Growing Up Girl is a storytelling and community project exploring how we were shaped—and who we choose to become.

It began with a question I couldn’t stop thinking about: What does it mean to grow up girl?

Not simply to be a girl, or a woman, but to grow up inside all the messages we receive about who we should be. How we should look. How much space we should take up. What makes us desirable, successful, likable, feminine, strong, good.

And what happens when we begin questioning those messages?

I started Growing Up Girl in 2014 as part of my MFA work in photography. I photographed women and invited them to write honestly about their experiences of growing up female. I thought I was making a project about beauty and gender. What emerged was something much bigger.

The stories became about mothers and daughters. Bodies and beauty. Shame and confidence. Sexuality. Trauma. Ambition. Aging. Friendship. Love. Loss. Expectations. Resilience. The things we carry with us—and the things we eventually decide to put down.

Again and again, I discovered that the details of our lives may be different, but there are places where our stories meet.

That is where Growing Up Girl lives.

Today, the project continues through portraits and personal stories, the Growing Up Girl podcast, and intimate conversation circles where women can gather and talk openly about their lives and experiences.

There is no single way to grow up girl. There is no right story to tell here. You don't have to have survived something extraordinary or arrived at some perfectly healed version of yourself. You simply have to be willing to be human.

I believe there is something powerful that happens when we allow ourselves to be seen—and when we take the time to truly see one another.

Vulnerability creates connection.
Connection builds empathy.
And perhaps, somewhere in that exchange, we understand ourselves a little better too.

This project is about making room for those exchanges.

For our stories.

For our voices.

For the messy, beautiful, unfinished journey of becoming whole.

Welcome to Growing Up Girl.

— Lori Pedrick
Founder + Creator