We are often told that, as girls, we’ve got to be “nice” – or ELSE. (Or else what? Someone might not like us or might not approve of us! This is the horror of horrors!)
Since I like to be occasionally helpful on this here little blog of mine, I thought that therefore I need to write up the rules for being nice just in case you are struggling with that. Don’t say I never did anything for you! Because, I’m nice!
Morgan’s 9 steps to being certified as a “nice girl”:
1. Make sure to please everyone around you (especially the men in your life) before you take care of yourself! This one is absolutely essential to being a nice girl. If you aren’t in full-on self sacrifice mode, you are doing something very, very wrong. You should definitely not be going on that date with your girlfriends for a massage or whatever, because you’ve got some pleasing to do! Your man (Or men) and even sometimes the women in your life (like mom) need you, and need you now. How can I know that? Because this is a full-time job. And by full-time I don’t mean one of those easy little 40 hour per week gigs, I mean full-time as in all the time. (I know it’s weird to have to explain the literal definition of full-time, but most people think of it as some milk toast, half-hearted effort put out on behalf of an employer. Nope.)
Here are a few signs and symptoms that you are not doing your job #1 quite right: you are in good health, you get plenty of sleep, your career is going well, and you spend time alone and/or with friends.
If those are the case, you are headed for trouble, sister. You are going to disappoint someone and God forbid, you are going to feel horrible. So just don’t do it. Don’t even be tempted.
Know your place.
2. Act like a servant at all times, because you are one. Nice girls make sure to please their “master(s).” Displeasing the master(s) is definitely not nice. And we are the epitome of nice, right? So we please the masters, which are 90% of the time male, with the occasional woman thrown in the mix just to keep us on our toes.
Great servants: always say “yes sir” or “yes ma’am”, they always smile even when being berated, they know what master wants and have it ready for him before he even knows it himself, they bow down, they denigrate themselves, and they know their place in the scheme of things, which is below/beneath the master. (sometimes literally – yes, that’s what I mean you dirty pervert, nice girls don’t think those thoughts!!).
3. Be gracious to everyone, no matter what. This is just so essential for a nice girl, being gracious, smiling always, and even if someone does something really rude like groping your breasts in a public place or copping a feel on the subway, you just smile and laugh it off. Because, after all, they’re only men and they don’t know any better. So we just have to forgive and forget and play nice and overlook little flaws like public groping, because he didn’t really mean it, or maybe worse, his mom wasn’t a nice girl, and therefore he got all screwed up in the head and it was her fault, not his, that he turned out this way.
And definitely, if your man occasionally likes to get a bit abusive, just forgive and forget, and smile! Because he is a poor victim of that stuff those medical people call testosterone (possibly mixed with alcohol), and so he has a very good excuse for being out of control. It must be really really difficult to handle that swirling mix of chemicals without going into a rage from time to time, and we nice girls make sure that we understand and give lots of leeway for this. Also, when it comes to our own hormonal swings, we definitely must medicate when that happens, because it would be totally not nice to get even slightly grouchy with him.
And by the way, drinking any more than a few sips of wine is not nice! We might just lose control and let a few snarky comments about our situation slip out. Or worse, we might actually tell someone about the abuse that is happening and get our man in trouble. Our niceness certification might be permanently revoked and that would be not good.
4. We take responsibility for everyone! This is a big one ladies. Other people just can’t take care of themselves, only we can take care of them. That’s our job here on the planet as nice girls, and we have to do it with verve and vigor!
If your partner likes to drink and smoke (including pot) regularly – even around the kids – that’s fine, because he’s just not capable of doing any better. It must be something that you did that caused him to need to medicate himself regularly. So it is your job and your responsibility to make sure that he’s comfortable, safe, and secure no matter what.
And, what if he withdraws his amorous affections from you? This is your responsibility too. You must have let yourself get just a little too fat, or have forgotten to wear your makeup or something (make sure to do some serious self evaluation here for how youcaused the problem)!
By the way, the same stuff applies to mom and dad. You are their shining star, their beautiful little angel, who’s always there for them, especially when they are having one of their moments (3-4 times a day) when they need you to drop everything to run an errand for them, or talk them through some drama on the phone, or have them over for dinner, or what have you. (Nice girls don’t put limits on the kinds of things they will do to please others, so we have to leave it open here)
Just remember at all times: if someone around you is not fully happy or content, it is your fault and you must take responsibility, now.
Or else…
5. Don’t get confused by this nice thing: nice girls aren’t nice to themselves!This one is a bit difficult for us nice girls to get, because it involves complicated and contradictory logic that we can’t really understand. But that’s okay, we weren’t meant to understand it. We weren’t built that way. We were just meant to be nice (to others).
So let’s spell it out really clearly and post this where we can see it every day just to make sure we don’t forget.
When it comes to ourselves, the “be nice” rule *does not apply,* ever. We are **not** here to be selfish, greedy people who take care of ourselves. We are here to sacrifice for others at all times, and that is it.
Let’s give some real-life examples just to make sure this one sinks in.
Let’s say that your friend Sue calls you up and says: hey, I am going for a walk in an hour, do you want to join me? It’s a beautiful day and some sunshine might do you good!
Say NO. Because you have laundry to do, or something that is far more important than getting fresh air and sunshine for yourself. As a matter of fact, make sure that you spend this nice day in the basement or the laundry room, because that is what nice girls do.
Another: let’s say you’re feeling tired and like a cold is coming on, and you really just want to rest. Don’t do it, it’s a trap!
Once you give into your craven desire to take care of yourself, this slippery slope will just go down and down and down, and soon enough you may find yourself in divorce court trying to explain how it all started with a little nap. This is the path of Satan – just realize, he is tempting you to turn on those you love by convincing you that you should do things to take care of yourself.
You shouldn’t.
Because nice girls don’t take care of ourselves, it is not in our nature. We only take care of others. Remember that and you will do well in your indentured servitude here in this life.
6. Look pleasing to the eyes at all times just in case a man is watching.
I know that these are a lot of rules to keep up with, and that it can get a little confusing. So, sometimes we let this one slide just a bit as we’re trying to keep up with all the rules, but we can’t. It will be a catastrophe.
We must look pretty at all times! Period!
Our body is here for the pleasure of others, plain and simple. Whether it’s to look at or to use in other ways, it is not ours, it is his. And we must dress and act the part!
So if you’ve gotten a bit sloppy with your makeup routine, you need to start waking up earlier to make sure that you’re doing it correctly! (A rough guideline: if you’re not spending at least 45 minutes in the morning on your makeup and hair, you are slacking, and nice girls are not slackers!)
Always, always shave. Shave everything (except your head, of course!). Any extra hairs you have might disgust him and have him compare you with an ape. You are not an ape! You are his goddess (and by the way, it’s your fault that he fell from grace in the first place, so remember that if you ever start feeling resentful about all this nice girl stuff. If you hadn’t tempted him, we’d all be in heaven right now).
And, definitely get rid of all cellulite, wrinkles, or anything else that might displease the eye or convey anything even slightly less than perfection. God made Clostridium botulinum – aka “botulism” – for a reason! It was so that we could extract the toxin and inject it into our faces to keep them wrinkle free at all times, even when we’re 70!
For that matter, make sure that you have a personal savings account for one reason and one reason only: to pay for the treatments you will need as you get older to keep being pleasing to the eye. Those treatments get expensive, and you can’t expect your man to pony up for them! No! That’s not nice.
If you get tempted to spend your savings on anything else – like a lunch out with girlfriends – just don’t do it. Nice girls have self control and don’t waste their money on niceties like lunch dates. We put all our effort and money towards keeping up the perfect image for those around us who depend on it!
7. Be everything to all people at all times. Even though we’re definitely not in the same camp as those crazy women’s lib types, we do agree with them on one thing.
We must be all things to all people at all times, aka, superwomen. Here are a few examples:
- Say that our man is struggling to pay the rent. We go out and get a night-shift job (one that starts after the kids are in bed and hubby is sexually satisfied, of course!), to bring in the extra income. We don’t need sleep because we’re not here for self gratification like sleep, we are here to take care of others. Period.
- Say that mom is struggling because she has no friends except us, and she is feeling really lonely, so she calls us on the phone in the middle of work to “chat.” We must, must not let our work interfere with her needs! If we have to, we catch up on work after everyone else is in bed, and after we’ve completed our night shift at the bargain store. But when mom calls, we take her call, every time, and we stay with her on the phone until she is satisfied.
I think you’re getting this nice girl stuff pretty well by now, so I shouldn’t need to give you more examples. But before we go, there is one more tricky thing that you have to watch out for. I hesitate to even bring it up, because, really, it is kind of a minefield of potential manipulation. In many ways it would be better for you to just stay totally ignorant. But then you might get trapped by it without even knowing it, and we wouldn’t want to lose you from the nice girl club. So, I’ll go ahead:
8. Be extremely wary of anyone who tells you that you should claim your own power or take care of yourself Anyone who does that is not your friend. They are quite likely just women’s libbers in disguise, sent here by Satan (or one of his minions) to manipulate you into thinking that you actually have rights to an independent life of happiness here on this planet.
Don’t forget that you don’t. That’s not what you are here for!
Let’s make this clear. Does a garden rake have rights? Does a couch have rights? Does a door mat have rights?
Of course not. You are like those things. As a nice girl, you are a tool, here to be used by others for the purposes they intend, not to have any of that nasty stuff they call “free will.”
If you feel tempted to make choices that might be in any way moving towards self gratification, you are falling into this trap.
Like I said, I hesitate to even bring it up, because it would be better if you were simply ignorant of the massive evils that exist on this planet.
Yet in this case, just a little bit of knowledge is the best defense. Your awareness may just save you when you bump into your old girlfriend on the street and she tempts you to go do something fun for yourself – and when you tell her you’ve got errands to do for your family – she starts asking probing questions about your home life (and she asks you about that bruise on your cheek – how intrusive)!
So, just be aware, be very cautious, that there are many people who will present themselves in the disguise of old friends, college professors, social workers, counselors, and even TV personalities who will falsely tell you that you have rights and power.
Just remember: as a nice girl, you don’t. It really is that simple, and so just don’t let yourself get confused by all the mumbo jumbo that floats around in our modern culture that would get you confused about that.
9. Pass it on to your daughters. This is the ninth and final rule of being a nice girl. It is a simple one. Make sure to print out this rule set, and from the moment your daughter is born, to indoctrinate her with this.
Make sure that she doesn’t get swayed early on by nosy day care workers or educators who might inform her of her rights. (really, rights for her are a lie: she has none but what you give her, and you want her to conform to the nice girl code of conduct).
Make sure that you keep her out of the public school system, and away from anyone who could give her toxic ideas about so-called “rights.” Remember, her destiny is far higher. It is to be in the service of others. That is what will assure her spot in heaven when she’s done with this life. There is no higher path, and no better thing that you can do for her!
So guard and shield your daughter from any undue, empowering influence! It is your highest and best function as a nice girl mom!
Those are the rules, now a final word
Nice girls play nice, act nice, and think nice thoughts. They practice total self-control at all times. They do not slip.
Now, some homework. As you read over those rules, Identify the 2-3 places where you are most out of alignment with being a nice girl and get to work immediately on fixing it. You don’t have much time, because someone might discover that you are not nice and then you’re done for. So understand that there’s some real urgency to this!
Get on it, nice girl! Go be nice! Go light up their lives in your beautiful self-sacrifice! Rah Rah!
Author’s note:
If you haven’t figured (and I sure hope that you have, or else you really are a nice girl!!), this is satire. And there’s a specific reason for it.
In my work with people identifying “belief programming” that holds us back, I’ve seen patterns in women – and I’m talking about highly educated women often with PhD’s and MD’s – that reflect a lot of this stuff.
And often this highly educated woman is doing it in ways so subtle she has no clue that she’s doing it, and then she wonders why she struggles so much.
This may seem to be a little extreme, and yet, despite years of so-called “progress” – we still teach many girls this stuff. (e.g. I see it on playgrounds regularly – the differential treatment of many parents towards boys versus girls).
Even in the 2010’s, there’s plenty of talk about how women still, after 50 years of working on it, don’t get equal pay to men, and how there’s bias against us.
What about our own bias against ourselves, programmed from a very early age, that says that we have to shut up and take it, or else get thrown out of the nice girl club?
It is my bet that if we were willing to take responsibility for this bogus programming we accepted from others as we grew up – and now throw it overboard, we’d have pay equity.
The difference is especially stark with female business owners who are friends and/or clients. The difference in income between most of us and the “equivalent” male is big (often 2-3X or more).
This is not something being “done to us” as business owners – it’s something we do to ourselves. And I believe we do it because we are still caught up in this bogus belief system about playing nice and being nice – which holds us back.
So if this little article helped you identify how silly this belief system is, and be a bit repulsed by it, then it has served its purpose.
And, by the way, I do think that being a gracious human being is generally a good practice for everyone (men and women alike). But there is a huge distinction between being generally gracious versus being a nice-girl doormat. Many women are way too far towards the nice-girl doormat end of the spectrum.
Now, Go Live and Create!