Recently, I overheard a young woman beaming about her four-year old daughter saying that 'she was such a good girl' during her first visit to the dentist. This seemingly positive way of describing children has become normal and viewed as a healthy statement to most people... but it infuriates me. It triggers outrage stemming from my personal realization as a young adult that actually 'being a good girl' is at the least a myth about how to live life well and even 'win at life', and at worst a gigantic lie used to manipulate children to do what other people want them to do.
I came to learn that the seemingly sweet characterization of a child being a ‘good girl or boy’ perpetuates one of the biggest unspoken lies in modern American society, and maybe in other cultures around the world. As a child, the request or even demand for me to “be a good girl” by adults in my life was a direct teaching and formidable value that I felt I needed to heed. I interpreted it to mean “be a good girl and all will be ‘right’ with your world”… “I will like/love you and we’ll get along… You will make me happy and we’ll all be happy.” “Listen to me” is the plea I heard… “Life will go your way and it will be smooth and fun if you’re a good girl!” This request, either directly said or conveyed by unspoken means comes every day from parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles, teachers, and other adults directed at eager, bright-eyed, innocent children as a navigation tool for having a good life. Join in! Be a good girl or boy!
But what does it actually mean to be a good girl in this context? What we don’t learn until later… or maybe don't ever understand... is that being a good girl means different things to different people AND it can mean different things to the same person at different times and under different circumstances!
By socially acceptable standards of good girlness, you can’t actually ‘be’ a good girl… It’s an unattainable myth and on more careful examination, it’s a self-serving manipulation of children. Rarely do you ever hear someone say “Be a good girl and tell me how you really feel.” Or “Be a good girl and honor your own timing and rhythm for this experience.” "Be a good girl and express your anger." "Be a good girl and wear what you like to wear." Be a good girl and say no when you feel like it." "Be a good girl and wear your confidence proudly." Usually it’s cajoling us into conforming to some unspoken acceptable societal, family rule, or personal desire in the moment, which in essence, requires a ‘taming’ or suppressing of our own natural rhythms, desires, and needs. It supports being a traitor to the Soul of a child. It’s a domineering request or declaration and expectation, that in the child’s energy field, crosses their natural feeling of ‘being innately good and loved’ with a conditional activity outside of themselves. It says “You aren’t good if you don’t do this and you are good if you do.” It sets up the 'good vs bad' framework that we measure our whole lives with. It undercuts a child’s inherent connection to their Self and their innate goodness which excludes them from accessing their own natural wisdom, intuition, and rhythms. It misappropriates our natural inherent feeling of goodness and self love and replaces it with a slippery, uncatchable ‘idea of being good’ that is defined by others outside of us that we can never really identify and satisfy.
What can we do about it? How do we live a fulfilling, natural and healthy life without the burden of trying to be ‘good’? What’s the way back to our natural inner knowing and personal operating system, which is fueled by our inherent goodness? We need a re-boot!
First, it’s important to know that we’re born with our own, individual, infallible, 100%, all the time, guaranteed, reliable navigation system. It informs us through our emotions. AND we each have our own unique system that is unlike anyone else’s. So, what’s right and good for someone else may not be for us. Regret is the feeling of ‘knowing something’ but not acting on it. This happens when we don’t listen to our internal navigation system.
Secondly, it’s imperative that we understand that emotions, all of them, are healthy, necessary, natural and intrinsic. We were born with the inherent desire to express them. Babies cry when they're hungry or fuss when they're uncomfortable. As we mature, hopefully we learn to say what we need and want but that doesn't replace having emotional responses. They don't go away even as we grow into adulthood. The expression of emotions has gotten a bad rap somewhere along the way. There is an unspoken myth that declares emotions cannot be trusted, that expressing them is a sign of being out of control… One of our deep societal myths asserts that mental intelligence, science, and empirical evidence are superior pathways that somehow 'prove' something to be right or wrong, correct or incorrect. Hence, strongly suggesting that one must use these preferred methods to 'ensure' one is making decisions and navigating life well rather than trusting emotions and gut feelings. The myth says emotions are meant to be hidden, controlled, and managed. The myth says being too emotional is a sign of weakness and instability. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, there are endless repercussions that show up in many people’s lives today as a result of suppressing emotions, such as depression, physical illness, lethargy, drug and alcohol abuse, victimhood, lack of compassion, separation, loneliness, violence, and fear. It’s ideal that we utilize all of our faculties to navigate our lives. We have our mental capacities and our emotional intelligence and maturity to support our own unique journeys.
Thirdly, emotions are the key to knowing and understanding our Selves. When we have a twinge of anger… take heed… there is a reason. When we are sad or feel disappointed it’s probably because there’s a valid reason for feeling that way. Identifying how we feel brings us back to ourselves. We can then look deeper to see if our emotions are something for us to be responsible for within our Selves or to share within our relationships for resolution.
Fourthly, when we become more clear about our inner feelings, needs and desires we can become masterful at expressing them in healthy ways. So instead of saying “He’s such a good baby. He sleeps through the night,” we can say “I’m resting well because the baby sleeps well and that is just what I need right now.” Speak about your Self and your needs without putting heavy weights of unspoken expectations and manipulation onto others, especially children.
There are many repercussions that come from staying within the bounds of ‘being a good girl or boy’ as adults. It is a form of hindering our relationship with our Self, our inspiration and ultimately our full Self-expression. It keeps us from 'confronting' issues and concerns that are not in alignment with our true inner Spirit. It’s time to rethink the activity of accepting this misguided manipulation into our lives. Make room for all of us to be like creatures in the ‘Star Wars Bar’ that we really are… weirdly unique and interesting. We are all born good and nothing we do can ever change that…
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