Color Me Butterfly

Today, I am troubled by the peculiar circumstances our daughters are finding themselves in!

It appears that they are being sculpted and victimized by a society that promotes fast and reckless behavior.  At a very young age, our daughters are battling drug and alcohol addictions, abusive relationships, unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, homelessness, and chronic mental health illness – behaviors that were once linked to certain groups of people.  However, we are now seeing this trend across every culture, community and socio-economic line and I can’t help but wonder what’s at the root of this phenomenon.

During a conversation with a mother of a 19 year old daughter, I was surprised to discover part of the answer.  The mother shared that at an early stage in her daughter’s development, she realized that her daughter’s “self worth” was not instinctive but had to be cultivated.  At puberty and adolescence, she taught her daughter that self-worth was her value, her virtue, and what she was deserving of.  The mother instructed her daughter in believing that she was deserving of excellence.   For example, when her college bound daughter expressed excitement about a young man, the mother asked her daughter two simple questions:  What makes this young man worthy of your time?  What qualities does he have that makes him extraordinary?  In the same way, we need to encourage our daughters to believe that they are deserving of great things; that they should neither accept nor feel comfortable with mediocrity.

Someone once said:  “The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE and WHOOSE WE ARE.”  As Mothers, let’s take back our daughters.  Let’s instill in them the values of self respect, self worth and self preservation.  And the first step is by starting early and ensuring that they understand that they are worthy of anything worth having.

Carolyn Keys
Boston, MA