During class last week, I couldn't help but notice the amount of people who raised their hands and shared personal stories of being bullied or intimidated in some way by the "mean girls" from their past. It's something we can laugh about sometimes, but it is also something that every girl seems to clearly remember and probably always will. After class, when I searched just the words mean girls in Google, I was not surprised at what I found: numerous books about mean girls as adults or getting over mean girls as adults.
The main one I looked at was Mean Girls Grown Up: Adult Women Who Are Still Queen Bees, Middle Bees, and Afraid-to-Bees (Paperback)by Cheryl, PhD Dellasega, although, there were links to several others. There were books about dealing with mean girls who are now mean adults and books about how to get over the emotional damage caused by the interactions with mean girls during childhood and youth. This book deal with both of those issues, it seems. Some reader reviews seemed to like that these issues were being dealt with while other reviews criticized the solutions offered, claiming that the damage done could not be so easily repaired.
So what does this contribute to class? I think it's interesting to see how our childhood interactions affect us later in life. I'm sure that we didn't think that the table we sat at in the cafeteria in junior high would have an effect on the people we became years later. In the same way, I wonder how much of an effect the children's literature we were exposed had on us. If interactions with other people are still affecting us years later, what about the ideas and ideals that were being offered to us through children's literature?
This leads me to think about 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore in a different way. While some people may think the book seems like a bad influence on the present child, I think many adults are overlooking what effect the book may have on the child later in life. This seems to happen alot when examining children's literature; we seem to forget that while we are reading to the child, we are also reading to the adult that the child will become. Perhaps remembering this fact would help us to look at books about mischevious children (girl, in particular) in a different way.
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I agree that the connection between children's literature (and the morals proposed by children's literature)and the future adult the child becomes is a huge, underlying issue that can strangely be overlooked. When I was thinking of "17 Things," and how so many parents and teachers are wary about the ending because it lacks remorse and a moral, I understood it as adults being afraid of their children running wild, of their children not listening to them, as being afraid of their children, basically. But the other issue this wariness brings up is the fear brought up in the "Mean Girls Grown Up" book--that if we don't instill rules of order into our children, these "mean" kids will grow up to be "mean" adults. Imagining an adult doing the kinds of things the girl in "17 Things" does is pretty terrifying, and I think this terror helps explain the aversion a lot of adults have to the book.
This reminds me--I was just talking to my friend about how I thought that the popular kids television shows from when we were younger (which he didn't watch,)may have instilled our generation with a different sense of humor than the television shows on today will for the kids watching them. I wonder if books could have a similar communal effect on a generation or generations of adults, if they are read by many children (Harry Potter, for instance) and how slowly this effect might change for different generations compared to television, since "classic" children's books can hang around for awhile (Tom Sawyer...)
I thought that this was a very interesting and timely reflection on the lasting effects of the "mean girl" phenomenon - it will be interesting to see the kinds of adults that these young women become. I also felt that this idea is (of course) related to bullying. A friend of mine was bullied as a child and I always find myself surprised when I see how much it has affected the adult that she has become; she mentors students who are bullied, as well as mentoring some of the bullies. But I wonder: when looking at children's literature and the affect that it has on children/the adults they become, is it overly dramatic to suggest that something like "17 Things" would really create wild and unruly adults? I don't know that we can answer this question quite yet, as I don't even think that this kind of children's book was around when I was younger. What do you think?
I really enjoyed the part at the end of the post about the effect of children's literature on the adults reading to their kids. Children's books are in part marketed to parents, mostly because 4-year-olds don't tend to carry all that much cash on them. Also, children's editors are adults, and they understand that adults are the ones forced to read the books, so they try to make them at least marginally interesting for older audiences. (This is also showing up in a lot of recent kids movies, which often include hidden, more adult bits of humor to entertain the ones that often buy the tickets.) It had never occurred to me, however, that a kid's book could blatantly also be a parenting guide. I can see how "12 Things" could be used in parenting and expected parent training courses (if those exists).
I think it's really interesting to consider the idea of childrens literature and how it shapes kids and ultimately adults. It's a fine line to think about the idea that books do change who we are as people. That is to say, do "bad" books effect us as intensely as "good" books do? I would venture to say that almost everyone has experienced a book that has changed them, become part of who they are, etc. But is that to say that "bad" books are just as influential? Perhaps?
I also find it realllllly interesting that books are held more accountable than the media, cartoons, video games, etc. Books are banned, video games are rarely protested. Libraries often have movies and video games to rent, but I don't think people are up in arms about them...I wonder what makes books so threatening to people...
I think that many of us were affected by mean girls growing up but I'm not sure how many people are still affected to this today. Middle and high school breeds this type of culture of backstabbing and decite but after high school the mean girl attitude seems to back down because you can be friends with whomever you choose and don't have to see people who you don't want to on a daily basis (except for work). It seems kind of crazy to me that so many people would be affected long after they are away from the school setting. We can look back and see things that hurt us then, but do they really continue to haunt us today. I can understand if someone was completely tortured as a child to still have side effects but I can't see this as the case for most people. Along with that the books that we are given as children I dont' see having as much affect on us as some people think. I see it as more of what is reinforced in the home and school as what the child see's as important. I see these social interactions playing a more important role in what a child thinks is right and wrong.
I think your discussion of whether/how bullying continues to impact a victim, even decades later, is really insightful. Reading Lamb's "Secret Lives of Girls" was upsetting for me because I couldn't stop thinking about the victims of these "small-time" girl crimes that the bullies jokingly reminisced about. Their stories, where they justified their cruelty as a form of conditioning for the weaker girls they tormented, made me wish that the victims were interviewed as well. For some reason, the story of the girl who was almost shoved in front of a car really haunted me. It seemed that the narrator continued to be a bully, and her portrayal of her childhood friend as pathetic and deserving of her tyranny really made me mad and defensive; I wonder how the bullied woman in this situation would've reacted to the retelling of the story.
To add a little bit to what Mandy commented on, I think that video games and media don't necessarily get off scott free as much as we think they do. Namely, because whenever there is unfortunately an act of violence, such as a school shooting, attention is immediately placed upon TV and video games.
Then again, that's really about all TV and video games do get isn't it, attention? Nothing really happens afterward. The show isn't taken off the air nor is the game taken off the market. If anything, more emphasis on Ratings (like TV-14, Y, G, etc.) and Parental Controls occur.
The only rare example I can think of a video game change was what happened with "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". Originally, in one cut scene, a character was bleeding. After protest, the game makers decided to change the color, for all upcoming copies, of the blood from red to green, dubbing it more "fantasy-like". Not much of a difference if you ask me.
As for what could make a book so threatening to people, aside from influences, I agree that that is a real good question!
I definetly agree with your observations about mean girls and think that girls who are "mean" and do not comprehend the effects of thier behavior grow up to be mean adults as well. As a future teacher, I am worried about this issue in the classrooms and think about ways I can deal with this ongoing problem. It also seems to me that this mean girl phenomenon is affecting children at younger ages than ever before. I feel that this problem needs not to be underestimated and it should be corrected when girls are young so that the mean behavior does not stick with them as adults.
I found Molly Stump's comment on the lasting affects of these situations and children's literature very interesting and I would like to disagree. I think the reason the affects of the mean girl bullying are so lasting are two fold. One is that the victims are young and sheltered, making smaller offenses bigger in their lives and their memories in relation to the world. Perhaps if you or I were teased for, say, wearing glasses, it would seem almost comical and we would be able to blow off the comment because we've got bigger things to worry about: like paying rent. The second is that female aggression is mostly relational and under the radar of many authority figures. One child comes to you as a teacher and says 'Judy is making fun of me." There is no cut, no physical sign for an authority figure to base a decision on how to proceed. This may lead to a greater sense of injustice in the victim and an emboldened bully, both of which are consequences that may easily be carried into adulthood. As for the affect of children's literature on a child, I think it depends on how much of a focus is placed on the literature in the household. My sister and I had a very strong literary backdrop to our upbringing and have both had the experience of agreeing with a book more than with our parents. This may be a rarity, but I'll testify by personal experience that it's there.
I thought this was a very interesting reflection on another way to read children's literature that I completely agree with. The examples that were discussed in class about how students who reacted to this book where they asked where the punishment was, and how she could get away with it, that shows good signs for as these children grow up and they will use the message of this book constructively. Often, I too, think we forget how maybe its not so important what the message is to us and how we view it FOR the children, but how the children view it for themselves.
I really agree that mean teenagers grow up to be mean adults. This, of course, is not true in all cases. I do think that people change, but I think that many people do not change as well. I recently read a news story about a young girl who committed suicide because of mean things that an ex best friend said to her on the Internet. The insults were so awful that the young girl could not bear it. Now, that story alone is awful enough, but there's more. The person fueling the taunting of the girls victim? The mean girls mother. She wanted revenge. She had mean things to say. Was she a mean girl in high school? Probably. Many mean girls do not change. Many go on to cause even more damage in somebody's life. Check out the story at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/miranda-devine/a-modern-parent-trap/2007/12/08/1196813079673.html
My mother works in management in the financial wing of a hospital; nearly all the accountants that work under her are female. She has begun to say she is on her way to "highschool" when she is going to work, and loves telling me about all the ridiculous catty things that go on. Women talk about each other behind their backs instead of doing work; they'll institute "no-speaking-to-this-girl" if she offends the wrong person; they ostracize anyone who's different from them. These women are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. My mother went to highschool with a lot of these women, and has said that there is virtually no difference between their behavior then and their behavior now. They even eat their lunches in cliques.
I think a poignant question is: how do we break the cycle? How do we stop mean girls growing up and raising their children to be mean girls as well? What will it take to make a generation of girls stop being mean?
I think that often it is very sad to see that parents, rather than simply be involved in their children's lives complain that the material they don't want their children to see exists in the first place. It is very easy for parents who work and have busy lives to make time to pay attention to eveything that their child is spending their time on, but it is a responsibility they chose to undertake when they became parents. Kids left to entirely draw their own conclusions about video games, movies, and books are likely going to be independently minded, no doubt about that, but they're also going to be getting most of the influences on their beliefs and future values from whatever media they're consuming without their parents knowledge. What children read, watch, or play does effect who they will become, but it is not the creators of these media's responsibilities to consider the long term effects of their artform on the children. It is rather the parent's job to decide what is appropriate for their child to read, watch, or play in order to become a responsible, mature, and hopefully kind adult.
This post was very interesting. It demonstrates just how harmful gossip about someone can be in high school with the fact that there is a book about how to cope. I agree that "mean girls" can grow up to be "mean women". Personally, there was a clique of girls in my high school that were "mean girls" and most of them are still friends today and are still mean. Maybe not as mean as they were in high school, but still. Also, I can understand why parents would be upset by the ending of "17 Things" because of the message it sends to children.
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