Do you care if your DD is popular?

[Anonymous]

What does popular even mean these days? Do popular kids grow up to be happy successful adults? My 12 year old DD refers to the popular girls as the mean girls. DD has good friends but I guess she's not popular - is that a good thing?

[Anonymous]

Popular exists only in the minds of parents. This shouldn't even be on your radar, OP.

These days, teens find like-minded friends no matter how quirky. The extroverted will perhaps give off the aura of being "popular", since they smile and talk with everyone, but everyone, most of all themselves (!), know how fleeting and superficial that is.

Please focus your energies elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

From OP - I did not bring up the IRS popular, my DD did. It is very much alive in her Middle School. Just asking other moms what their take on it is, not focused on it. I know what's important in the long run but I also know that this is real to 12 year old girls.

[Anonymous]

/\ Idea not IRS! Autocorrect!

[Anonymous]

I just want her to be happy.

[Anonymous]

I want my daughter to be friendly and well liked but I do NOT want her to be popular. Back in my day (I'm 34) there were two groups of people who did drugs and had a lot of sex: the wealthy popular kids and the "burnout" kids.

[Anonymous]

I want my children to be "happy". To me that connotes that the child is content with him- or herself AND also with his or her relationships with others. I don't think that means popular per se just that s/he gets along with most people and isn't being excluded or ostracized or bullied.

If my daughter started talking about "mean girls" at her school then I would certainly delve down deeper because I think that it is a bad sign. I would want to know about the context and where my daughter was in the social landscape.

[Anonymous]

According to my daughter, the popular girls are mostly not nice. I want my daughter to be well-like, but I also want her to be nice.

I was popular - and nice - but I don't think the popular part served me well. I suffered from really bad self-esteem issues. However, because I'm nice, I was able to recover and carry those nice qualities into adulthood. It took me awhile, however, to to understand that my "nice" qualities mattered more than being popular.

[Anonymous]

From OP - just to clarify, my DD used the term "mean popular girls" so equating popular with mean

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want my children to be "happy". To me that connotes that the child is content with him- or herself AND also with his or her relationships with others. I don't think that means popular per se just that s/he gets along with most people and isn't being excluded or ostracized or bullied.

If my daughter started talking about "mean girls" at her school then I would certainly delve down deeper because I think that it is a bad sign. I would want to know about the context and where my daughter was in the social landscape.

I like what 2142 said about being "nice" so I want to add that to my answer above. I want my children to be nice and kind to others as well as happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want my children to be "happy". To me that connotes that the child is content with him- or herself AND also with his or her relationships with others. I don't think that means popular per se just that s/he gets along with most people and isn't being excluded or ostracized or bullied.

If my daughter started talking about "mean girls" at her school then I would certainly delve down deeper because I think that it is a bad sign. I would want to know about the context and where my daughter was in the social landscape.

I like what 2142 said about being "nice" so I want to add that to my answer above. I want my children to be nice and kind to others as well as happy.

Yikes. 2142 is me. I meant 2153. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From OP - I did not bring up the IRS popular, my DD did. It is very much alive in her Middle School. Just asking other moms what their take on it is, not focused on it. I know what's important in the long run but I also know that this is real to 12 year old girls.

Hmm... not all 12 year old girls, not even most! You really need to understand this. And, you first have to determine if your child just mentioned this and doesn't care much about being popular, or if she's eaten up inside about it (highly doubt it). Some kids are the designated popular kids, but I've never seen anyone desperately wanting to be in her group or obsessing about it.

[Anonymous]

From OP - we're not obsessed with it. My DD brought it up and I've heard other girls bring it up as well. It is still a thing in school and parents are naive if they think kids have evolved away from this. I wish it wasn't still a thing but it is.

[Anonymous]

I care that she's attractive, thin, and well liked. That's different than popular, but I've known too many ugly fat people who were popular. No thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I care that she's attractive, thin, and well liked. That's different than popular, but I've known too many ugly fat people who were popular. No thanks

Nice try, Trolly McTrollerson