The Wonder of Girls: Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters

I am a working mother of three children - a son and two daughters. I bought The Good Son, Shaping the Moral Development of our Boys & Young Men by Michael Gurian, and picked up The Wonder of Girls, Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters, also written by Gurian, simply because if I'm going to buy a book about the boy, as an Equal Opportunity Parent, I feel compelled to buy a book about the girls, even though I generally feel much more confident in my ability to parent my girls than I do my son. After I bought these books, I checked some reviews and was a little put off by one review that classified The Wonder of Girls as an attempt of a man trying to tell women what their nature was when he, by nature, could never have a true understanding of women. I decided to start with The Wonder of Girls because, frankly... it's the shorter of the two. And I was a girl once upon a time, so I figure reading it will be like eating cotton candy... sweet but requiring little effort. I couldn't have been more wrong, and I find myself rereading passages many times. Gurian includes a great deal of scientific detail, neurological information about how male and female hormones shape our reactions and development, and debunks a great deal of the argument that boy and girl behavior is all due to socialization. Gurian doesn't dismiss it entirely, nor does he try to assert that generalizations about the biological nature of women are absolute for every woman, but makes a very strong case that while socialization plays a role in behavior, socialization has been overemphasized and biology has been grossly underemphasized. I don't know a mother who hasn't lamented on the difference between her boys and girls... even mothers who, like me, have been committed to raising sensitive young men who are not afraid of their emotions and who, like me, are committed to non-violence... mothers who have banned toy weapons and violent media, only to find her preschooler happily shooting her with the pistol he made from Lego's or Connex (you know, those toys we buy in part because they are CONSTRUCT-ive rather than DESTRUCT-ive) in a gleeful game of cops and robbers that he is happy to play all by himself. If these mothers are also blessed with girls, they've often compared and contrasted stories of their girls turning their brothers' toys into babies, and sticking baby dolls under their shirts to nurse them. Sometimes I reread a passage several times to fully let the meaning sink in, or to examine some of the knee jerk reactions I feel and separate what I have been taught from the truth that I have always felt to be true. There is a very strong emphasis on mothering in this book (and for the record, there is also a section in the same chapter about fathering), and also an emphasis on the fact that was we mother our daughters, we are shaping future mothers. I'm not so young that I don't remember being told, perhaps not in such blunt terms, what and where "my place" is.

Wow, there sure are a lot of angry feminists out there. They obviously need to get a "3 Family system" going in their lives! But enough, here is the book review. I felt that this book lent many insights into the makeup (emotional and physical) of girls in a very positive light. Being the Dad to a 7 yr old girl, I have noticed sooooo many differences between her and her twin brother. Why does He like sports, she likes dolls? It has been this way her entire life and now it makes sense. It is very biologically based with hormones leading the way. This book will help you prepare for the future; for me, the adolescent girl. It will help you understand what to expect, prepare for, and handle as your girl gets older. My only critique is that the book has little in the way or charts, pics or tables. It would help those of us who are time pressed, like we full-time Dads!!! Enjoy this read...........I am going to get his book on "Wonder of Boys" next......

What is up with people? I am stay-home mother, a very independent soul, and have an education background in early and elementary education. i found this book to be wonderful. i have referred it to all of my friends. i learned not only so much about my daughter and our relationship but also about myself and my relationships growing up. It is a book written with great insight from a father with girls and an extensive research and education background and a wife with the same. It is also approached from a standpoint from mostly biological research and parallels in cross-cultures. A must read!

There is not a mysogynistic cell in my entire anatomy, and yet I've never quite been able to accept that 'feminist' dictum of Helen G. Brown and her crowd. Camile Paglia at least makes sense to me, though I really had no hard facts to back up my feelings. Well, Michael Gurian certainly does. This book isn't an attack on feminism in any form; it's a celebration of the the differences between girls and their other primate companions, referred to as boys, males, or sometimss men. We are not the same, and this book explains why without apology; it applauds the female person for her wonder, her specialness, and her many advantages in life, without diminishing her male counterparts in the process. I've watched women all my life, including three daughters who are now out and on their own. That development is a compendium of miracles and unfathomable mysteries to me. How I wish I'd had this book when they were a bit younger, back when they came to me hoping I might understand what I could not at that time. If you have a daughter, buy the book!

I wasn't exactly thrilled to be reading a book called the The Wonder of Girls - especially as it's written by a chap - novelist, poet, neurobiological researcher, psychologist, husband & father of two girls notwithstanding! I was dreading it would be either incomprehensibly technical or a sappy, feel-good read. I should have known better because I had already reviewed Michael Gurian's A Fine Young Man & had found this author to be personable, charmingly thoughtful & invaluably informative.Through research, memories, poems, letters, family moments & professional cases Michael Gurian sets out to inform us Why Girls Are the Way They Are. In his simple, direct & pleasant way he starts at the beginning of the search for A New Logic of Girls' Lives. He presents precisely & calmly that it is time for Feminists to grow up & become Womanists. As an erstwhile rabid Feminist, I have long since outgrown its angst. In Looking Beyond Feminism: Old Myths and New Theories, Michael Gurian catches up to me & explains how Feminism might now be what's keeping us back. Biology, Feminist ideals notwithstanding, still rules supreme & if we don't know how we work, then we don't know why we're doing what we're doing.One vital passage: Girls' Stress Responses needs to be read by everyone: "When a child is under inordinate stress for a prolonged period...her brain development will definitely be affected. She will be "rewired" neurologically...The stress hormone, cortisol,(as well as adrenal and other "lower" brain functions) have dominated brain growth...and this affects normal brain growth patterns." Why then, are we surprised by the depression in all our early adolescent girls?In Part II: What Girls Need, we explore The Artful Mother: What Girls Need from Mom. "There are natural stages to a woman's life, and every daughter wants to know what they are...The womanist philosophy, concerned heavily with the natural stages of a woman's life, is useful...because it is a path to freedom, not social constriction...It is a middle ground between the old view: a woman must stay home - and the feminist view: a woman must conquer the workplace." In this section we think about Providing Childcare; Discipline; Spanking; Teaching Manners; The Importance of Chores; The Beginnings of Spiritual Life; Media Use; Holding Clear Authority; Dealing With Whining; Teaching Your Girls to Enjoy Their Noble Failures; Handling An Angry Girl; Your Daughter's Sadness; Her Pulls to Autonomy; The Issue of Privacy; The Battle Over Clothing; Rites of Passage. There is even a section on How to be an Artful Stepmother!On to The Gifts of The Father: What Girls Need from Dad. A Father's Love "can make or break a girl." Father-Attachment; Our Fatherless Daughters; The Gift of Presence; of Independence; of Adventure and Laughter; of Affection; of Discipline and Self-Restraint; Helping a Daughter Manage Peer Relationships. In Fathers, Daughters, and Divorce we think about the gifts separated fat