Mothers and Daughters

It has been eight months since Sara flew off to Macedonia to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. When she gets a chance, she updates her blog about her experiences but I thought this rainy Mother's Day Sunday might be a good chance for me to reflect.

Molly, who combines the roles of little sister and best friend is headed over for a visit. During her sophomore year, Molly worked two jobs, ate practically nothing and successfully bargain hunted for cheap airfare and on Tuesday, she will be flying first to Paris to visit a friend who is doing a semester abroad and then to Italy to visit another friend and then to Athens where Sara will meet her. They will spend a few days in Greece and then head to Macedonia. Oh, to be a beanie baby on one of their backpacks.

What I wonder is how did it happen that young girls now feel so strong and so empowered. Molly did all the working and saving and planning without any input from her parents. She set a goal, did what she had to do and now is embarking on it without fear. Sara did the same, although because of her personality, there was more conversation involved.

I am in awe of these women that are my daughters.

Anna Quindlen wrote a piece in Newsweek five years ago where she said that that having a daughter made her a better woman. My favorite paragraph in the article is this:

Each wave of feminism has believed in something called the New Woman. The woman who could vote, who could work, who could be truly free. I am the mother of the New Woman. She doesn't waste a lot of time tailoring the cut of her character to suit the demands of a world that has always had mediocre taste. She never milks her gender, and she is not cowed by guys. She has taught me to dare more and conform less, to cut down on my hypocrisy because she shames me by seeing right through it. Being her mother is like playing basketball with a crack player (and she is that);
she raises the level of the game of life
just by showing up.