How To Raise Girls And Not ‘Girls’

Girls_HBO_PosterGirls came back last night. Does everyone really hate it all of a sudden – or are people just saying that because they don’t want to admit to finding these awful characters entertaining?

I like the show. It entertains me. Sometimes I find the characters insufferable and annoying – (I’m looking at you, Marni!), but that happens in almost every show I watch (except American Horror Story: Coven – those witches can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.)

I’m not sure that the original point of the show was to show how deplorably lazy and self-involved some 20-somethings can be, but it certainly has evolved to that.  It seems like Lena Dunham is finally embracing it fully – as this season all of the characters are even more intolerable than ever. Girls is a thoroughly enjoyable whine-fest of entitled 20-somethings. How do I make sure I don’t raise one of these?

After analyzing the backgrounds of the main characters, Hannah, Marni, Jessa and Shoshanna – I think I’ve figured out how to ensure my children won’t turn into these people, however entertaining these people may be.

Don’t financially support them.

The entire cast is financially supported in varying degrees by their parents or other relatives. Obviously this is mistake number one. They don’t have to worry about real things – like paying for rent and food, so they are able to complain about things like how bored they are.

Don’t emotionally support them.

All of the female main characters have relationships with their parents in varying degrees, except Jessa. They can move back home when they need to, they can call their parents for things they need. I guess this is a bad thing? Hannah’s mother is portrayed as kind of a bitch because she’s seemingly sick of her daughter’s shit. As is Marni’s. Both however, are there whenever their daughter’s summon them.

Don’t pay their rent when they’re in their 20’s.

A shitty part time job in a coffee shop would never pay the rent in Brooklyn. Trust me. I lived there for 10 years. Maybe if you never pay your 20-somethings rent, they will actually have to get a life.

Never let them move to Brooklyn.

Obviously Brooklyn is just a cesspool of entitled, trust fund kids – who at the same time look like they have no money. Never let your child move there. I won’t have to worry about this, because by the time my kids are old enough to want to move there, I’m pretty sure NYC is going to be set up in such a way that you actually have to be a millionaire to even be able to walk the streets.

This show proves it’s possible to find people both incredibly annoying and lovable. Dunham realizes that some people can sort of relate to her and her friends and at the same time really like to hate-watch stuff. Parenting ruins your life. If I didn’t have kids, I could just watch this and wax poetic about my own twenties. Now, I have to actually think about my own kids potentially turning into one of these shitty people.

(photo: HBO.com)

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