Guiding young girls onto career paths

I went to a parochial all-girls high school in nearby Delaware County. At the time, I failed to recognize the advantage of studying French, geometry and history without the presence of boys.

But I sure do now.

For one thing, I circumvented a common behavior among girls to defer to their male counterparts. I learned to speak out confidently and often; learning in was part of daily life.

For another, I never thought only men had the smarts to enter highly difficult fields such as engineering. I knew I had options other than becoming a nurse, teacher or secretary – great occupations unless you wanted to become a writer, speaker, artist, accountant or dentist.

Finally, the nuns expected my classmates and me to get a higher education to prepare ourselves for challenging careers. I didn’t know until adulthood that many girls of my generation were sent to college by their parents to find well-heeled husbands. Did I luck out or what? Fast forward to today’s world and, I am thrilled to observe, many teen-age girls have made tremendous inroads in preparing themselves for the workforce.

One result: enrollment in both law and medical schools is now over 50 percent female.

But all is not perfect in the land of adolescent girls, who are the employees, executives and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

According to psychological research, young women today often are diverted from career goals by pressures to have plumped out lips rather than good report cards.

“In a way, every girl in America grows up in front of a mirror,” writes Tina Rosenberg in the current issue of National Geographic. “The normal existential struggles of teens such as ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Am I worthy of love and respect?’ are too often channeled through another question, ‘How do I look?’ For girls, the most significant social pressures they face as teens are to conform to conventional standards of beauty.”

These days, anonymous bullies often exacerbate the situation by victimizing their peers with labels such as “fat slob” or “ugly slut” on the Internet.

Little wonder suicide is a major problem among sensitive teens.

Another advantage from my distant past: my classmates and I all wore dark brown uniforms. They were jumpers with a blouse underneath. By any standard, they were just plain ugly. I was so little concerned about my appearance in school that I ironed only the sleeves and the collar of the blouse, leaving the body a wrinkled mess. Who cared? In a book called “Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teen-Age Girls,” author Nancy Jo Sales depicts a new and troubling youth

culture based on likes, hearts and swipes.

“One of the fastest ways to feel valued on the Internet is to look hot,” Sales writes. “Sex sells, whether you are 13 or 35.”

Note to Myself: Thank heaven I could schlep around in high school looking colder than Antarctica.

So how can parents, teachers and other concerned adults keep their daughters, students and others focused on issues that will enable them to survive and thrive once they hit their 20s and beyond?

• Appreciate individuality. By the time girls

are tweens, they already may be damaged by unrealistic societal standards for women. So start early praising a child for her activities in the Spanish Club rather than on Twitter or Instagram. And, if she looks more like comedian Roseanne Bar than reality maven Kim Kardashian, so be it.

• Point out reality. Many magazines routinely feature rail-thin actresses air brushed within an inch of their already tiny waists. The deception is so rampant that model Cindy Crawford says she often does not recognize her own photographs. And get this. Crawford repeatedly has told interviewers that she, too, wants to look like the Photoshopped Cindy Crawford.

• Look for early manifestations.

I read a lot of biographies of accomplished people. For years I have noticed that most acclaimed men and women showed at an early age a profound interest in their adult passions. Fashion designer Coco Chanel, for example, learned to sew as a child in a French orphanage. Aviator Amelia Earhart built a roller coaster in her backyard to experience the feeling of flying. Physicist Marie Curie associated early on with scientifically inclined kids. Pay attention when your daughter tinkers with computers or makes over her bedroom. You may have a budding information technologist or interior designer under your roof.

• Encourage positive friendships. Recently, I

was in a restaurant and privy to a conversation by three adolescent girls. Frequently using words such as “goals” and “objectives,” one talked about her plans to become a psychiatrist. Another spoke about courses she was taking to prepare herself for a career in law. A third, who was only 13, mentioned that her first choice in colleges was Harvard University. But, she added, she also had Plans B,C, D and E. None of the girls ever brought up boys. Or cosmetics.

• Limit media exposure. In today’s cellphone era, of course, this tactic is easier said than done. But, if your daughter seems to spend too much time checking out websites by celebrities such as singer Taylor Swift, actress

Selena Gomez or model Bella Hadid, you may want to redirect her into unplugged activities such as soccer or acrobatics. As the old saying goes, a healthy mind goes hand in hand with a healthy body.

• Find role models. If you and your spouse are both teachers with a daughter who wants to become a jet pilot, contact airlines about possible mentoring opportunities. Or, better yet, introduce her to a woman down the street who flies helicopters. In my opinion, there is little better than giving a young girl a chance to see her dreams actualized by a real person.

• Check out camps. Within the past year, young girls in my life have attended day or overnight summer programs

in a mind boggling array of subjects: ballet, Internet security, entrepreneurship, forensic science and cooking. I see all sorts of career possibilities ahead. Did I mention that, when I was 15, my high school arranged for a scholarship to send me to a six-week journalism camp at a major university in Washington, D.C.? At the risk of repeating myself, did I luck out or what?