Well, the issue of pressure on children to succeed is obviously very complicated. It can be blatant, in the sense that homework is inspected, good grades are rewarded and bad grades are punished, etc. Or it can be subtle, as in the case of having an emphasis on perfection in the home, spoken or unspoken, where the children find it hard to keep up with this image and become quite neurotic. Neither of these situations is good, and in my mind any child who is acting out in some way, or seems sad or troubled or stressed out needs therapeutic intervention. It strikes me, also, that sensitive parents who actually spend a good deal of time with their children in relaxed circumstances would be fairly aware of what the issues were.
When I talk about the ridiculous messages "we" send girl children about their bodies, I am using "we" in the sense of role models in film, television, and advertising. Children and teenagers are absolutely bombarded with that stuff. Dozens of very nice men can protest here quite truthfully that they like women with hips, or real breasts, or whatever, but that will not get to young girls, who look to the images they are exposed to constantly. I am not very rational about this issue--I think Calvin Klein and the whole scrawny heroin addict look which has been so fashionable ought to be against the law.
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