Good...

There are young girls who learn quickly the sting of being naughty.
Who feel the shame of ruining days out because there are dogs barking, or it’s too hot, and their stomach hurts so they can’t eat, and their tongues fizz from all the salt or sugar.

They learn to assess those looks to others, “what have I done this time?”
Whose tummies hurt from words that are ‘just joking’, but who feel the tone deep inside and feel the whispers burn their cheeks.

These are very early lessons of who they are, not what others want them to be.
So they must now work very hard to be good.

Good girls are liked, loved, do not get cross.
Good marks are much more than grades.
They will work so hard they are taken to the doctors lots and lots for tummy aches, infected throats, blood tests even.

Their school days are also home days, with sighs and eye rolls. They receive their soggy cereal diet and curtains closed to keep summer out.

Because being so good is more than top marks, it is studying the art of being liked, being loved even.
It is the art of the disappearing and replacing with someone better, someone who doesn’t feel the burning cheeks of shame, or those laughs for laughing at.

And over time they will become so very good at this that others will see them as givers, carers, they’ll bend over backwards, you see.
They will take on even those hardest to reach, the ones who are not kind, and find reasons for this, excuses for defensiveness, their inability to give.

These girls will forgive over and over because they will be loved and liked at all costs, remember?
They will plump cushions, brush hair, hoover, remember birthdays, cook special meals, even learn a craft.

Because these high achievers have turned around the unlovable, they’ve even married them.
Such good girls who’ve learnt to be so good.
Who’ve learnt to forget themselves.
Who’ve learnt to love what couldn’t or shouldn’t be tolerated.

And this will work fine, perfectly even, as long as they don’t ever look back and wonder where that little girl who had fire, desire, has gone.

“To all the daughters showing mothers new ways: we wouldn’t have done the hard work without you. Thank you for giving us a second chance at this.”

Could Try Harder by Eliza Fricker available to order from all good bookstores now, published 14 May 2026.