Girl's Gone Child: The Magic Hour & Raising Strong Girls

Sorry it's been a little on the quiet side, here, this week but I've been sick these last few days... trying to rest up for a weekend away, my first time all alone since... I mean... ten years? (For my birthday, my parents gave me the gift of a weekend alone to write/finish a project I am very close to finishing at a B&B. So! In a couple of hours, I head for the hills to experience peace, quiet, and (hopefully!) a bolt of inspiration to put me over the hump and finish this draft that has been consuming me for the last... many... years. I'M SO CLOSE, THOUGH! IT'S RIGHT THERE! I CAN FEEL IT! COME AT ME, UNIVERSE!)

In the meantime, I have this week's Mom.me column to share with you, here. It's about "raising strong girls" as per the most requested in the comments.

Strength has nothing to do with muscles. Or boldness. Or force. Strength is an attribute, an ability to CONTRIBUTE and BENEFIT. It isn’t a “larger than life” karate chop to the testicles that hang between Life’s hairy legs.

Strength is just as powerful when it’s whispering.

And introverted.

And soft...

I was not what anyone would call a “strong” or “brave” child... I was NOT what anyone would call empowered in any way. Not even close. And yet, there was one place where I felt limitless and fearless and myself—and that was when I was writing...

...It wasn’t just me who was growing my self-worth in the pages of my journals. My parents were just as responsible if not more because they supported me. My parents recognized that I had found an outlet and every day they helped me water my quiet bloom with support and interest and respect. My mother let me stay up as late as I wanted when I was writing. My parents recognized that asking me to “turn off my ideas” to go to bed was not the right side of the battle…

And so.

I never felt I had any limits on when I could create and for how long. This meant everything to me because I was able to identify my own limits as a creator and then translate that as a friend, a student, a young woman and then adult.

When it came to my writing, I made the rules.

That message grew within me like a vine...

...And that’s kind of where I am right now with my kids—trying to introduce them to everything that may or may not set them on fire and give them a purpose that absolutely NO ONE and NOTHING can take away—something that will be with them when they feel like no one else is. A place to put their voice, energy, ideas… build, create, let go… BE BRAVE. So that when they close their eyes and picture “strong” they will see THEMSELVES paired with what it is that makes them feel that way—the pen, the paintbrush, the soccer team, the guitar, the camera, the ocean…

Because STRONG means something different to every one of us...