a God who asks this much of them. In a chapter titled “A Christian,” we read, “Being a Christian will not hinder a girl from becoming successful in any honorable work that she may choose to do. . . . It is only when her ambitions take the place of Christian purpose that they become a snare to her.” I say, “Amen!” 

Let’s be honest, our culture can’t agree on what a woman is. And if we can’t agree on what a woman is, neither can we agree on what it means to be a girl. The only book of this kind I recall from my youth is in a new edition now and, as I understand it, has been edited to reflect that more contemporary view. In searching for a used copy for my daughter, I followed a friend’s counsel to check the copyright date to ensure I found an early edition. 

Bringing It Home

I had my children over the course of ten years. Even in that short time, I’ve observed shifts in advice given to parents from medical professionals as much as from the experts on social media. Our culture is changing so fast these days that it’s hard for it to even keep up with itself. Parenting strategies change, but in any age, our Catholic faith teaches us that the goal is to be saints, to build a life lived for God.

I think I can speak for all mindful parents—Catholic or not—when I say that we want what’s good for our children. We’re trying the best we can to be what they need and to lead them toward fulfilling lives. We all have things we want to emulate from the way we were raised and things we are determined to do differently. The proportion therein is as unique as our families of origin and the families we’re raising.

To have in mind the kind of adults we hope our children will be is helpful when we need the strength to hold to the rules we’ve thoughtfully laid for our homes and when we need to make a decision we know won’t please a child in the short term. I read this book on my own in order to decide whether it would be a good fit for my daughter and, if so, when I ought to have her read it. 

My answers to those questions are yes and now.