How Becoming an Auntie Made Me Realise How Badly Society Teaches Us to Treat Little Girls
I’m unlearning what used to be considered normal
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Growing up, my body was not mine.
It was there for anyone who wanted to give it a squeeze, a kiss, a smoosh. I was complimented on my naturally blonde hair and tall, slim frame by everyone from my aunties to my teachers.
Back then, little girls were dolls, not humans with body autonomy.
I don’t want that for my nieces. But since becoming an auntie to two little girls, I realise how much work has to be done to break this cycle.
I realise how so many people think there’s nothing wrong with asking little girls to hug or kiss anyone from family members to perfect strangers, whether they want to or not.
Or how easy it is to comment on their prettiness, as if their self-worth is directly linked to how Bambi-like their eyes are.
I’m determined to undo what I was told growing up. I ask for hugs, even if my will is tested every time I see them. I resist the urge to tell them how beautiful they are all the time, even though I think they are.
I don’t want to help raise another generation of girls who don’t know how to see their worth beyond their looks. Who don’t know how to make peace with their body.
And when the time comes (and it probably will), who don’t know how to say no.
Little girls are not little dolls
Somewhere in my mother's attic is a picture of her holding me in a death grip.
I’m six years old in a Laura Ashley dress (I hated it but I was never allowed to wear pants). My mum is trying to make me sit still and smile for the camera whilst I’m doing my best to contort myself out of the situation, red-faced and crying from the exertion.
This was the 1980s, so little was thought of it other than laughing at a strong-willed little girl.
In reality, I wasn’t in charge of my body at that moment.
Keep still. Be serene. Smile. If you’re not a good girl, your body will be physically restrained.
My mother just wanted a nice picture of us but she probably shouldn’t have restrained me in that way. This wasn’t for my safety, it was just for a picture.
But kids’ bodily autonomy wasn’t talked about then. And for young girls in particular (although of course young boys too), that was — and still is — a big problem.
The differences in the way we give physical attention to girls versus boys start incredibly young. Girl infants under one are five times as likely to receive cuddles than boy infants.
As they grow up, boys receive fewer and fewer hugs. Fathers are twice as likely to cuddle their teenage daughters as they are their teenage sons, who receive the fewest cuddles of all children.
Make no mistake, I’m not anti-cuddling or physical affection. It comes with huge mental benefits, not least an injection of the lovely hormone oxytocin. Hug those boy babies, for God’s sake.
But that doesn’t stop the fact that we are conditioned to give physical affection more freely to little girls than to little boys. Which means that once they are old enough to give consent for hugs, kisses or other physical contact, little girls will have to give it (or be forced to not give it) far more often.
But little girls are not dolls to be passed around to family members who want cuddles for their own validation. The idea that kids should have no control over who kisses, cuddles or grabs them is ludicrous.
My four-year-old niece has control because we give it to her in the form of consent. And I — along with everyone else who claims they love her — have to respect her decision.
There is a lot of unlearning to be done here. Unlearning that is not exclusively about physical affection but how we talk to little girls about everything.
Because, as I am fast learning in my role of auntie, the way I was taught to talk to young girls is far more ingrained in the way I talk to my nieces than I ever imagined it would be.
“You look so pretty!”
When my nieces toddle down the stairs in their princess get-ups, I’m often so swept up in their cuteness I will myself to not say the sentence that’s always on the tip of my tongue.
You look so pretty!
I don’t want to reinforce prettiness=self-worth bias in little girls yet I catch myself doing it sometimes.
But saying they’re pretty shouldn’t be the first thing I tell them. I’d be better asking them to demonstrate what magic powers their wand gives them (there’s always a wand).
I should remember what it was like growing up in a world that valued prettiness in girls over almost anything else. How my mother would obsess over my looks. She thought she was boosting my self-esteem by telling me how pretty I was but ironically, she was doing everything but.
I was brought up to believe that being pretty was the only thing that mattered yet I was not a pretty little girl, nor am I especially pretty now.
I am decidedly average.
I know this but I still struggle to make my peace with it, even at 39 years old.
My self-esteem had no chance growing up in an environment that focused so much on looks. And this has affected everything in my adult life, from my relationships to how I conduct myself at work, to making friends.
I don’t want that for my nieces. They already live in a hyper-connected world that values a woman’s appearance over pretty much anything else.
They don’t need their auntie doing the same.
My nieces are six and four and already I’m noticing how the world is doing the dirty on them. They tell me the boys at school say they can’t play football because they’re girls. That boys are better than girls.
I don’t want to add any more pressure on them than the world already does. To do that, I have to unlearn so much that was considered normal in the 80s and 90s.
This is my work to do. It’s my responsibility to not moan about my weight or looks in front of them. To not measure the validity of their existence by how pretty they are. To ask them for a hug and respect their wishes if they say no.
It’s not like the way we were taught growing up worked. It’s not like we’re a generation of well-adjusted, autonomous, confident women who know our own worth.
Why would we want the same for the next generation?
There are plenty of people who think this is all a big hoo-hah. That it’s not going to kill a kid to hug their auntie goodbye even when they don’t want to. Or that we should praise little girls for their looks because beauty is a part of the world.
That’s missing the point. The point isn’t to take consent to the extreme or not compliment kids.
It’s to be mindful of how we do that so we can create a better world for little girls than we had growing up.
It’s about teaching them that their body is theirs and they get to say who kisses or cuddles it. It’s about teaching them to look beyond what their body looks like and focus more on what it can do.
Most of all, almost every woman knows what it’s like to be in a situation where a man grabs us — or worse — in a way we don’t consent to. I hate to say it will probably happen to my nieces one day, too.
I want them — and all girls — to know how to call that fucker out.
I never had that message growing up. I wish I did. And I’m making damn sure my nieces do.
Charlie Brown is a British wine pro and niche-avoidant writer living in Portugal. She writes about everything from food and wine to feminism to cultural commentary. More here.