The Talk After the Talk: The Most Important Lesson Sex Ed Leaves Out. Article 4/5
If there is one question parents ask us repeatedly, it is this: What can I do to help my daughter recognize her dignity and refuse to give herself to someone who does not honor it?
The answer is not simply a stricter set of rules. As parents innately understand, formation begins with relationship; not a relationship in which the parent must become the child’s “best friend,” but one in which the child feels loved, secure, and protected.
A girl needs to know that even when she cannot yet recognize what is best for her, there are trustworthy adults willing to protect her dignity and guide her toward it. Rules may establish boundaries, but relationships help a girl understand why those boundaries exist and what they are protecting.
Body literacy can open the door
A Chilean evaluation of the Teen STAR program offers an important example. Teen STAR combines fertility and body-literacy education with formation in relationships, responsibility, and decision-making.
Among girls who were not sexually active when the study began, only 3.4% of program participants initiated sexual activity, compared with 12.4% of girls in the control group. In other words, girls who did not receive the program were more than three times as likely to begin having sex during the study period. The results suggest that education about the body may be more effective when it is connected to relationships, responsibility, and a deeper understanding of the person. (Vigil et al., 2005; Teen STAR study report)
One of the most beautiful things about body literacy is that it is inherently relational. It can strengthen communication between a woman and her spouse, a girl and her mother, or a young woman and the mentors and friends who accompany her.
A girl needs to know the anatomy and function of her body, but relationships that move beyond gossip, appearances, and everyday small talk may teach her even more about her worth. Body literacy helps create those deeper conversations because:
It gives mothers and daughters a natural reason to speak regularly.
It teaches a girl that pain and other symptoms deserve attention rather than dismissal.
It shows her that her body is intelligible, purposeful, and worthy of care.
Body literacy is not merely the transfer of biological information. At its best, it becomes a language through which women learn to notice, listen, ask questions, and care for one another.
Girls need women who show them how to become women
This idea complements an argument Dr. Leonard Sax makes in Girls on the Edge: girls need more than information and achievement. They need enduring intergenerational relationships within the context of a community of other women and a sense of identity that is not built solely upon appearance, popularity, or performance. (Leonard Sax, Girls on the Edge)
Mothers, grandmothers, teachers, coaches, and mentors show girls what mature womanhood looks like in ordinary life. When a girl’s formation comes primarily from peers, influencers, and entertainment, her understanding of worth can become closely tied to attention and approval. An intergenerational community offers something more durable: identity, perspective, belonging, and a vision of the woman she is becoming.
This community is necessary for mothers, too. It reminds them that they are not alone in the difficulties of raising a daughter and gives them wise women with whom they can seek advice without shame. It also helps a girl recognize that her mother’s beliefs are not merely arbitrary restrictions; they may reflect wisdom shared and lived by women across generations.
The health research illustrates just how deeply human beings need connection. A meta-analysis combining 148 studies and more than 308,000 participants found that people with stronger social relationships had approximately 50% greater odds of survival during the studies’ follow-up periods than people with weak or insufficient relationships. (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton, 2010) If isolation can affect adults so profoundly, we should consider what it may do to a mother who believes she must carry every struggle alone. Shame, exhaustion, and insecurity can make honest conversations with her daughter more difficult. A community of women does not replace the mother–daughter relationship; it strengthens the women within it. Without that community, mothers and daughters may begin constructing an image of who they “should” be from the shows, influencers, and other media they consume alone in their rooms.
What television teaches us to value
Researchers Yalda Uhls and Patricia Greenfield conducted a content analysis of the two most popular television programs among American preteens in each decade from 1967 through 2007. They found a significant shift in the values portrayed:
Value | 1967 ranking | 2007 ranking |
Community feeling | 1st | 11th |
Benevolence and helping others | 2nd | 12th |
Tradition | 4th | 15th |
Achievement | 10th | 2nd |
Financial success | 12th | 5th |
Fame | 15th | 1st |
