In our book No More Christian Nice Girl, we discuss how passivity and false niceness don’t bring the abundant life Jesus promised to His disciples. One difficult childhood experience that predisposes girls to develop the Christian Nice Girl problem is having anxious, overprotective parents.
You inherited your eye color and perhaps your oddly shaped toes from Mom and Dad, but did you know that your parents also can transmit their view of the world to you? Not directly through their genes, but through countless interactions and choices your parents let you know how they see the world and life in general. For Christian Nice Girls with anxious parents, the message transmitted is: “Life is to be feared.”
This type of caretaker hovers like a search-and-rescue helicopter, transmitting fear and overprotecting children by:
• Not allowing them to go outside regularly and play in a reasonably safe neighborhood, but watching them like a hawk when they are allowed outside, which thwarts their play.
• Setting limits that would be appropriate only for a much younger child on how far they can ride their bikes or walk with friends.
• Overreacting to and overanalyzing normal childhood developmental challenges or minor injuries.
• Painting a verbally frightening picture of the world by continually pointing out any possible dangers, however remote or unlikely.
• Performing tasks they could do themselves (such as cutting older children’s meat during meals), which reinforces beliefs of inferiority and powerlessness.
• Intruding into and trying to control all aspects of their children’s free time, relationships and jobs.
• Constantly calling them on their cell phone (an electronic umbilical cord) just to “see how they’re doing.”
• Making all of their children’s decisions.
• Rescuing their children from any mistakes and not allowing them to suffer any negative consequences.
Instead of keeping children safe, fearful overparenting makes children timid and fragile—the kind of children on whom adult predators prey and whom bullies target. With the best of intentions, parents who shield their children from all of life’s difficulties actually make their children’s lives harder, especially as they become adults. Such children are growing older but not growing up.
Parents perform these overprotective behaviors in the name of love, but look closely and you’ll see they actually are motivated by fear. Making choices out of fear leads to short-range, selfish decision making: Parents choose whatever makes them feel immediately less anxious instead of looking at what is best for their children in the long run.
For example, when overprotective parents are afraid of the necessary pain that comes from watching their daughter make normal mistakes and choose to “protect” her by making her decisions, she won’t learn how to make independent decisions. Instead, she will wait for others to tell her what to do, perhaps because the decision-making part of her brain never fully developed. In the long run, this sets her up to be passively subservient in relationships. She easily will yield to powerful peers and be prime picking for manipulative men who want to control or sexually exploit her.
Likewise, when overprotective parents rescue a daughter from the consequences of any mistakes she might be allowed to make, she doesn’t get to learn crucial life lessons that are best taught by the real world. She won’t know what adversity feels like or how to handle it, so when hard times come in adulthood, she’s a deer caught in the headlights—overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear. She may become a perfectionist, unrealistically hoping that doing things perfectly will calm her anxious heart and keep her safe.
Simply by watching fearful parents worry about what might happen, girls can learn to invent things to fear and then will live small in the scary imaginary Land of What If. They play it safe, even when that means falling behind their peers and missing out on opportunities and dreams.
Moving Past Fear
While you can’t prevent inheriting your oddly shaped toes (truly, they are part of your charm), you can learn to overcome any unreasonable fears that anxious, overprotective parents may have passed down to you. First, recognize where cowardice is rearing its ugly head in your life. Women don’t usually think of cowardice as a particularly bad thing because the Nice Girl Culture allows females to get away with timidity. However, when women shrink back from doing the right thing because they fear potential pain or loss, it’s called…cowardice.
God takes the sin of cowardice very seriously.
Cowardice can be difficult to spot because a cowardly spirit and a gentle spirit can appear outwardly similar; but look inward, and your real motives will reveal the difference. So ask yourself: “Am I holding back here (not saying or doing something) because doing so is the wise, loving choice, or because I’m fearful of what I might lose (popularity, money) or what I might gain (negative attention, criticism, retaliation)?”
It’s also helpful to ask yourself if your fear is reality-based or merely False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR). Many fears are counterfeit. They seem frighteningly real; but look closer, and you’ll see that what you are afraid of is often something that is highly unlikely to happen. Don’t let something that isn’t real scare you into the very real sin of cowardice.
Second, you can learn much about moving past the fears passed down to you by talking with courageous people. Courage is far more caught than taught, so seek out the company of the courageous. Study them and ask them questions about how they pushed past their fears. Don’t overlook people from history, including Jesus. He faced every fear imaginable, so spend time with the real Jesus. When you rub shoulders with someone, you take on their characteristics, and there’s no one better to resemble than the 360-degree Jesus. As you study the Bible, make notes in a journal each time you read how Jesus faced an anxiety-inducing situation and chose to do what was right, not what was easy or safe. Each time you see Jesus facing fear, give yourself permission to be like Him.
Third, take small steps toward facing your fears so that you build your courage to face them head-on eventually. For example, if you’re afraid to make financial decisions, such as buying a house or investing in stocks/bonds, begin with a small step, such as making an appointment with a real estate agent or financial planner. You likely will feel a strong pull to let the professionals make all the decisions for you—fight this urge because you need to develop your discernment and decision-making skills.
Fourth, remember that your body can be your friend when it comes to facing fears and growing courage. When anxious, breathe deeply from your stomach. Within three to four deep breaths, you will feel less afraid and more clearheaded. Also, put a slight smile on your face. Yes, that sounds weird, but doing so will make you feel less fearful inside and look more confident to others. Fatigue can make a coward of anyone, so if your body is tired, irrational fears can appear alarmingly real. Get more rest, and you likely will find facing fear easier.
Lastly, if you are a parent trying to move past the fears handed down to you, examine how you relate to your own children. Are you unknowingly passing on the same “Life is to be feared” message that you heard? If so, push past your fear of the unknown and allow your children age-appropriate freedoms and the blessing of learning from their mistakes. Scary what-ifs may crowd your mind, but don’t let them control your parenting. Breathe deeply, turn your worry list into your prayer list, and talk to a counselor if your anxiety interferes with daily living.
An Upside-Down World
Encountering abuse is the final difficult experience that sifts girls and leaves them vulnerable to becoming Christian Nice Girls as adults. Whether it’s verbal, emotional, physical, spiritual or sexual, abuse deeply shames its victims and leaves them believing lies, such as:
• “I deserved what happened to me. It was my fault.”
• “I am worthless/stupid/bad/dirty/unwanted.”
• “I am forever flawed.”
• “I need to hide because no one would like the real me.”
• “If people knew what happened to me, they would reject me.”
• “What happened wasn’t that bad/wasn’t really abuse.”
• “Other people are always smarter and better than me.”
• “I’m a constant screw-up.”
• “I’ll never be good at anything.”
• “God doesn’t love me.”
If you experienced abuse, you know what it’s like to live in a dangerous, unpredictable world where everything is upside down. Healthy actions are condemned, normal needs are shamed, speaking the truth is punished, and exerting your will can be deadly; while unhealthy actions are the only way to survive: Hide your thoughts, numb your feelings, give in quickly, deny the painful truth, keep unwanted secrets. Surviving abuse as a child or an adult often means having to play by your abuser’s rules—rules that set you up to behave like a fearful, passive person long after you have escaped the abuse.
I (Paul) experienced the upside-down, confusing world of childhood abuse. I walked on eggshells as a kid because one moment my mother was warm and nurturing, and within minutes it was like a switch was thrown deep within her and she would turn angry, abusive and disdainful. I was thrown across the room by my hair, slapped, punched, kicked and hit with household items such as brooms and vacuum cleaner attachments.
The verbal and emotional abuse lingered long after my physical wounds healed. My mother told me I was worthless, stupid and evil for committing common childhood blunders. Her use of sarcasm was especially cutting. When my elementary school administrators informed her that my test scores indicated that I was bright and asked for her permission to place me in the gifted program, I heard her bitter laugh and caustic reply: “Him? He can’t even find his shoes in the morning.”
Most parents lose it occasionally, say or do things that they regret and later apologize. My experience was beyond this. I cannot remember my mother ever apologizing for her cruel and contemptuous behavior, which was intended to strip me of my God-given dignity. Her abuse was designed to pierce my core and steal my self-worth. She succeeded. It has taken courage to confront the lies that come with abuse and years of personal soul work to understand what really happened and heal from it.
My home was a dangerous place, so it was only natural that I would feel tremendous fear there. Like many abuse survivors, I generalized this fear to include the entire world. I began to believe the lie that all people and experiences are dangerous, a lie that produces two fear-based extreme responses: overreacting or underreacting.
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Excerpted from No More Christian Nice Girl by Paul Coughlin and Jennifer D. Degler, Ph.D. Copyright © 2010. Published by Bethany House Publishers. Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.
