I am the mother to a young son, but I am a woman and I was a daughter.
I think about having a daughter a lot and quite frankly it scares the hell out of me.
I wonder, how I will I raise a confident, well-rounded, strong, independent (but not too much so) woman?
While I had wonderful and positive parental role models growing up, I did not have the greatest relationship with my mother.
I was told how beautiful I was all the time by both parents and everyone around me and I learned to believe it, but I wish that my parents, in particular my mother, had tried to get to know me better and focus more attention on my other positive characteristics when I was growing up: I could sing, I was a thoughtful friend, very organized, always loved to read, excelled in English Lit, History, French and later Spanish, I was active in student government, landed the lead in school plays and always a starter on school sports teams. But because those traits were never highlighted, it took me many years and a lot of soul searching to realize there is much more to me than my looks.
We put a lot of emphasis in our society on appearance and it’s really a shame….
To read more on how I believe we can raise confident girls, please visit my post today on Smart Mom Style.
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It is hard to raise a daughter-I have two! We try not to make the same mistakes or mother did. I was smarter than my parents made me think. It took me awhile to realize my traits as well. But, i wouldnt trade having daughters in for anything-they are wonderful!
Daughters are tricky business. They are more aware at an early age of what’s going on in the world, mine asks a lot of questions, and she’s very assertive. But we are at the interim tween stage right now, and it’s hard to keep her on track. Fortunately she focuses on her intellect and other traits, so hopefully we have that part nailed down…. You just manage with the kids you have, and love them all.
Definitely more tricky with girls. While I feel there was a big emphasis in my house growing up on being thin and pretty (my Dad played professional baseball and unfortunately that mentality is rampant) my parents always encouraged my sister and I to be well-rounded. Looking back I almost feel like they encouraged mediocrity (ha!) but I don’t think they wanted us to be kind, friendly, athletic and to just try our best at whatever we did. Whatever the results, then that was okay with them. Maybe that was the best approach because my sister and I both got straight A’s and played year round varsity sports without feeling like we were going to disappoint my parents at any given moment.
I have a 3 year old daughter and I probably took things to the extreme in the beginning. If my husband told our then 6 month old she was pretty, I would appear out of nowhere and say “But more importantly, you’re smart and are good at sharing”. I laugh at that now, but I don’t want her to grow up thinking that is her best trait and that if she’s not the prettiest in her class then she doesn’t have anything else to offer.
Hey, Tonya. You’re smart, an amazing writer and very thoughtful mother 😉 And you’re pretty too. Ha! Had to sneak that in
*oops – my sister and me. I can’t state that I got straight A’s and not correct that. Ha ha
It’s funny, when I was little, I remember simply thinking how beautiful you were. I guess because we didn’t really live together much, I don’t remember really truly knowing you. I don’t think that happened until I came back to live in the states for college. I didn’t find out who you were until I got to really spend some quality time with you.
I can only imagine how different raising girls are to boys.