Why Two-Step Cleansing?

plus, M returns

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On a recent visit to Tokyo, my granddaughter, M, introduced me to a new friend at lunch. “So,” I said to the girls, “you guys meet at work?”

My question evoked a fit of giggles from M’s friend. But M, with an eyeroll and a patient tone you might use on a bewildered toddler said, “Grammie, we’re six. We don’t work! We met at school.”

“Oh, right, of course.”

The conversation quickly moved on to favorite pizza toppings but I wondered how long I’d be able to carry on my silliness with M before she’d want a more… reality-based Grammie. She’s still delighted to engage with her puppet fiancé, Monkey-Monkey, even when she can see me speaking in his high, squeaky voice next to him. I’m just not ready for him to retire.

Though I remember loving every phase of my son’s development, I don’t want this stage with M to end—partly because she is so voluble and engaging and up for anything.

“You inspire me, Baby,” I told her a few days ago over FaceTime. She’d said she’d fallen hard in the park and scraped her knee, but cried only a little because she was able to talk herself into feeling okay again.

“What’s inspire?”

“You make me want to do things better,” I said.

I was tempted to tell her I wanted her never to change. But that’s not really true: What I don’t want to change is her unrestrained, lusty imagination; her incessant curiosity; her sturdy and implacable confidence.

And I fear for her development: A 2018 poll surveying 1,300 girls between ages eight to 18 and their parents found that between the ages of eight and 14, girls’ confidence levels nosedive by 30%. This information isn’t new, but the story is getting worse; according to a 2023 report, the levels of distress typically seen in middle or high school girls are now apparent in girls as young as eight. Since 2017, girls’ confidence levels are lower; their perceptions of their abilities, including perceptions of themselves as leaders, have significantly declined; and they’re more likely to report increased stress, pressure and depression. The decline is most evident among 5^th to 8^th graders.

The role social media plays in all this is probably enormous, which suggests that controlling exposure might have a modulating effect. Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, authors of the book, The Confidence Code for Girls, say recent research shows that when girls follow high-achieving women on social media who share their interests, their worldviews expand. Still, the numbers are shocking and concerning.

M says when she grows up she wants to be an astronaut and a doctor. I’m not crazy about the astronaut idea, but I hope nothing ever gets in her way of setting her sights on the moon.

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