Toxic Messaging We Received as Girls That We Need to Stop Repeating to Our Daughters (& Ourselves!)
Healthy attachment with mother and child playing outside.
The words we hear growing up stick with us for a long time. This is an unfortunate reality we face as teens, young adults, and now as we’re raising daughters of our own. Toxic messaging for girls—about how to dress, how to act, how to be—has made for a more difficult childhood, adolescence, and adulthood than any girl deserves.
This transmission of harmful and toxic messages can be particularly notable in mother and daughter relationships, so being very mindful about the messaging we reinforce is a critical part of raising strong and confident daughters. Part of combatting this toxic messaging is rewriting the script we use when we speak to ourselves so that we can be the role models our daughters deserve.
The Harm of Toxic Messaging
Toxic messaging can cause hurt feelings, disappointment, fear, and stress. But even more concerning than the immediate harm from toxic messaging, is the long-term vulnerability it builds in girls who become vulnerable women.
An insistence that girls be both passive and parentified, responsible for the actions of others, and held back from expressing their own thoughts and needs builds a dangerous blend of characteristics. It’s not a far jump to see how this messaging leads to girls, and then women, who are easier to abuse, assault, and harm. Particularly so when you consider that girls and women are taken less seriously generally in society, so reporting abuse or assault becomes more difficult as a direct result of this toxic messaging
Even on a less extreme scale, many women find themselves in challenging situations at home and in their careers, constantly navigating the conflicting expectations of passivity and parentification. Trauma therapy can play a pivotal role in helping women heal from the effects of toxic messaging and empowering them to reclaim their agency, build resilience, and establish healthier boundaries. By acknowledging the impact of these harmful dynamics and seeking professional support, women can break free from the cycle of vulnerability and create a brighter future for themselves and future generations.
Common Toxic Messaging Daughters Receive
Do any of these dynamics sound familiar? Girls are often pressured into particular behaviors when young, particularly within a mother-and-daughter relationship. This leads to stressful patterns in childhood, difficult to untangle and relearn, that persist into adulthood:
People Pleasing: “I must consider other’s feelings first.”
Girls are often tasked with making sure others are comfortable at the expense of their own needs and wants. Demanding that effort at a girl’s expense is toxic and often extends into pervasive people-pleasing in adulthood, at the expense of a woman’s well-being.
Perfectionism: “I must perform the best to be worthy of love.”
Expecting nothing less than the best, with mistakes being considered character flaws instead of normal parts of the human experience, are common pressures placed on girls, in school, at home, and through media. This can be intensely stressful and destructive, leading to burnout, emotional difficulties, depression, and anxiety in adulthood.
Passiveness, or “keeping sweet”: “I shouldn’t speak up, it would only cause trouble.”
Accepting poor treatment, less than she deserves, and the demand to be nice about it to boot, is a common demand of girls. This suppression of healthy and normal emotional reactions is both harmful and can end up making girls and women easier to exploit.
Parentification: “My only value is in what I can provide for others.”
Demanding girls manage the emotions of their parents and siblings, and the day-to-day operations of their household at responsibility levels that are far higher than what’s age-appropriate is very common. This builds a tendency when a girl becomes an adult, to suppress her own needs, until a tipping point is reached and a woman breaks down or blows up.
Given all the messages above, it’s not uncommon to force girls to put aside their needs. Even in adulthood, you may struggle to seek out the support of a trauma therapist, and it makes sense why. Requests for therapy or mental health support may have been denied, reinforcing the idea that your needs are an afterthought and one that shouldn’t be expressed since it might be considered embarrassing to the family. This leads to an adulthood aversion to self-care or self-prioritization in women, when things like trauma therapy, mindfulness, and building an honest and open community around her, are what would be most helpful in a woman’s life.
Raising Strong and Confident Daughters & Reparenting Ourselves
While these types of toxic messages are common intergenerationally, and you likely received plenty of them yourself, it is possible to break the cycle of toxic messaging that harms women and girls. Changing how you speak to and teach your daughter now (and how you talk to yourself) can reap the rewards of increased resilience, self-confidence, and future emotional and physical well-being and safety.
Here are some alternatives to consider for the common messages we detailed above. These may not be the right words for your daughter, but the messages you may have wished you received growing up still apply.
To combat people pleasing, try “It’s okay to consider how you will be affected.” (You deserve to be a part of the equation)
To combat perfectionism, try “Your worth is not tied to how well you perform. ”
To combat passiveness, try “Your comfort matters enough to cause a little trouble.”
To combat parentification, try “Even on an off-day, you have inherent value.”
Help Heal Your Inner Child from Years of Toxic Messaging
Changing how you speak to yourself and your daughters is an important step in the cultural revolution of women who no longer want to remain chained to the messaging they received in their youth about who they are and who they might become. Reimagine Her Therapy offers EMDR therapy to target specific memories and trauma therapy to help you structure a life that is no longer tethered to these limiting beliefs.
Together, we can break free from the harmful patterns of toxic messaging, creating a supportive and empowering environment for ourselves and our daughters. If you would like to explore this further or seek guidance and are located in IL, TX, SC, or FL, I invite you to schedule a free consultation with Robin today!
