6 Messages To Give To Your Strong, Beautiful Daughter

Here is a work-in-progress take on the things I want to teach my daughter, and the ones you could too!

1. There is no prince charming

The day you know you are expecting a daughter, perform a cleansing ritual. Get rid of all the Cinderella stories and movies. Trash anything which remotely suggests that a damsel in distress is saved by a prince charming that comes along to make her life all hunky dory. Why, you ask? I give you 2 logical reasons:

a. Narrating to your daughter, stories of prince charming, (who, I am sure, you have also never met in your life) is equivalent to filling your daughter ( at a very delicate and malleable age) with false hopes conjured by storytellers ages ago. Even before your daughter has had a chance to find her grounding and to understand what she wants in a friend, companion, and partner – you are putting a preconceived notion of an ideal man into her head. I call it fairytale brainwashing. Please pause and look up the definition of ‘fairy’tales.

Tell her stories of strong women from your family and friends, who are leading the kind of life they want to lead today, against all odds.

b. The damsel-in-distress situation accentuates the self-pity syndrome in girls who then wait to be rescued. Is that the kind of woman you want your daughter to grow up to be? Tell her stories of strong women from your family and friends, who are leading the kind of life they want to lead today, against all odds. If she grows up waiting for a man to rescue her of her miseries, she will find it difficult to look for strength within her to deal with her issues. It’s also very likely that she will grow up professionally looking for a mentor to do the rescuing at work.

2. Pink need not be your colour; dolls need not be your playmates

Ok, so you knew you are going to have a baby girl and you went to crazy pastel town and flowered (yes, I made up a word) the nursery with hues of pink and purple and all things pretty. I understand that. It is your parental urge to decorate your infant’s nursery beautifully. However, once she grows up and starts recognizing objects and shapes – for the love of god, do not presume that your child will prefer dolls over trucks, and pink over blue.

Give her a chance to explore what she really likes, and exhibit a little courage as a parent to let her be different from the societal notions of what a girl ‘should’ and ‘should not’ like.

3. You need not be a feminist

If you are like me, you live, breathe, preach feminism. It is great, amazing and unique, but need not be what your daughter grows up to believe. So do not force-feed her these concepts. Introduce her to your theories dispassionately (without the bloodshot eyes and the shrill pitch). You can introduce her to objective thinking, but the ideology she decides to follow will be hers, and will define her as an individual.

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4. Marriage is not your sole objective in life

Parents (I speak primarily of Indian parents as that has been my primary sample) dream about their child settling down the moment she is born. Refrain from portraying marriage as something she ‘must’ engage in when she grows up. Let her dabble with the concepts around commitment and loyalty on her own. My parents often talked about my life ‘after’ marriage, and during those interactions, I never once questioned if I would get married. I assumed that it is the natural course of life.

Now, I am at a crossroads where I debate the viability, need, and feasibility of marriage every day. Maybe, if a concept had not been forced down my throat so early on, I would be in a better position to have a definitive idea on what I want to do. Tell her she has to grow up to be her own person and has to stand on her own feet. It is not correct to wait for a ‘husband’ to come along and ‘support’ her if she is too lazy to figure out her calling.

5. Equality is humanity

Teach your daughter the essence of equality. It is not a very easy subject for girls who sometimes do get things a little easy. I have seen instances throughout my academic and professional life, where girls are not expected to ‘ace’ certain subjects – like software programming, scientific research, gaming – so it is ‘okay’ for them to get by leaning on the ‘guys’.

If you teach your daughter equality, let her know that involves stripping down certain privileges that she might see around her (guys picking your luggage, filing your taxes, helping you with programming assignments, etc.). At the end of the day, if you groom her to be fair and objective, equality in every practical aspect should naturally follow. Teach her to extend the concept to everyone – every race, every income group, every individual.

6. You have to believe you are beautiful…to be beautiful

So many women are insecure about their looks and resort to harmful dieting tactics, artificial implants/treatments. The source of this insecurity is the standards society has set as beautiful – spotless skin, lustrous hair, hour glass figure, a 34 cup size! I want to teach my daughter to be comfortable in her own skin even if she is not perceived as beautiful by others. I want to teach her to wear her best accessories – her smile and confidence.

Do not misunderstand me, I am not going to encourage her to eat unhealthy or stay lazy and not work out. Health and beauty can be separate. Wishing to lose those extra pounds does not necessarily stem from insecurity, but can simply be a healthy habit that will go a long way for her to have a comfortable lifestyle without being dependent on others.  I want to teach her to see people for who they are from their acts, not their appearances.

Would love to hear in the comments from you all, the additional things you would want to teach your daughter!

Pic credit: Image of a little girl via Shutterstock.

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