Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [5]
And finally you'll feel an amazing sense of relief as you let the gutsy girl out from her hiding place inside of you. It's wonderful to go home at night and not have to feel the ache in your cheeks from holding a frozen smile in place all day long.
CHAPTER TWO
Are You Trapped in the Good-Girl Role?
I hope by now you're itching to read the strategies in this book and embark on a gutsier approach to your career. But before you do, it's important to do a little prep work.
First, you should spend time thinking about how your good-girl habits evolved. When you trace the pattern backward it's not only illuminating, but you're likely to end at a point in time when you were spunky, adventurous, and unafraid—and that can be very inspiring.
Next, you should figure out how the good girl in you operates. When is she most likely to take over? What effect has she had on your career up until now? Warning: It may be less obvious than you realize. Good-girlism, you see, is very sneaky, and wears a variety of surprising disguises.
WHERE DO GOOD GIRLS COME FROM?
Good girls, I believe, are made, not born. In the past decade there's been a lot written about how women learn to put their own needs last and suppress their voices. Much of my understanding on this subject comes from conversations I've had with Ron Taffel, Ph.D., an extraordinary child psychologist and author of Why Parents Disagree, who writes “The Confident Parent” column for McCall's. Recruiting Dr. Taffel was one of the first steps I took after I got the job, because to me he had the freshest, most exciting views in the field of parenting. He works with individual kids and parents in therapy, and he also runs workshops for parents across the country.
According to Dr. Taffel, the seeds of the good girl are planted very early as a daughter observes the way the individuals in her home interact with each other and absorbs the messages her parents send.
While watching her mother day in and day out, she discovers the thousands of ways her mother takes care of everybody else. “A mother assumes primary responsibility for her family's needs,” says Taffel. “When a father does participate, its known as ‘helping out.’”
The mother, even if she has a job, makes the arrangements for school, for play dates, meals, holidays, celebrations, dentist and doctor appointments, vacations, and trips to relatives. She buys the clothes, the underwear, the shoes, the toothbrushes, the birthday gifts (for her own kids as well as her kids’ friends), the books, the Play-Doh and the paint sets. She drives for the car pool, makes the snacks, applies the Band-Aids, wipes the noses, cleans up the spills and messes, supervises the homework, calls the teacher, gets the camp applications, writes the thank-you notes. … It never stops.
A mother's responsibility includes not merely doing all these things, but constantly thinking about them, keeping a mental calendar and to-do list going day and night—what Taffel calls “The Endless List of Childrearing.” This mental list is her province alone. It's safe to say that if she doesn't ever get around to calling the orthodontist for a consultation, someone will have a lifelong overbite.
She is also what Taffel calls the family “gatekeeper,” the possessor of critical information. If a child wants to know where to find a clean pair of socks or a library book he was reading, there is only one parent who knows for sure.
The message a daughter hears through all this is that one of the most important jobs a female has is considering and taking care of others’ needs, and in the process that often involves putting her own needs aside.
That's not all that's going on. In her home. Dr. Taffel explains, a daughter is also encouraged to be “the best little girl in the world.” When she takes a toy from another