By Tracee Sioux

The intention of this blog is to give great advice on how to empower yourself and empower your daughter. Many times I'm writing as an issue comes up with my daughter. This means that I am putting my advice in to practice and I intend to update readers with the reality of how effective my advice has been -- for me.

I invite you to let me know if you have implemented any suggestions and to leave comments about whether or not my advice was effective for you.

Going backwards . . .

Yes, she's a Brat

Ainsley is a brat this season. I called and asked them to change her team and they didn't even call me back. They said it would leave her team with only 8 players and that's not allowed.

I could choose to pick up my ball and go home. And I guess that would be a valid decision to make.

But, Ainsley is a Superstar!!! She loves the game, she's getting great exercise and she totally ROCKS at soccer! She literally stopped the Grasshoppers from scoring, stole the ball and RAN it down the entire length of the field and she SCORED!! She did that 3 times on Saturday.

I've thought of making an acronym with the letters in BRATZ -- remember when we were kids and we used to say "Yeah I'm a PIG - Pretty Intelligent Girl." I thought about writing it downwards on the shirt. Brave, Radical, Athletic, Team, Zorro . . . (obviously, that's a work in progress - wordsmiths can come up with something better and email me suggestions @ traceesioux@yahoo.com).

I really have to say though that it has given me a great opportunity to discuss why I believe Bratz are a bad idea with parents who never thought about it before. I've discussed it with my book club, with parents at a birthday party, with the parents and coach of Ainsley's team and we're only 3 weeks into the season. I believe the discussion is helpful to other parents, making them examine what they really think about it. Honestly, I believe most of them have a gut feeling that those Bratz dolls are a bad influence, but they really don't know that they can stand up to the mass marketing to our children.

Best of all, it's given me opportunities to teach Ainsley these lessons:

• Stand up for yourself, it's not that bad to stand alone.
• Never shut up to appease or go along with the crowd.
• We define our own selves, not our shirts, our team names or other people.
• Principles are important.
• Sometimes we have to choose between two principles
• Find the positive in a situation.
• Don't quit, be a good sport and handle yourself with poise and dignity.

But, next season we'll repool and find another team during enrollment or we'll change the team name to Happy Feet. I think I'll volunteer to coach too. http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2007/02/go-bratz-go.html

Our Sin Beauty Bank is empty -- and that's a good thing

The Sin Beauty Bank has been hugely effective. It's empty - we spent the 75 cents that was in it. Ainsley has only said anything weighty about her body once and that was to get attention from some self-loathing relatives we were visiting.

Just the act of deciding that we would not criticize our bodies anymore was very effective. Even better, I've been extremely grateful about my body which has increased my self-worth.

I'm getting so strong and could actually run a mile now and I feel so powerful when I work out. It's increased health I really aim for.

Sometimes while I do Yoga I just pray, "Thank you God for this healthy and strong body. I feel so magnificently powerful - like I can do anything - when I am in warrior pose. This fantastic body grew two perfect, healthy babies, thanks for that miracle of an opportunity. Thanks for my breasts that held up rather well and for my abs which are finding strength again." http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2007/01/self-loathing-sin-bank.html

Husband's education paid for

Through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University we have paid off around $8,000 in bills, including my husband's student loan. We are down to one bill - my student loan.

I still find myself envying what other people have on occasion - especially when I go to their homes and see all their beautiful and coordinated furniture and art. But, then I find out that it's all financed and they are getting ulcers from the stress of paying for all their pretty financed things.

That's when I thank God that we learned our lesson and we will never, ever finance anything but a home. So, when you come to my house and envy my things one day, know that I OWN it outright and I saved the money to buy it. It's a position of liberation.

Interestingly, that last two people I can recall envying have been more than excited to hear about Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and confessed that though they appear to have it all, they sometimes bounce checks or miss payments due to being overextended. http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-saw-satan-on-tv-and-hes-little-dork.html

Not a Princess-Nazi

We still have a rule about no princesses, but today Ainsley was given some dress-up clothes with Cinderella and Ariel's profile on them.

I let her keep them. I reminded her that I don't care for princesses because Cinderella could have gone to law school and saved herself and Ariel shouldn't have give-up her gifts and talents or her right to speak to find a boyfriend.

She can't help it - she still likes those stupid princesses. She wants to please me, but she also wants to wear that dress. I don't want to be so strict about it that she loves the princesses even more, because my gut tells me that will turn out badly.

So, sometimes I conscientiously let her break the princess ban if someone hands something down. http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2007/01/princess-ban.html

By Tracee Sioux

“No princesses, Bratz or Barbie gifts,” read the invitation for my daughter’s 5th birthday party this year. The week before we had gone to the used bookstore and sold all Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid and Barbie books. She was allowed to pick other, healthier, books to replace them.

I was bracing myself for a big crying fit when I told her we were banning princesses and Barbie. We had never allowed Bratz – because obviously they look like hoochies and they are brats and I certainly don’t want her immolating that kind of garbage. But, really it was all very easy and calm and I think she even enjoyed the extra attention given to her girlness and her ideas of girlness.

“We’re going to the used bookstore,” I told her one morning. “Why don’t you gather up all your princess and Barbi books so we can sell them and get other books.”

“Why can’t I keep my princess books Mommy?” she asked.

“Because all those princesses just sit around waiting for a man, the prince to come save them,” I told her. “And you do not need saving.”

“You can wake yourself up, you don’t need some guy to show up and kiss you to wake yourself from a nightmare,” I said emphatically.

This seemed to make sense to her, as I had already taught her how to wake herself up from a nightmare.

“Well, Belle doesn’t need a guy to wake her up,” she said.

“Belle gets kidnapped and then she turns the beast into a prince with her love,” I explained. “You don’t fall in love with someone who kidnaps or traps you, that’s called Stockholm Syndrome, and I guarantee that if you marry a beast someday, he will stay a beast and never, ever turn into a prince.”

“Ariel doesn’t wait for someone to wake her up,” she said thoughtfully.

“Worse,” I told her. “Ariel gives up her gift of voice and her entire family for the first man she ever sees!”

“You should never give up your gifts to get a man, especially not your voice or your ability to say what you want, and you should never let a man isolate you from your family and you not marry the first man who likes you, you should date a few more to find out what you want,” I responded.

“Cinderella could have rescued herself from her stepmother if she had got good grades and went to college to be a lawyer or a doctor, then she wouldn’t have had to deal with her step mother or her step sisters. She didn’t need Prince Philip to find her glass slipper and marry her away from them. She should have saved herself,” I said.

“What about Barbie?” she asked.

“Barbie doesn’t ever DO anything,” I explained. “She just sits around looking pretty or buying big houses or flashy cars and a bunch of clothes. Really, don’t you think there should be more to life than buying stuff? How does Barbie make the world a better place?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Well, I want you to be able to do things for yourself when you grow up,” I told her. “So no more princesses or Barbie.”

“Okay, can I keep this one? It has Alice in Wonderland in it and other stories too,” She asked.

It was an expensive collection of stories my mother had given her and I wasn’t yet ready to offend my mother by selling her gifts to the used bookstore, so I relented.

And we only had to return one set of princess flash cards on her birthday. After a few tears she was pretty happy about the paint set she chose instead. And really, surprisingly, I think she really gets it. I think she really does understand that it’s important for girls to do stuff and not wait around for boys to come save them. Or at least on come cellular level she gets it and my struggle will not have been in vain. Now when we go to the store, she just accepts that it’s a rule. Like not being allowed to buy Bratz or Cheetah girls paraphernalia is a rule because they seem to have lost or grown out of all their clothes.

By Tracee Sioux

As the mother of a four-year-old daughter, I have been mentally preparing myself for the eventual discussion about sex. I was going to be open-minded and talk honestly and without fear. I was going to talk about specifics, including feelings, and be open to my daughter’s wish to experiment, though cautioning against too much experimentation too soon. Prepared was I to calm my husband down, explaining that a little education never hurt anyone. What had to be avoided was conveying feelings of shame or embarrassment or shock about the issue. Sex was, after all, invented by God. I would handle the subject without inflicting negative feelings on her sexuality while at the same time cautioning against promiscuity.

“Mama, do you want to have sexy today?” my daughter asked one morning. She’s only FOUR YEARS OLD!

No air in my chest, eyes and mouth opened as I tried to control the shrill shriek of my voice and I asked, “Ainsley, do you know what that means? What do you think ‘sexy’ means?”

“Like kissing and holding hands and wearing a dress and going on a date,” she said.

“Okay, well it’s not something mommies and kids do and it’s not appropriate for four years to talk about,” and for good measure, not to mask my real and legitimate concerns, I added, “Please don’t talk about sexy or sex in front of other kids or they won’t be allowed to play with you anymore.”

And there I was, stunned, terrified, completely unprepared for such an exchange and praying it didn’t come up again until she was at least nine or ten and I could give her a Judy Blume book.

I flashed back to the previous evening’s episode of the Gilmore Girls. Honestly, I thought the show was innocuous, even good for us to watch an example of affectionate mother-daughter dialogue. I vaguely remember doing something else while the character Ling discussed having sex with her boyfriend. Virginity was winning the battle, but the word sex was probably uttered at least 20 times.

I started paying closer attention to what got into her little brain. I noticed behavior that felt more dangerous than cute, as it had only the day before.

I took notice of the provocative poses on the cover of magazines in line at grocery stores, in the images of Disney princesses and Jessica Simpson sauntering around singing about snack foods on commercials.

I heard her say, “I’m her,” when she saw Pamela Anderson in a commercial for her TV show Stacked. Pamela Anderson! Not even on my worst, most self-loathing day have I wanted to emulate Pamela Anderson. Never have I wished to be so gaudily female and so, well, Barbie-like and unnatural and made-up and plastic.

My daughter is taking in all the images of womanhood she’s presented and picking up on an unattainable, and I think, unattractive, exaggerated version of girlness.

Overnight I felt like a failure at filtering terrible distorted images of women, and far too inadequate to handle the question of “sexiness” and femininity. I became almost certain that she would inevitably find herself in therapy attempting to fix all the damage we’ve done to her by not sheltering her from every sexual or provocative image and then reacting to her curiosity in the worst way possible – with shock and terror.

“Ignore it, at four she doesn’t need any more information. Just tell her it’s not appropriate for her to talk about,” has been the advice from all I’ve consulted.

Still, it – the issue of sexiness and sex – hasn’t gone away. In fact, she seems to be more preoccupied with it.

I lashed out in fear turned to anger one day and hissed, “You don’t need to be posing provocatively, do you understand me? You are only four-years-old and that’s simply not appropriate.”

Having overheard me, my husband responded, “She doesn’t even need to know the word ‘provocative.’”

He’s right, but I can’t think of an appropriate four-year-old synonym for sexy or provocative.

My original fear was realized when my friend informed me that the last time our children played together that Ainsley struck a pose and said, “I’m sexiest.”

To which I took my girl aside and said, “you better not use the words sexy, sex, sexiest or anything like it around those kids or you will be in big trouble. Huge! And don’t you do any posing with your hips or bottom out either!”

“No,” my friend said, “It’s never come up with my kids. You should probably keep telling her not to talk about it, but she’s definitely too young for more information.”

Further investigation illuminates that my friends' method is to use a way more intense filter than ours. They turn off the TV when commercials come on. They flip the covers of magazines over when standing in line at stores. They tell their kids to turn away from billboards that contain provocative images of the body. They even withdrew their kid from private Christian school when a fellow kindergartener offered to show him her boobs.

Not only does this seem like an awful lot of effort, but their goal as parents is vastly different from ours. They are raising their daughters to grow into being submissive wives. Were we to ban every negative image of womanhood we would include that of a blindly submissive wife. Using the criteria that bans sexiness, unattainable prettiness and servant-like wifeliness, what images of femininity would be left? Stern schoolmarm? It is unlikely such images will hold much appeal for our daughter. They certainly don’t hold much attraction for me.

For now I’m sticking to a few little lies about sex like, “Sex is something that mommies and daddies do,” and a few poignant truths, “four-year-olds don’t need to worry, or talk about, things like sexiness.” Let’s hope I come up with something better when she’s nine or ten.

I’m also going to be more vigilant about what images of femininity she is exposed to. Within reason.

The findings in the 2005 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Global Survey give me hope. While 97 percent of girls by the time they are 15-years-old want to change something about their bodies, it also shows that most girls are taking their cues from their mothers. Actually it’s a three-way tie between mothers, media and girlfriends, which is both frightening and hopeful. If mothers are an early pivotal influence on how daughters feel about themselves, then I had better start watching what I say about myself, women and beauty in general.

Next time my daughter says “I’m her” when she is taken with an overly-perfect picture of womanhood I’m going to say, “No, you’re you, and that’s better. In fact, that’s perfect.”