Rebeca Yanke Madrid
Madrid
Updated Monday, March 25, 2024-00:40
Her specialty as a therapist is focused on them, the youngest, those who have one foot in adolescence and the other moving towards, read gracefully, being a woman, whatever that means in a 2024 in which everything seems very different from twentieth century. Her experience is 30 years working in the
British National Health Service
and her office is the place where she has treated hundreds of young women and where she has written a best-selling book in her country, which is a "survival kit for young women of the 21st century." ».
You Don't Understand Me, a Life Guide for Misunderstood Girls
(Zenith), by Dr.
Tara Porter
, is the story of life with its rawness and kindness, told by a kind of older sister who can be trusted. And now she arrives in
Spain
.
We get into her office through a Zoom video call and she is happy; her book translated into Korean just arrived home. «Everything is different, the way girls used to buy clothes and how they do it now, the way they feel they have to put on makeup and groom themselves today. In my time that was almost a cliché, if we were lucky enough to go out one night we would put on a little lipstick and it seemed like a great effort.
Precisely the disparity between those times and now causes, according to Porter, "a seismic change between generations, as has not happened in any of the previous four or six." “The pace of change makes it more difficult,” he thinks.
In truth, if you remember, anyone finds in their youth moments in which they were ashamed or embarrassed, encounters in which they did not fit in, friends who failed them and, above all,
the sensation of experiencing many emotions at the same time for the first time.
. That is why Porter's book also serves parents, who in the first chapters can find fundamental knowledge or reminders about parenting and attachment, about limits and how to talk to their children. And thus be parents of young people who want to participate in the world and enjoy it while knowing how to detect threats and protect themselves if necessary.
This enormous disparity between the
boomer
generation and the
millennial
generation has made it “much more difficult to be a young girl today than in the 20th century,” Porter continues. «I have spoken with so many young women in recent decades that I am very aware of the commonalities between their stories and, above all,
I have strongly perceived the pressure they feel, the feeling they have that much is expected of them
and the fear of not get it. “They feel like they always have to do better and achieve more.”
A “kind of
exaggerated commercialization of lives, in which everything revolves around results and production
,” Porter describes. In his book, it is surprising that everything begins with issues such as parenting and attachment and ends with the most current, the culture of diets in today's society, acceptance of one's own body, life between screens and how to survive 24 hours of connection every day. "It's not just that technology is numerous and advances quickly, it's also the feeling of being connected to the entire world continuously," the author emphasizes.
Porter acknowledges that his book "does not begin with the sexiest" but points out that "it does begin with what is most important, with what lies beneath
." «The attachment we knew as children is the way we are wired, the foundation of our house, and changing it is really complicated. Attachment results in the good that is in us, if you were loved and valued enough. Or is it not common to have disagreements with parents?
Since he knows them well, Porter not only knows how to detect where the young women need to improve but also where they shine on their own. 'In the UK people are very concerned about the number of people struggling with their mental health in their late teens and early twenties. There are already statistics and we know that there are 20-year-olds who cannot find work due to mental health problems. But I
believe that this generation for which I have written this book is much more emotionally competent than we think
, they can name complicated feelings and think about themselves in a more complex way. And I think maybe in our generation we were encouraged not to talk about it, and even not to think about it.
Why is it essential for young women to have access to knowledge like that Porter offers in her book? Because if not, there is a risk of becoming adult women who believe they can do everything. «There are generations of women who
had to almost forget about themselves
, who internalized that they had no needs, who pretended that they were super women who could work and have an impeccable family life, home life, as well as a social life, who took the difficult things from They kept it to themselves and made sure that no one knew them, except for the lifelong close friend with whom one night you have a glass of wine and vent." For them and for those who come, a bedside book about being a woman today.
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME, VITAL GUIDE FOR MISUNDERSTOOD GIRLS
Tara Porter. Zenith. 344 pages.19.95. You can purchase it here.