More than half of girls are scared of adulthood. As a mom, I get it — and I refuse to let that be the end of the story.

My daughter is a teenager, which means I spend a non-trivial amount of time watching her absorb the world and wondering what exactly she’s making of it. The climate. The economy. The news. The particular exhaustion of being online all the time while also being expected to have a personality. It’s a lot to carry, even for those of us who’ve had a few more decades to build up some scar tissue.

So when I saw the new data from Girl Scouts of the USA, I wasn’t shocked — but I did feel it in my chest. More than half of girls ages 5 to 13 (54%) say adulthood feels scary. That number climbs as they get older: 41% of the youngest girls (ages 5 to 7) feel this way, but by ages 8 to 10, it’s jumped to 62%. By ages 11 to 13, it holds steady at 60%.

These girls are watching us. They’re listening to how we talk about the future — and right now, the adults in the room aren’t exactly selling the dream.

“Today’s girls are navigating a complex mix of loneliness, constant comparison, and pressure to keep up,” says Sarah Keating, Vice President of Girl and Volunteer Experience at GSUSA. “Many feel tethered to their phones out of fear of missing out, while also holding themselves to high expectations to fit in and succeed.”

What worries Keating most isn’t just the anxiety itself — it’s how early it’s setting in. “Girls as young as five are already forming perceptions of adulthood as something overwhelming,” she notes. But she’s also clear-eyed about the upside of this data: now that we have it, we can do something with it.

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Why girls’ anxiety about the future makes complete sense right now

I want to be for real here, because I think our kids deserve honesty more than they deserve false optimism. We are living through a genuinely destabilizing moment. The political climate, the economy, AI reshaping entire industries almost overnight — it’s a lot, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

But here’s what I keep coming back to, at 44, with enough lived experience to know that most of the things I lost sleep over genuinely did not matter: this moment also contains possibility. Opportunities we haven’t imagined yet. Roles that don’t exist yet, being built by people who refuse to accept that the current version of things is the final one.

And I’d like to make a case, while I’m at it, for retiring impostor syndrome entirely. Not because self-doubt isn’t real — it is, and research backs it up. According to the Survey Center on American Life, 43% of young women report regularly doubting their professional abilities, compared to 36% of young men. A meta-analysis of more than 100 studies confirmed that women consistently score higher on impostor syndrome measures than men.

But consider this: if you can hold zero medical degrees, happily wade into public health crises with zero qualifications, and still land the position of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services — or oversee the Department of Education while being genuinely unclear on what artificial intelligence is — then I’m going to need every woman I know to stop questioning why she’s in the room. You’re in the room. That’s enough of a reason.

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How to raise a daughter who isn’t afraid of her own future

The GSUSA data offers something genuinely useful here: a clear picture of what helps. The majority of girls (85%) say they look up to role models for what they do — not how they look. They’re watching us work through hard things. They’re noting whether we treat uncertainty as a crisis or a given. They’re absorbing how we talk about our own capabilities, our own setbacks, our own ambitions.

Keating puts it plainly: “Preparing girls for adulthood isn’t just about skills, but about helping them see it as something they can approach with confidence and possibility.”

Here’s what experts at GSUSA say girls need most from the adults in their lives:

•  Normalize not having all the answers. Reframe the future as open, not threatening.

•  Teach real-world skills. Financial literacy. Decision-making. How to ask for what you need.

•  Create low-stakes space to try things. Leadership, creativity, failure — all of it.

•  Model a balanced life. Show them what pursuing goals while also being a human person looks like.

•  Emphasize purpose over perfection. Help them define success on their own terms, not someone else’s.

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Fear is not the opposite of ready

I want my daughter to walk into adulthood with audacity. To leap at opportunities that feel just slightly beyond reach. To own her wins and acknowledge her gaps without making either into a whole identity. I want her to know that the scary version of the future and the exciting version are often the exact same version — it just depends on which way you’re facing.

Eleanor Roosevelt said it better than I can: “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” That’s not a platitude. That’s a roadmap.

The girls in this study aren’t necessarily incorrect in their assessment. Being an adult is hard. It is overwhelming. But the data tells us they’re paying attention. Our job — as moms, as mentors, as the adults they’re watching whether we know it or not — is to show them that paying attention is the first step, and that the next one is entirely possible.

source https://www.mother.ly/parenting/girls-scared-of-growing-up/