Making Strong Women out of our Daughters

It has been brought to my attention that my three adult daughters are women who 'know their mind'.

As their momma, I couldn't be more proud to hear something like that.

We live in an age when our daughters need to know how to balance their own checkbook and how to change the oil in their own car. They should know how it feels to be able to pay rent and save money for things that they may want one day. They should know where their food comes from and how to grow it if they are living in a space where they can do so. (No, Honey, chocolate milk does NOT come from a brown cow)

We need to raise daughters who can walk proudly down the street. Girls who can show the world that they know where they are going and if you aren't going to join arms and come along, then please step aside.

We should be raising daughters who know how to read a recipe and a GPS and who are not afraid to change things up if they feel the need to make their world just that much better.Maybe that GPS can show them how to get there but our daughters need to know that they can find a road that works just as well all by themselves. Or, maybe that recipe would be just a little bit better with some of their own homegrown basil in it.
The world needs daughters who know how to trust their gut and read people buy their actions, not just their words. 

We need young women who are coming behind us who can carry the torch for us that we are passing down.  The torch that we took from our own Mothers and Grandmothers.  The Grandmothers who stood for something and demanded that their voices could be heard in the vote.
Our Mothers who showed us that we were more than just a cook and bottle washer and baby factory.
We, as women must not lose sight of that stand nor take it for granted because you know there are men out there that would love to see us back in the kitchen with no clue as to how the world runs. It's okay to be in the kitchen but just don't stay there forever.
The ladies who walked before us stood for something.  They broke glass ceilings and flew in spaceships. There are women who are putting their lives on the line, fighting to keep our countries safe. We have the first female soldiers to graduate from the school for the special operations unit in the Rangers School in the USA and I couldn't be more proud of daughters who are stepping up into bigger shoes.

Don't misunderstand me, women are women and there will always be that nurturing nature about a woman, BUT, why can't we nurture the Earth... not just our own families? Why can't we rock the Board room, not just the cradle?
Men have kept us under their thumbs and belts and out of their checkbooks because they fear a strong woman who knows her mind. It is the man who can stand back and watch his woman soar, that is a strong and a good man. The man who helps build the platform for his woman to stand on that is a good man.  He doesn't build a pedestal that can be tipped over, but a strong, solid platform for her to be secure on.  Then he can watch the woman he loves and admires become a whole person in and of herself.

When women become whole they will be a strength to their man.  They will be able to lift up the men in their lives instead of being a detriment to them, like a chain that holds them back because the woman at home with 6 babies and her head in the sink is not able to fulfil her dreams.  Yes, there is a time to perpetuate the human race and woman who raise up their children to be strong are wonderful BUT when those children are raised up... then it's time for the mother to realize her dreams too - if she hasn't already done so before her babies came.
Do you think that dreams only lie in the heart of men?  No!  Women have dreams too and we, as women, need to be able to make them come true.

Standing back and watching my girls grow up and listening to who says that they are strong minded women... I am seeing that it is the weak minded men, the ones who need to keep their women under their control who think it's wrong to have strong minded women.

I raise my glass to the strong girls, the mothers who raise strong women, the daughters who scratch and dig to climb to the top, who let the words of others slide off as they go on up... You, Strong Daughters of the World, you will be the ones who save the planet and make the world a better place.

I salute you and I love you.