KC Lemson

“Few moments in life spark more maturation than when a young person recognizes that her parents have strengths and limitations that were in place long before she came along and that will be there long after she moves out. In letting go of the dream of turning you into the perfect parent, your daughter recovers a lot of energy that has been devoted to being angry with you, feeling hurt by you, or trying to change you.”
― Lisa Damour, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood

“In good marriages, partners can help their children appreciate what they should and shouldn’t take personally in the other parent’s behavior. My husband has told our daughters that I’ve been clean crazy for as long as he’s known me and that he stopped taking it personally years ago.”
― Lisa Damour, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood

“And that—Bella’s overweening blandness—as much as the guilty-pleasure rescue fantasy, may explain the series’ appeal: Twilight’s heroine is so insipid, so ordinary, so clumsy, so Not Hot. Isn’t that great? Think about it: what a relief that must be for girls who feel constant pressure to be physically, socially, and academically perfect! Bella does not spend two hours with a flatiron, ace her calculus test, score the winning goal in her lacrosse match, then record a hit song. Bella does not spout acidly witty dialogue. Bella does not wear $200 jeans on her effortlessly slim hips.”
― Peggy Orenstein, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture

“Talking about your crazy spots not only saves your daughter the work of trying to change your fully formed personality, it also builds her emotional intelligence. In its more basic form, your daughter’s emotional intelligence will help her to consider competing mental states. But when you teach her about your crazy spots, you are taking her emotional intelligence up several notches: you are inviting her to think about your motivations in a broad perspective that includes past experiences and relationships. By encouraging her to expand her insight beyond what’s happening in the moment, you’ll advance your daughter from varsity level emotional intelligence (“Why does Mom act psychotic when I track mud through the house?”) to the pros (“Mom acts psychotic because she didn’t have to share her space when she was growing up, so she doesn’t always handle it well now”).”
― Lisa Damour, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood