March is Women's History Month and Monday was International Women's Day. Anyone else not know about this? Just me? I felt real dumb when I read International Women's Day has been celebrated since 1911!
The older I get the more I try to reflect on, appreciate, and learn from these special months. I enjoyed continuing talking about diversity during Black History Month and learning about Black historical figures with the kids but hadn't thought much about Women's History Month before this week...mainly since I'd never heard about it! {grin}
HOWEVER, Monday, my company did an amazing celebration of Women with a 3-hour conference. It gave me all the feels and led me to really think about being a woman, being a girl mom, and what I want to BE as a woman/mother.
First, how amazing is this picture of my {female} hero and littlest lady love?
I took this Sunday, and it feels really special right now.
I started thinking about a few things I want to teach my girls. Some of these are very universal but some are also things that have evolved as I grow into my own as a woman.
- Being happy in my own skin. There are several things I am uncomfortable with currently as I age - I am graying RAPIDLY, wrinkles are popping up quickly, my belly is full of saggy skin and stretch marks {thanks giant babies}, I have weight I want to lose. What I want my girls to see is that I love myself. I try really hard not to talk negatively about my body or to talk about weight and size. I tell my girls I exercise and eat good foods so I can have a strong body and live a long time, not so I can be skinny. This one is for sure a work in progress and I have a lot to learn about body positivity, but I'm getting there!
- Natural is beautiful. Similar but also different from being happy in my own skin, I want my girls to know they don't need to change a single thing about themselves. I shared a few years back that I didn't want to dye my hair because it's a pain and expensive with hair this dark...but that doesn't mean I love my grays. I also get more self-conscious of my aging face as time goes on. But I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to feel like I couldn't leave my house without a full face of makeup, and so far, I still feel that way...most of the time. You will never see me getting Botox or having plastic surgery. I have no issues with anyone else do anything they want that makes them happy...but the example I want to set for my girls is that they are beautiful the way God {and their dad and I!} made them.
The shirt I just happened to be wearing on Monday!
- Kind is cool. I don't want to raise mean girls. One of my flaws is a love of gossip, and I don't like that about myself. I want my girls to know better!
- How to be a friend. Nothing is better than a group of women friends! For the support, unconditional love, ear when you just need to vent about your job/children/husband/anything! We are at our best as women when we support each other and there has been too much tearing each other down.
- You can be anything you want! I want my girls to know the sky is the limit, and anything they want to achieve is possible.
- Recognize your privilege. Just the other night, Trent and I talked about him hitting all the points of privilege {white, male, Christian, heterosexual, middle class}, and the girls hit almost all of them. I didn't understand privilege until more recently, and I want my girls to recognize their privilege early on and use it for good and to make the world a better place. As Layla Saad talks about often, I want to be a good ancestor and teach my girls that too.
The guest speakers of the conference were Lisa Ling and Viola Davis!
Their talks were SO inspirational, and I enjoyed learning from them.
As you can see I have a lengthy list of ideals I want for my girls. Obviously those won't all happen this month! {grin} My goal for the month is to share stories of the amazing things women have accomplished throughout history and instill pride in my little women. But I hope to also use this month as a launching point for a lifelong journey of celebrating and elevating the female voice!
Happy Women's History Month!
3 comments:
I love all the things you put to teach your girls! Things going on today I never would have dreamed of having to discuss with us growing up (human trafficking-even though I'm sure it existed). But a lot has changed.
I love this post! I think the first two are among the hardest obstacles of being a woman. Society wants us to be obsessed with our looks to fit a contrived idea of beauty. I see woman in my life who focus their priorities on looks and appearance rather than education, advancement, and changing the world; I'm glad you won't be one of them. In retrospect, I think my mom did a great job at this (compared to many other women in her generation) and I can appreciate that, but I still struggle because society is a bitch.
I love this post too! I am more aware, as Rachel gets older, as to how I talk about my body and how it impacts here. It's hard to convey the difference between "a healthy body" and weight comments. How do I explain that I want to exercise (and thus lose some weight) to be healthy and not seem like it's just all about the weight -- because it isn't.
So yeah, it's complicated raising kids these days and passing on good tenets for life. Thank you for writing about it so well.
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