Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 28, 1993                   TAG: 9304280510
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DAUGHTERS

They're not there to sell Girl Scout cookies. They're there for an introduction to what their mothers and fathers do to earn a living.

Not that young girls will necessarily follow in their parents' footsteps. But they need to be thinking about the 9-to-5 world beyond Barbie dolls, training bras and please, mama, can I get my ears pierced.

Unfortunately, there's evidence that families, schools and other institutions are not encouraging adolescent girls to think much in terms of personal careers. At least not as much as they encourage adolescent boys.

Young girls often have less self-confidence and self-esteem. When they grow up, they may be entirely too willing to settle for low-pay, unchallenging jobs that waste their full potential.

Which is a waste of the nation's potential, too.

You don't believe that? Well, consider: Despite the recession, women-owned businesses grew dramatically in the past two years, according to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. In the past year alone, the number of these companies increased by a startling 20 percent - to more than 6.5 million women-owned businesses.

Though a lot of these women-owned enterprises are small cottage industries, they gave employment to more than 12 million Americans in 1992. Working Women magazine says that's more people than are employed by all the Fortune 500 companies.

This is not to say that all young girls should plan to be business entrepreneurs. Some may prefer to be doctors, scientists, lawyers, newspaper editors - or president of the United States.

The Ms. Foundation has promoted today as "Take our Daughters to Work Day." The foundation recommends that both mothers and fathers take daughters, ages 9 to 15, to their places of business. Perhaps let them perform some of the duties associated with the parents' job. (Brain surgeons will be excused if they don't follow that suggestion.) Let them also spend time talking with some of the women with whom the parents work.

To those who have little patience with young girls - who are, after all, young girls - please note again the above statistics on women-owned businesses. Some of these girls may turn out someday to be CEOs who, if they remember you fondly, might sign your paycheck.