How to Make Sure Your Daughter Doesn’t End Up Like You
What if we lived in a world where our daughters were truly free to question, feel, speak, discover, and marvel? What if they were completely unaware of the rules designed by a system that never asked them their opinion in the first place? What would it look like if we never told our daughters who they were supposed to be before they figured it out for themselves?
Because we believe life is so short, we push our daughters to figure themselves out as quickly as they can. The impossibility of this heavy responsibility leaves them wide open, flailing for any sense of grounding and stability. Instead of filling that void with wonder, exploration, and the space to unfold, they fill it with whatever they can grab onto, which is, unfortunately, what culture tells them they *should* be. This is the moment the chipping away of the true Self begins.
As mothers, we simply want our children to feel no pain. We want to save them from discomfort. We understand that discomfort comes from “not fitting in”, so we push and contort them into the square hole of conformity. We believe this is comfort, but we are simply manifesting our own fears into our children, thereby setting them up for a future of confusion, loss of self, and very expensive therapy. We delude ourselves into thinking that if we can get them educated (typically with a degree they will either barely use or never at all), married (so we can make sure they’ll be taken care of, rather than teaching them to take care of themselves), and with some financial stability (because nothing says “happiness” more than a big house and a fancy car) then we’ve done our part as parents. The truth is, we want these things for our kids because it takes our own worrying down a notch, even at the potential expense of their actual, true happiness, which we’ll never know because we were too busy picking out the right college.
It’s been interesting to track the conversations of the different decades of my life and the theme surrounding each phase. In my 20s, it was all about freedom, boyfriends and girlfriends, rent, and where to find the next good time. The conversations in my 30s were about marriage and the future, diapers and nurseries, family gatherings, and holiday cooking. My 40s have been the most interesting conversations I have had thus far in my life. Mostly, they’ve been about realizing a complete and total loss of the self in an effort to fulfill everyone else’s “selves” and then figuring out who this version is and what she loves. Unfortunately, this typically involves hurting those around us because all of a sudden we’re more interested in who we are than in who they need us to be (enter very expensive therapy here).
When I look back, I see a little girl that was curious, free, loud, bossy, and excited. But unfortunately, I was curious, free, loud, bossy, and excited, and it didn’t take me long to realize how much this made others uncomfortable. Apparently, I was the complete opposite of what the world said little girls were supposed to be. Little by little, freedom was replaced with responsibility, loud was replaced with minding your (female) manners, and excitement was replaced with holding it all in and constantly scanning the scene to make sure I wasn’t offending anyone (I was pretty unsuccessful at this last bit).
You see, we women do this. We tuck it in, suck it in, keep it down, keep it low, fulfill our duties (that we had no part in creating), and then one day…we’ve simply had enough. We look around at all the things we’ve acquired that culture told us mattered and we realize none of it has any value because, shockingly, a $3,000 dresser can’t replace a ferocious appetite for life.
We may not have gotten out of all of that unscathed, but what if our daughters could? Just the other day, my daughter was in the shower singing so loud (and not very well either) I knew the neighbors could hear. My first reaction was to hurry in and tell her to keep it down because (and this is my most hated question ever) “What would the neighbors think?”
I’ve watched my daughter not give 3 shits about what someone thinks of her, but I’ve also witnessed many more situations where it mattered more than oxygen. The painful hindsight I’ve had from moments where I voluntarily contorted her my very own self to keep someone else, usually a goddamn stranger at that, from feeling discomfort in a social situation has been grueling.
Why do we do this??
Reversing millennia of destructive social norms designed to control, incapacitate, and generally just mindfuck us into Stepford oblivion is no small task. For now, just recognizing the “system” and understanding that it can actually be reversed is a huge step forward. Now, I catch those moments when I’m trying to bend my daughter in the direction of acceptability and can course-correct in the moment. Little by little, these tiny motions will turn into giant waves of massive cultural shifts. It’s my sincerest hope that the rosy glasses affixed to the faces of other mothers start cracking and shattering along with my own.
All the mamas out there: let’s get curious, free, loud, bossy, and excited. Moreover, let’s encourage our daughters to be curious, free, loud, bossy, and excited. Most importantly, let’s encourage them to feed that ferocious appetite for life in any fucking way they see fit.
In the meantime, I’ll keep shoving money into my Very Expensive Therapy account. I’m pretty sure my daughter will be very grateful.
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If you’d like more information on how to start living the life you were meant to live, reach out and see how I can help.
