For the Parents of GIRLS, a Reprise

My last post, titled “For Parents of Girls” prominently displayed the cover art from the girl lit sensation Twilight. The article referenced in the post was an article stimulated by the Twilight phenomenon, but which was more about girlhood than it was about the novels. The question the author was addressing was not so much the merits of the books as what there was about being a girl that so resonated with these books.

That is what I find fascinating. What is there about this or that that makes it all so appealing? What do things which we embrace say about us? I have read recently about (and even watched highlight reels of) MMA (mixed martial arts). I have no interest in attending an MMA bout of any kind. But the popularity is off the charts. Why? What is there in people that makes these fights so popular? These are the kinds of questions which interest me.

Hence, my post really said nothing positive or negative about the series. But it did say something intriguing, I thought, about girls and the process of growing up.

I happen to know all those who commented, and they all commented about the books, and not the substance. That’s okay. I like the conversation, and I like to hear what people think, even if it is not directly along the line of what I was thinking. Someday I may have something to say about the books.

But the interesting thing about the comments to the post “For Parents of Girls”, which no doubt means nothing at all, is that if we were to put all the children of all those who commented in one room, in that room there would be nine boys, zero girls!

I just love irony.