The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls
Valorie Lee Schaefer

When I bought the kids second-hand American Girl dolls, the Dad of the teen who sold me the dolls said, “I warn you, this doll is a gateway drug.” He couldn’t have been more right, and by Christmas I was drowning in a stack of AG catalogs.

While the girls haven’t become AG users, they are big fans of American Girl’s line of books. In addition to the decently written historical novels, AG also offers a line of great growing-up advice books. This week what with all the flap about Miley Cyrus’ portrait by Annie Lebowitz for Vanity Fair, combined with the great discussion going in the comments on my post Why I’m not teaching Abstinence to my Kids, I thought I’d review a book about growing-up bodies.

American Girl’s The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls is an excellent reference guide for a growing girl. Written in a simple, friendly style The Care & Keeping of You gives kids the details they long for in a way that communicates “it’s not gross, it’s your really cool body!” Author Valerie Scharfer covers the obvious concerns—zits, period, and bras (or the lack thereof)—as well as broader concepts about size, mind/body connection, and the way physical changes can effect emotions. Even things a grown up might think of as insignificant, like how to get gum out of your hair, get straight forward solutions,

The publisher says this book is for ages 9-12, and some of the information may be more than younger children want to know. For instance, there’s a pretty detailed cartoon/line-drawing illustration of a girl using a tampon, and girls in the drawings are pictured nude and anatomically correct. My oldest daughter needs a lot of reconnaissance before she moves into a new area, so we got her this book when she was 8 years old and started asking questions about ‘becoming a teenager.’ She had it for about an hour before she came bounding down the stair saying things like, “Mom, did you know you get you period about two years after your breast buds appear?” (No, actually, I did not. That would have been really helpful to know back in the day.) So far, she’s feeling really confident about the changes ahead, and proud of her growing body.

Other good books in this line include The Feelings Book: The Care & Keeping of Your Emotions, which pretty much saved our lives though the drama that was third grade; A Smart Girl’s Guide to Starting Middle School; and A Smart Girl’s Guide to Money. Today’s Flavor: Knowledge is Power.

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Hello friends! I want to thank everyone who commented so thoughtfully on my post “Why I’m Not Teaching My Kids Abstinence.” I’m really please with both the quality and the tone of the dialgoue and I want to thank you all for your input.

I’m working on a follow up post focusing on the ideas you have presented and hope to have it up in the next day or two. I’d love it if y’all could come back and keep this discussion going. I think it’s important for our kids, and perhaps for healing ourselves.

If you want a very brief head’s up when I have new posts online, you can follow me on Twitter. It’s free and painless. Click here to link.

Yours in the Journey,

Rachelle

This is an installment of “This I Believe…”, a series of posts focused around one topic. The first series is on Sexuality and Body Image.

What I Think About Kids & Abstinence

“Don’t you remember at church, when they told us it was better for us to come home in a pine box than to lose our chastity?”

-Sarah Henrickson (18) to her brother Ben (16)
Big Love

I grew up in the church. The conservative evangelical church to be exact. Sundays and Wednesdays were spent at the Lutheran Church, and Monday-Friday at the Assemblies of God private school (chapel three times a week, Bible class every day, choir, and optional 7am prayer meetings.) If you’ve ever seen the fantastic dark-comedy Saved, then you have seen my life. It’s like a hidden camera reality show based on my high school, only with better hair.

Growing up, the message I received was that the absolute worst thing you could do was to have sex outside of marriage. It was worse than getting drunk. Hell, it was worse than DRIVING drunk. Sex, actual intercourse, was totally forbidden. All the other bases were either totally verbotten or pretty damn bad. Oral sex. Very Very Bad. Groping of all kinds. Bad. Making out in your boyfriend’s car. Not great. Kissing. Tolerated –but not on school grounds, of course, or you would be given a two day suspension. Holding hands? Well, okay, but only holding hands; certainly not putting your arms around someone’s shoulder. Anything and everything you might do with someone of the opposite sex was cloaked in shame. Tickling? Shoulder rubs? Boy-girl stunts in cheerleading? It was all highly suspicious. (Do I even have to mention that doing anything with someone of the same sex was completely off the charts? You might as well pick up a ‘go directly to hell’ card.)

We had sex education, once, in fifth grade. It was mostly to make sure everyone was in the know about getting your period. I suppose the boys had a similar filmstrip about unwelcomed erections, but I’m not sure. It was the 80’s and AIDS education was huge, so even in Christian school you got a little mention of condoms. You never actually saw one, no one ever demonstrated how to use one on a banana for instance, and they were definitely NOT distributed in health class. The main idea was, “Abstinence is the Answer”, and everyone from teachers to pastors to parents was 100% on-message. And the teens, well, everyone had to sign on. (Or at least pretend to.)

Over and over again the messages we received were distilled in our hormone-soaked brains down to this one echoing refrain:

“Sex is a terrible, awful, shameful thing you save for the one you love.”

I recall one youth group session in which a cartoon was placed on the overhead projector. It showed a pit dug into the ground with a ladder in it. Each rung of the ladder had a physical act on it. The top rung was holding hands, the next one down was kissing, then making out, petting…you get the idea. The last rung, in the bottom of the pit? Yep. Sex. This kind of illustration was pretty common, and usually came along with a sermon about how “your body is a temple” – followed by a round of fast food and artificially sweetened cola. One of my favorite variations of this youth-group sex scenario was told to me a few years ago by a fellow seminarian. He told me, in all seriousness, that he was teaching his youth group that “Sex is like a wild, vicious, hungry lion, and you DO NOT want to go putting your head anywhere near that lion’s mouth.” (How he got away with using “sex” and “head” in the same sentence in a room full of teenage boys without the place exploding into laughter is beyond me.)

I know that the intentions of my teachers, youth group leaders, pastors and parents were good. I know they were trying to protect us from getting in too deep, too fast. I know they wanted to save us from harm, hurt, and, I suppose, hell. But the reality is, all they did for me was create a space in which to grow shame, guilt and dysfunction. And oh, how it grew! Here’s a short list of the messages I carried away from my abstinence experience:

-Every physical impulse you have towards a boy is wrong–probably even sinful.

-All the natural, normal parts of growing up and falling in love –physicality of any kind—are wrong and unnatural.

-If my body want this, then my body is bad. (This combined with the typical magazine spreads with size 0 models and pimple-free skin, and you can see what that did for a teenage girl’s body image.)

-If you don’t plan for sex, it’s not as bad of a sin. (Therefore, don’t own birth control or condoms.)

In spite of this, there were boys who got lucky and girls who went all the way. There were girls swept off to the Crisis Pregnancy Centers and expelled from school—or worse yet, allowed to stay but banned from all extracurricular activities–like going to the basketball games or walking down the aisle at graduation. (The boys on the other hand, never seemed to get into much trouble. I don’t recall any of them getting kicked out or shamed out of leaving.) And if anyone ever had an abortion, well, they kept it as a dark secret, and went through the experience without any help or counseling.

Because of my experience in abstinence programs– and because of the way my experience was echoed again and again in the shameful tears full-grown women brought to me during my tenure as a pastor –I am not raising my children under the banner of abstinence. Being physical and having sex are natural normal parts of growing up. We are physically and chemically programmed for it. We are culturally conditioned for it. It is a part of our healthy emotional development. I want my children to grow up in an atmosphere that acknowledges this reality—one that is shame free, where their bodies are seen as being ‘fearfully and wonderfully made,” and where their hearts can be trusted to lead them in the right direction. My intention, my deep hope, is to raise them in such a way that they will carry with them these messages:

-Your body is amazing. You can trust it to tell you what you are physically ready to do.

-Your heart is your guide –you can trust the wisdom of your own intuition in making choices.

-Sex is something you move into one step at a time. Each step is good. Each step is appropriate. You– and only you–get to choose when you are ready for that step.

-As a romantic relationship grows deeper emotionally, it’s natural for it to grow deeper physically.

-Planning for sex and being prepared to protect yourself and your partner is smart, responsible, and essential.

-You have the right to say NO. And conversely, you have the right to say YES.

Rather than telling my kids “Sex is a terrible, awful, shameful thing you save for the one you love.” I want the messages I give them to be able to be boiled down to this:

“You are capable of building a relational history you can look back on without regret.”

A friend of mine bequeathed that turn of phrase to me. We were drinking margaritas and talking about sex. (What else do you talk about after you’ve had a couple of margaritas?) She was telling me about her major high school boyfriend, and being in love, and what her parents and his parents thought about them having sex (or not). She said, “I never wanted to have sex in the car. I always wanted to build a sexual history I could look back on without regret, and I didn’t think I could do that if I had sex in the back of his Camero.” That’s pretty self aware, don’t you think? Pretty well-reasoned for a seventeen year old. Build a history you can look back on without regret – or at least, with as little regret as possible. I think, all told, that’s the best we can do. That’s what we humans can hope for: safety, respect, and a collection of memories held without shame.

So when it comes to sex and all its accoutrements here’s my parenting pledge:

-I promise to make talking about sex as natural and open as possible. (We’ve already got quite a track record.)

-I promise to help you access birth control and protection. (Yes, even for the masculine kids in the family.)

-I promise to help you assess what your heart and body is ready for, if you want to talk to me about it.

-I promise to give you accurate information about your body and its needs, to the best of my ability.

-I promise not to shame you for wanting physical contact with someone you care about.

-I promise to do whatever I can to make sex a wonderful, beautiful, joyful thing you give to the one(s) you love.

What will you teach your kids about sex? Any conversational tricks to share? Stories that worked out well? Do tell…

Rachelle Mee-Chapman is a 30-something minister, mother and artist. She is currently living with her husband and 2 school-aged girls in Copenhagen, Denmark; while her teenage boy adopted-by-affection forges his own path back home in Seattle, WA. This piece is available for publication. Contact: moi @ magpie-girl dot com.

Have you noticed that your children leave you at every age and stage? When they stop nursing. When they can crawl into the next room while you are folding laundry. That first bright, merciful day of Kindergarten. The night they’d rather read Harry Potter by themselves than have you read it out loud because they can read it faster. When they hit the age where they can make thier own toast and eat breakfast on their own. …. I thought the leaving thing only knocked the wind out of you when reached the infamous “empty nest” stage. But really, it happens all along the way. I didn’t realize there would be so many passages that leave you breathless, trying to mourn and celebrate in one burning moment.

…….

Leaving Souren has been a little bit like a death. I hate to be so melodramatic, given that there are so many things going on in the world that are ever-so-much harder and more devastating. Leaving your semi-adopted teenager in the States in order to go gallivanting around Europe with your two adorable blood children and a handsome husband—this barely makes a mark on the ‘hardships’ meter. Still, it’s hard, to take a child into your heart and then to say goodbye.

I know, of course, that there is the telephone and internet, and even old fashioned snail mail. But if you’ve ever known, or met, or even grazed shoulders with a teenage boy, you should realize that communication is not, generally speaking, their strong suite.

I knew, when we left, that most communication with Souren would be over. And I’m trying to not put my happiness under his text messaging thumbs. You simply cannot let a teenager take the wheel of your happiness. That’s even more daft than letting them drive your car on prom night.

But at night, when those nasty little buggers come to get me, I am mournful, and I re-think the wisdom of being so nonchalant about grafting a child who is not my own, so firmly onto my family tree. In those dark moments, I write maudlin poetry on the pages of my notebook. (The emotions of my days and nights are so different, sometimes I am left wondering, which is more me?) Though the pain in these overwrought words are real, I have to ask myself, would I hesitate to love this way again…to love this way still? When we are paying attention to the true and the questions, these are the things that come up. These are the ponderings that make up the reality of whom we are and who we are to be. So of course, the answer must always be, ‘amen.’

——

loss is a wolf at the throat,
there, at the front of the neck
where all you cannot swallow
lies exposed and unprotected

the ache and the tear of it,
the way you bleed unchecked

this is what it is
to take another’s child,
graft him deep into your veins.

i cannot recommend it,
this unchecked rushing of the blood
when the graft does not take,
when the bloodline is severed.

even birthing blood ceases with the hours,
after the placenta tears.

but what of that wound
of which nature has no counterpart?
does this blood then run without clot,
without ebbing,
leaving in its wake
more than the womb as hollow?

100 Graces: Mealtime Blessings
Marcia & Jack Kelly

My daughter Cate has always been a pray-er. When she was a toddler she saw “Jesus giving the butterflies food.” She’s never turned back.

We have a family ritual at dinner time of lighting the candles and saying a prayer. This year, for Christmas, Cate got 100 Graces: Mealtime Blessings in her stocking. Now, with the allure of so many choice in such a tiny book, even her sister who is less sold on the whole idea wrangles for a chance to say the dinner time prayer.

100 Graces: Mealtime Blessingsis a simple book:one page, one prayer. It’s ecclectic, multifaith and offers a little something for everyone. Cate’s current favorite:

“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” -Abraham Joshu Heschel

and my current preference:

“O God, bless this food we are about to recieve. Give bread to those who hunger; and hunger for justice to us who have bread.” -a prayer from Nicaragua

Today’s Flavor: An easy ‘Amen.’

Any purchase you make by clicking on an image or title above helps support this website. Find more great books, music, and other sparkly things at Magpie Suggests. Thank you!

Eden, age nine, while playing with these toys from her Kinderegg:

“I’m just an ordinary girl with ordinary dreams. I just want to win this nascar race and bring home a bag of gold to my man.”

Hmm. Is that an improvement from this conversation at age six?

What’s the funniest gender role conversation you’ve had with your kiddos?

Give Me Grace: A Child’s Daybook of Prayers
Cynthia Rylant

Last Fall we went on the Goodbye Cousin’s Tour of Ought-Eight. While we were at my sister’s visiting this adorable nephew (and all the other cute bébés) Cate ordained herself ‘official reader to anyone under six.” Even though she has long outgrown board books, Cate was totally charmed by this pretty one and read it over and over to her two year old cousin. Then, she unabashedly pled with her Auntie Becky to get it for her for Christmas, and low and behold, Give Me Grace arrived via the UPS man. (Who, according to my kids, “is better than Santa!”)

Author-illustrator Cynthia Rylant has beautifully illustrated this sweet book in a style that is not child-ish, but certainly child friendly. When I read it with Cate during morning cuddle time, I enjoy the artwork as much as much as she does. We often flip though the pages find our favorite colorful pages. Cate reads Give Me Grace every night and every morning, though truthfully she no longer needs to book as she memorized the whole thing within a week. There’s a lilting prayer for each day and I can get behind the sentiment in each one – which is rare for me to experience in religious books, especially those written for children! My favorite prayer is for Wednesday:

Wednesday make me full of light
Guide my heart both day and night
Give me gladness, give me grace,
Shine your love upon my face.

Who wouldn’t embrace that as an intentional for the day? Thanks, Cynthia. Today’s Flavor: Colorful and Hopeful.

P.s. another one of my kid’s favorite books by Rylant is the sweet, reminiscent When I Was Young in the Mountains

Any purchase you make by clicking on an image or title above helps support this website. Find more great books, music, and other sparkly things at Magpie Suggests. Thank you!

Eden’s reaction when I told her they have to switch schools again because we couldn’t find a permanent apartment in our current neighborhood:

“I HATE God! Why God, why? Why would you make things work like this?!?!?!” (continued sobbing) “I would LITERALLY rather cut off my hands…cut off my ARMS than have to switch schools again.” (This went on for 20 minutes while we walked home from school.)

And here’s the email I sent Paul yesterday:

“It’s 6:35am and I am already prepared to beat the children.”

I love single parenting.

Catie’s final chalk message on our front porch.

A month ago, Lynette accused us of “slipping away under the cover of night.” She was right, that was what we were planning on—in part because we don’t like big to-do’s, and a goodbye party where all our various worlds collide seemd overwhelming. And frankly, I just don’t like goodbyes. Lynette, however, is ridiculously rich in practical wisdom, so instead of moving in the cover of darkness, we planned a series of small goodbyes–dinners, coffees, and cocktails (especially cocktails.)—and these allowed us to say our thank yous and farewells.

All of this has left me quite tear-sodden. At one point, Katie K, my favorite neighbor, found me crying in the driveway. Why? Because I had to say goodbye to Sean—the cashier at my local grocery store. I know. It seems silly, but this is how we live. I seek out Sean’s line at the grocery store every week. Over time we’ve bemoaned the agony of first-time home buying (a condo purchased with his partner); made plans for a language learning CD (“Chinese the Gay Way”); and celebrated his one year sobriety anniversary. This is how we’ve built our life here in Seattle—by bonding with the grocery clerk, making friends with the neighbor, taking in stray boys and stray dogs. So when it comes to leaving, there is reall stuff, real people to leave—and that is far more difficult than selling a car or packing up a living room.

So I cry–because I won’t be able to sip chai with Jen, or have knit-and-tonic nights with Katie. I cry because I’ll no longer share a big old house with a gaggle of roommates. I cry because I’m ill at ease leaving our newly-legally-adult/quasi-grownup, ( I know Josh and Tonya will have his back, but come on–how’s a boy supposed to survive without unlimited internet and a fridge full of dairy products? ) I cry because I’m ripping my children out of their darling local elementary school, and prying them out of the arms of their sibling best-friends, Noah and Claire, and schlepping them a world away from Rosie, who Eden met the day before kindergarten and they are friends still yet. Not to mention what I’m doing my parents, who retired a year ago planning on full-time grandparent duty and are now wondering what they will do with all that time on their hands.

Then again, children adapt, and friendships survive long distance, and teenagers, well, they get “left” all the time at colleges and boarding schools and…I don’t know, boot camp? (Oh lord, don’t let him sign up for boot camp!) These are not reasons not to go. Ahead of us lies a wonderful adventure. If only I could stop blowing my nose and live into it!

In the midst of all the goodbye’s came many lovely gifts. The Uber-Family took photos of the four kids one day and presented us with an album the next. Rosie’s family threw a goodbye party for all the schoolyard chums. My folks dedicated many hours of grandchild tending while we sorted and packed. And Lynette helped her sweet Pascal make us bookmarks that say, “I will hold your place for you!” (This being exactly the kind of sentiment you would expect from a family who’s liscense plates read YOU MATTER and CONNECT.)
All of these gift are so tender and meaningful. They made us realize that, people like us—and that as much as we are connected to them, they are bonded to us. I really can’t explain how meaningful that is. Everytime I think about it, I’m back to the cry.

Just before we left, Katie read me a poem. It is one her father knows by heart, and she says the last stanza reminds her of our home. I think her reading this to me, after our storytelling-hours, is one of the nicest thing anyone has ever offered me. In reading me this poem, Katie proclaimed that the life Paul and I had hoped for had actually come true. So, when I cry a little too much, I read this poem. It gives me hope that we can again find our way to that magic place.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

A Prayer for My Daughter
William Butler Yeats

Want to read more about the beginning of our immigrant journey? Start here, then move on to this and this
.

Did you give some child-at-heart one of the fantastic books from last week’s recs? Go on, there’s still time. And while you’re shopping, keep these lovely tomes in mind:

How Many Miles To Bethlehem?
Kevin Crossly-Holland, author
Peter Malone, illustrator

“I am Mary. Tight as a drum. Round as the lady moon calling out to me.”

When a story starts like that, well, what a wonder! This simple telling of the nativity story progresses across the page like a holy journey. No character is left un-noticed–even the ox and the donkey get a chance to say their piece. Yet the reader is not bogged down in the telling, but rather carried along like the wind-born feather on the opening leaves of this glorious picture book. In our house we have many, many picture books about the birth of Jesus, but How Many Miles To Bethlehem?is one the girls turn to again and again. Even younger children seem to enjoy the rhythmic text and sumptuous illustrations. I myself was profoundly moved by this book, and regularly recite its closing lines at Christmas time:

“We are the angles. We are your secret voices.
Listen!
‘
This baby!’
‘This hope!’
‘This peace!’”

What more is there to say but, “Amen?” Today’s Flavor: Rich and meaningful. Order here.

The Nativity
Julie Vivas, Illustrator

Paul and I fell in love with the artwork of Julie Vivas after her book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge was read at our seminary graduation. Since then we’ve been snatching up her books like Welcome With Love and Possum Magic. But our favorite by far is Vivas’ cleverly illustrated Nativity. This version of the story pairs the classic tone of the King James text with quirky, imaginative illustrations. The angels wear combat boots! They drink bowls of chai with Mary! And Mary looks really, REALLY enormously pregnant — plus, she kinda has dreads. The just-right knack here is the way vivas pairs old fashioned languaged with updated images to giving us a fresh look at this unchanging tale. And just wait until you see the clever way she illustrates the crowing birth of baby Jesus! We’ve given this book to godsons and aunties, illustrator pals and grandparents. We think you’ll love it too. Flavor: Earthy and transcendent. Order here.

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