Q&A: Maggie Dent, 67, parenting author & podcaster

Four-year-old girls fat-shaming other kids, and “asking mummy if they’re sexy”... for Maggie Dent, it was a call to action.

Full of good advice: Maggie Dent

You have four sons and have written lots about raising boys. What made you turn your attention to parenting girls? My heart dropped when I recently surveyed early childhood educators and they said they’ve heard four-year-old girls fat-shame other girls, and also little girls asking mummy if they’re sexy. I really got worried because I know how formative those years are. This “compare and despair” thinking starts quite early and it’s contributing to the mental unwellness of our tween and teen girls, especially those who’ve had phones for a long time.

So smartphones are evil? There are some fantastic, creative things on them, but one of the biggest challenges for parents today is knowing what their kids are doing online. Social media is incredibly problematic, particularly for the 12- to 15-year-old girl who’s trying to work out who she is.

You’ve written nine books on parenting, and you’re into the fifth season of the ABC podcast Parental as Anything. Why do you baulk at being called an “expert”? It’s a presumption that you know it all, and I don’t. I am a parent who made mistakes and I’m still avidly learning. I’ve got a pile of research books nearly a metre high next to me right now.

When do you think we’ll see the flow-on effects of the pandemic on young people? I think kids are getting used to the fact that life’s much more unpredictable than we thought. And there are signs in early primary of children who are less capable of initiating and sustaining play. We need to build those social skills again.

Have social skills taken a hit in the digital era? One of my biggest concerns is that we’ll have kids who aren’t able to communicate in relationships or in the workplace because they’re online so much, where it’s all messaging or a quick video. I’ve had enquiries from parents about 16-year-olds too anxious to order a coffee from a coffee shop. We’ve got to focus on building authentic life skills for our kids.

Do you welcome the conversation around gender fluidity? Yes. I think we’ve got masculine and feminine inside all of us and it’s a matter of allowing us to be whoever we are. I think we’re raising a much more accepting generation of kids and young adults. It’s just the older generations who struggle with the fact that someone may ask to be called “they”.

Has parenting changed much? Enormously. A generation ago it was driven by the need for firm punishment, but we know now that unless someone has a strong, loving connection as a child, they won’t ever realise their full potential. We’ve mucked it up a bit, though, with the self-esteem movement. Now we give stickers for breathing.

Anything you would have done differently in raising your boys, knowing what you know now? No, I am proud of the mistakes I made because each time I made them, I learnt how to not repeat them. My house was messy, but we didn’t have today’s pressure to have a tidy house and an amazing body and be a master chef in the kitchen.

Finally, your top tip for raising happy girls? We’ve got to work out who we’ve got, not who we hoped for. What are her unique strengths and what are her challenges? So that we can help her be her, without thinking she has to be what the world tells her to be: a sweet, slim, people-pleasing good girl.

Girlhood (Pan McMillan, $34.99) is out now