Fresh Take: Kate Rope, STRONG AS A GIRL

0:28We always recommend Shopify. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take. From what fresh hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. Today, we're talking to Kate Rope. She is an award-winning freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Life, and CNN.com. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two daughters. Kate is the author of Strong as a Mother, How to Stay Healthy, Happy, and Most Importantly, Sane, From Pregnancy to Parenting, and a new book, which we'll be talking about today, Strong as a Girl, your guide to raising girls who know, stand up for, and take care of themselves.

1:08Welcome, Kate. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited by this book, and I want to quote your first line because I loved it. You said, congratulations to anyone raising a girl right now. This is the most exciting time to be doing it. And I was like, wow, what a refreshing and unexpected first line for a book about raising girls today. So tell us, why do you think that this is the best time to be raising girls? I mean, I think any time is a great time to be raising a girl. I love girls. So that's number one. Let's just put that out there. Two, I don't like all the fear mongering that happens around raising girls.

1:42I do think, yeah, there are some pitfalls you have to watch out for. And my book is all about building a foundation with your girl so she can weather like those seismic shifts when they come. But girls are seeing an incredible amount of female empowerment, female leadership from like Greta Thunberg to Kamala Harris on the campaign trail to body positive TikTok reels. They're seeing in real time women and girls doing pretty much everything. And the other part is I interviewed, I don't know how many, but I did focus groups with girls across the country for this book. And every one of them left me buoyed and encouraged about the self-awareness and confidence and engagement with critical thinking skills and engagement with the world that girls have.

2:26So there are problems for sure. There are some big pitfalls, but I feel like they've got excellent heads on their shoulders. I feel like they have excellent role models around them. And if we can just dig in and do the work early, we can really set them up to maximize the opportunities that are there and get through the inevitable, some of them are inevitable, challenges of being a female in our society. So love the positivity. Also, as you said, pitfalls. So let's start with some of the big categories of pitfalls facing girls today. So the first I would start with, and it's one of the biggest things I'm addressing in this book, it's timeless.

3:04It's the expectations around what girls should be, how they should be. They should be accommodating. They should prioritize the needs of others over their own. They should be agreeable. They should help everybody get along. Peacemakers. Nowhere in that is they should be in touch with who they are and what they want and advocate for it. Right. So that's been our gender narrative from time immemorial. So that's just always there. And that's a big one to make sure you're thinking about as you raise a girl. If we think about modern day issues, social media and body image is a huge one. And eating disorders are on the rise among girls.

3:41They've risen almost three times since the pandemic. Also among boys, but this book is about girls. And they've risen much faster among girls. And we know that can be tied directly to social media. In fact, all the research that's done on the harms of social media, the one that is the most scientifically validated and repeatedly found is that it does affect girls' sense of self. And body image was already difficult for girls, right? So even before they get to social media, you know, three-year-olds can say that their body doesn't look like it's supposed to look. So we know body image is both timeless and accelerated in a very extreme way through social media.

4:18So there's that. There is a rise in misogyny that we're all living through right now. It's interesting. I first wrote my proposal when the Me Too movement was happening, and my initial subhead was raising the not-me generation. But by the time we got to me writing and then it coming out, we were in a new era of what I keep hoping is the extinction burst of misogyny and patriarchy. patriarchy. But that's very real. Girls are seeing that. And so we need to just make sure we are imbuing them with the sense of self-worth and confidence to challenge and manage it and lead us out of this moment. And then there's other timeless ones, right?

4:54Girls are much more likely to become a victim of sexual assault in high school and beyond. And one that applies to all kids, which is that I think we are really denying them time to explore, be outside, negotiate relationships with other kids without us being there. So risk-taking and independence, which is important for all kids, but particularly for girls to build their sense of self-efficacy and knowledge that they can manage what the world throws their way. I think that something that underpins so much of this, and you talk about it a lot in the book, is that we task girls with considering other people's feelings more than we do boys.

5:34And I was just at a talk yesterday for teenage girls who are going through the college application process. And they were talking about how they were teaching these girls that even though they're going through something really hard, they have to remember kindness. They have to remember how to be kind to the people. And I'm like, I'm not sure that should be entering the chat right now. Right. It's just, please hold. Right. More snacks, more sleep, not like, and please don't forget to be nice to everybody. Why is that always this additional work? And I think it does lead, you talk about in the book, that when sexual consent is presented to girls as, you know, stay out of trouble is the most they can hope for when they become sexually active.

6:11Stay out of trouble and don't get hurt. They think they don't have agency to go after what they want. It's about protecting themselves from what other bad people want. It just seems to me that that's so much about why girls struggle, that we give them that extra work. Yeah, I am a huge proponent of kindness. And I dedicated my book to my mom. And I said, thank you for teaching me how to be strong and kind. But I think that we don't need to worry so much about teaching kindness. I think we could teach respect for other people and talk about respect for yourself. But I think if we're going to teach girls about kindness, we need to teach them about being kind to themselves.

6:47That is the skill nobody's teaching them. I see that sometimes in parents like, oh, this child is so cute. Look at how cute and beautiful they are. And it's like, they've already got cute and beautiful. We've checked that box. We don't have to lean into cute and beautiful. We maybe need to lean into voice or other skills. But sometimes that cute and beautiful is so noticeable or appealing to people that they just give voice to it over and over again. And I think about what skills are we missing because we are so busy praising cute and beautiful. Yeah. And it's totally understandable. You know, I catch myself doing it when I meet a young girl who's got this awesome dress on, you know, or whatever.

7:31Like we've all marinated in this, right? So we're all unlearning things and teaching ourselves new ways of looking at things. But I have a whole section in the book about responses to you're so pretty because my girls were getting those from two up. You're such a pretty girl. Oh, how pretty you are. And at first I would voice a response. One time I was like, she's two. Like that's not only is that not the most important thing about her, that's creepy. Or we'd be at the post office and, you know, some kindly postal worker is like, look how beautiful you are. And I was like, and you haven't even seen her do math.

8:04So I would model that. And then I would give her phrases to say, like, that's not the most important thing about me. Or I also really love skateboarding. Just trying to equip them with the critical thinking skills that when that is said to them, they notice it. They don't just take it in like, I'm pretty. I'm pretty. That's really important. Everyone tells me I'm pretty. And so that's an important thing about me. And that's an important thing I need to maintain instead of, oh, that's weird. Why is everybody saying that to me? Even if they aren't the kind of kid who's going to have a comeback, if they've been taught to sort of think in that moment about what's being said to them and about what they might even just think in their own mind as a comeback, it's a little bit of a shield from that penetrating as deeply as it can.

8:42Yeah, it's one of the many things that happens with kids that you don't think of that when I think of kids and I do it myself, I'm speaking about myself. Oh, she grew up to be so beautiful. And I know she's also, you know, very accomplished and plays the violin and does all these other things. I never look at a friend's son and think, wow, he's so handsome. It's just not the first thing I would ever say. They're like, why is this lady saying like what Netflix documentary series is. Your child is extremely physically attractive. Right. Right. Right. And that is more noticeably creepy than it is when it comes from a man to a young girl.

9:19You talk about how important it is to start this work young. So I'm thinking about the person who might be listening to this now. I'm like, what is the problem with telling a two-year-old she's pretty? And maybe word for word, micro-interaction for micro-interaction. It's not that. It's that you're learning messaging young that you have to look pretty, that you have to center other people's feelings and consider them before your own. It's that messaging. But you also talk about how starting young is actually much easier than waiting until later. And why is that? Yeah. By age seven, research has shown that girls see themselves through the external gaze.

9:55They judge themselves based on what they perceive to be the way the world is looking at them. So if that's happening at age seven, it's beginning at age two. And five and six year olds say I should go on a diet. My body doesn't look like how it should look, how people's bodies should look. I'm not as smart as boys and boys say the same thing about girls. So these messages actually start extremely young. Boys say girls are not as smart as me. Correct. Yes. Oh, wow. It's interesting. Boys and girls are both more likely to rate girls as less smart. Oh, that's interesting. Around the age of six. Wow.

10:30So for that reason, early is good. But second of all, it's easier for you. It's more fun and they're more up for it, right? Like ages 5 to 12, which is more or less what my book is aimed at. And there are lots of things in here that could apply to a child before and after those ages. But I just kicked that lane. They're evolutionarily programmed to follow you. You're their source of shelter and food and you're their guide. So they're easily influenced by you, for one. And then when they hit 12, 13, 14, they start your influence wanes and that's appropriate. That's what happens for them to then individuate from you and become an adult eventually.

11:07So this is a time when they're like game. They're open to hearing. Not always. My older daughter really never, ever wanted to take a piece of advice for me and my younger daughter like sucked it up. But it stuck even though she was like, yeah, mom, I know you write about parenting and that's important. And she was like that seven. But it gets in there anyway. I have some stuff in the book that are really fun activities you can do with your girls to help them get to know themselves. And they're down for that stuff at five, six, seven, eight. So it's just a really fertile time and it builds a connection.

11:38If you're talking about things like sex or consent and safety, you can talk about those early so that when if they do run into something that is scary or harmful, when they're 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, they're going to come to you because you have a established yourself as this safe place to talk about these things. We're talking to Kate Rope. She's the author of the new book Strong as a Girl. And we'll be right back.

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13:04Kate, let's talk about parenting from your hope, which is one of the sort of planks of raising girls that you talk about in this book. So that was like a paradigm shift that happened years ago when I was writing a piece and I interviewed a sex educator and he's this awesome sex educator. He talks to parents all the time. Obviously, most of the people he's talking to are kind of freaked out about the topic, like they don't know what to say. So they're in kind of a heightened state when they enter the seminar or wherever it's happening. And so the first thing he starts with is, I want you to lead from your hopes and not your fears.

13:33Because when you lead from fear and when you parent from fear, first of all, you're just imagining outcomes. These are things that you perceive could happen. And then you get kind of locked down and they aren't things that you can actually probably control many of them. And so you're in a defensive posture where you're less open and less able to engage with the content. If you leave from your hopes, then you're imagining what you want. Instead of like, I'm so worried all these things are going to happen, you think, well, what do I want? One of the examples I give in the book is a kid being diagnosed with a learning disability.

14:08And obviously, most parents go through a process of some fear and confusion and overwhelm when that happens. And that's totally normal. But when you move through that, you could say, oh, my God, she's dyslexic. And what if she never learns to read? And what if she hates school? What if she never goes to college? Right. Your brain just tells these stories that have no basis in reality. And instead, if you're like, OK, once you've done your own work to process it, you know, we're all human. You say, OK, what do I want from this? I want her to be able to read. OK, so there's programs, there's systems, there's 504 plans, there's things I can do to enable that.

14:42and I want her to learn something about herself in the process. And so then you can sit down with her and be like, hey, this is the thing about you and this is just something unique about you and we're going to figure our way through it and you're going to learn so much about yourself. And so if you think to yourself, what is the relationship I want her to have with this difference she has, you can actually make steps and plans to get there. You can't make steps and plans to ensure she will never hate school. She might hate school with or without, you know? A learning disability. So it's getting specific about what you hope.

15:16You talk about that it doesn't need to be like, this is your superpower. Like, we don't have to lean into that story either. It's okay to say a disability is challenging and difficult. And I think as I talk to parents in the special needs community, the differential for girls in every way is narrower. Boys are allowed to be all sorts of different things and girls are kind of supposed to be one way. And therefore, a girl with differences, challenges, diagnoses can feel even more complicated somehow that they're farther from the quote unquote norm. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that's exactly.

15:56So I had this wonderful focus group with a group of girls who had some different diagnoses, learning differences. And One of them who has ADHD and is autistic said, you know, girls are expected to be quiet. And she's like, my autism will not allow me to be quiet. I have to say the things in my head. And so it makes it even harder for me because I cannot conform to this expectation. Or they are really able to conform and then they hide it. Because girls have been so trained to meet expectations, to stand in line, to raise their hands in class, they can fake it. they can push down the parts of themselves that want to be expressed, that don't fit that narrative.

16:38And then many girls get much later diagnoses because they're masking. Because they're spending so much of their personal energy masking, right? Yes. Let's talk about something that's in particular for eating disorders that I had never heard before and I thought was very interesting. There's a psychological thing called enosagnosia, I believe you would pronounce that. Explain why eating disorders have become more complicated. And this is one reason why. Yeah. I mean, I think they always were complicated. But I think this is what inhibits us right now from addressing them early. So one thing is we have this past stigma related to them, which is that the old story goes, it's a controlling mother.

17:17It's a perfectionist, skinny white girl. It's mom's fault. Every old story goes, it's a controlling mother. I know. Right. The home situation is the problem. And then it's usually a skinny, affluent white girl trying to regain control in her life and is using it for that purpose. I'm not saying that can't happen. Perfectionism certainly plays a part. But what we now understand about eating disorders and which has not been, I don't think, well telegraphed to the parenting community is that they are highly, highly biologically based. So we tend to think of them as a psychological problem and we kind of want to not look too deeply and hope it goes away and not bring it up.

17:55But in fact, it's a biological problem that can happen very quickly. And the part that you brought up, can you pronounce it? Anosognosia. I believe it's anosognosia. Anosognosia, yes. Which basically means you're unaware you're sick. It also happens in schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, and other brain disorders. And so the problem is that someone who is developing disordered eating or has an eating disorder is not aware they have a problem. And so they very quickly will talk to parents, talk to concerned people and say, I'm fine. It's not a thing. Basically, the eating disorder is gaslighting them so that they don't think it's a problem.

18:34And then when a concerned adult tries to engage with them, they gaslight that concerned adult. And it's very easy as a parent. And a lot of times, you know, kids are smart. They're able to marshal a really good argument about why they're eating the way they were eating or why they lost weight or whatever the thing is. And you can go, oh, I'm overreacting. Or you can worry, if I bring this up, am I introducing the idea? And the fact of the matter is, it's a biological process that is underway. So when our bodies get undernourished, when we don't have enough energy, essentially, to do what we need to do, for people who are susceptible to eating disorders, it can be a matter of even days, weeks, that they can flip into a state where their brain prefers that lower energy state, and it snowballs from there.

19:17So there's a lot of understandings we're having. One, that, the understanding of how biological it is. Two, the highly genetic portion of it, how much it is about people being genetically prone to these conditions. And then three, that early treatment and treatment that is focused on re-nourishing so that someone is back to a healthy weight is the only way through. So I think sometimes a parent will worry about this with their kid, and they'll start with therapy. But that's not going to solve the problem. You have to get that child re-nourished. And the earlier you do that, the way better the chances that they have of recovering.

19:53And anorexia is one of the most fatal pediatric illnesses. It's very serious. So the sooner you can get in there and break the cycle, get the nourishment in, the brain changes. And then that child can see, the experts will say, it's literally like a switch is flipped. They come back online. Their brain can engage because a starved brain is doing all kinds of things to stay alive and it can't engage in a rational conversation with you about why it has stopped eating lunch at school. And you also talk about the fact that we think of eating disorders as skinny girls, but that that's not really the portrait of modern eating disorders.

20:31Yeah. So 80 percent of eating disorders happen in kids with larger bodies. And it's not just affluent kids either, you know, food scarcity. So you can get into an energy deficient state because you had oral surgery and you weren't able to really eat anything for a week or two because you got really, really sick. And so you weren't eating enough because you decided to try a vegan diet that you saw on Instagram and nothing against vegans. I come from a vegetarian and vegan family, but you decide to try out a diet that limits foods. And for any of those reasons, you can get undernourished. And that is what then kicks off essentially a metabolical, biological, psychological cycle.

21:10So in those cases you talk about in the book, you're actually looking for that person who is not getting enough food is going to start behaving differently. They're going to be maybe a little more cranky, have less energy, and that we should trust what you call our caregiver gut and look for changes in our daughter. Just literally like a girl with an eating disorder doesn't have the self-awareness that she has disordered eating. I really need help. Like that will never happen because of this annosagnosia. So you have to sort of watch for clues that a kid needs help, girl or boy, which might include changes in their energy levels or their socializing or what else.

21:46So change in their eating habits. They're packing less for their lunch. Their lunch is coming home with more food in it. Foods they used to love, they're not eating anymore. They're starting to have strict rules around what they will eat and what they won't eat. And what was interesting is all the eating disorder experts I spoke to were like, if you hear a kid say, I want to eat healthier, get worried, which is so counter to our diet culture. You know, that's the other thing that happens is we have this diet culture that presents clean eating as a goal when in fact, clean eating often kicks off an eating disorder.

22:17So everyone's saying, wow, you're eating so well, or you're looking so great. So they're getting all this positive reinforcement. But if you're noticing, if your kid says to you, I want to eat healthier. Great. What do you want to do? If it's I'm cutting out sugar, if it's I'm not eating carbs, which, by the way, are some of the most important nutritional needs kids have for their brains to grow, that's a warning sign. If it's I just got to get more protein because I'm tired at the end of swim practice or it's I want to introduce more and varied things, but there's no hard and fast rules. There's no I'm not eating cookies.

22:50I'm not eating sweets like strict rules about eating, smaller portions. In the case of a binge eating disorder, noticing food that's disappearing from your house, finding a lot of wrappers in your child's bedroom area, definitely irritability. And these could be signs of many mental health conditions, but irritability, once it gets to a certain point, wearing baggy clothes, because you see your body as not what it is and you don't want to present it to the world, not engaging in things they used to like to do, not engaging in things that require them to be in a swimsuit or a gymnastics outfit or something.

23:23Hearing them come home from cross-country and that their coach has been talking about they need to get leaner in order to make a time. Sports are a huge, certain sports in particular, are a huge trigger for eating disorders. So cross-country, swimming, gymnastics, ballet are all areas where you want to know what that coach is saying to your kids and what the teammates are saying to your kids. And Virginia Sol Smith, who I love, I don't know if you've had her on the podcast. She's the best. She's like, get ahead of it. Your five-year-old wants to start ballet. Great. And then you can say, there's a problematic history with how bodies need to, quote unquote, need to look in this sport.

24:01So I'm going to be really watching out to make sure that the people who are teaching you are keeping you healthy and that that's their priority. And that's my priority. So getting ahead of it can also be. And again, I think that's that thing where we worry If we say the word out loud, we're magically going to cause it. No, we're not. What we're going to do is signal to our child that this is a conversation we're willing to have. We're talking to Kate Rope. She's the author of Strong as a Girl. And we'll be right back. You talk in the book about how you can be doing everything in your power to be the best parent, the best caregiver.

24:33You're doing great. You give your daughter all the support she needs. And sometimes it's still not enough. sometimes in the situations you were just talking about, you're going to need external support for that girl and maybe for yourself too. And we are so prone to feel failure as parents, probably especially mothers when that happens because we're not enough. So what do you say to the parents in this book who maybe need to go find some external support and feel really bad about that? Yeah. Failure and responsibility, right? Because there's this narrative, particularly around moms, that we are responsible for this product.