Dear Maria:
Oh (wo)man, are you coming of age in an interesting time. Never have we as women been able to accomplish more. You and me together watched a woman run for president, and I saw on your face for the first time that those words I tell you, that you can be anything you want, might be true.
Something big is definitely happening. Things are available to you that were not available to me. Glass ceilings are being shattered. Long-held prejudices, unquestioned for years, are being finally questioned. Men who committed crimes against women are being called on it. A paradigm is starting to shift, albeit slowly.
Women are standing on the stage.
Yet we are still fighting the same old battles. We may be on the stage, but we are not necessarily accepted there. Not all the way, not yet. Everyday I watch women get criticized for things that have nothing to do with their ability. We have it done to us, and worse, we do it to each other. We may be able to do anything, but we are still seemingly expected to do it while having perfect hair and a small waist and a demure, quiet, nonthreatening voice.
I know that must be confusing for you. It's confusing for me too. So, in a world where we are still offered a thousand false measures to stack our value against – our weight, the length of our hair, the size of our pores or breasts or pants, our likes and follows and number of views, our friends or lovers or degrees or bank accounts, how big our car is or how clean our house is or how fancy the title on our business card is, where we came from or where we are going or who we know – I wanted to make sure that you know something that I'm only just now beginning to understand. All the things in the world won't matter if you can't be alone with who you are because, in the end, that's all there is. Just that and nothing more.
Here's the thing: the only true home you have is within yourself. The foundation of that home may have been poured by your father and me, but the house was built by you. You have furnished it with your choices, you have hung your hopes and dreams on its walls, and lit it up from within with the light of your spirit. We may visit – and I hope we do – but the only people who reside there always are you, sweet baby girl, and your God.
It's from that safe space that you will rise. It's from there that you will conquer. It's from there that you will change the world.
What I ask of you is this: when doubt or fear or any of those false measures start to creep in, I need you to remember that I'm proud of you for what you've done already and I'm proud of you for the things you've still yet to do. Here is the thing about being your mother: I'd love you just the same even if you never accomplished another thing. I love you no matter what.
No. Matter. What.
That's the kind of love I hope you can use. I hope you can take it back to the home in your heart and use it to reinforce the studs and seal up the windows and patch the roof if it ever starts to leak. I hope it gives you a spark that can light the fire in your hearth and keep you warm long after you've drifted out of my embrace.
Mostly I hope it’s the kind of love you can learn to have for yourself, the unwavering, unflinching, untouchable kind that doesn’t give a flying hoot about what your hair looks like or how many followers you have or how many little lines you have around your eyes when your face crinkles up in that smile you have that lights up the sky.
It’s the kind of love I wished I had had myself, and it’s the only true thing I have to give to you. I am so hopelessly imperfect as a mother, so novice and so new, but I can do this for you. Stand on my shoulders, baby girl, and climb right onto that stage. You belong there.
Love you forever,
Mom
This post originally appeared here on the author’s website.
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