Mothers and Daughters
Raising a Feminist/Raised a Feminist:
A Mother's and Daughter's Perspective
By Sil and Eliza Reynolds
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Note: This post originally appeared at Feministing as part of a series leading up to Omega Institute's conference Women & Power: Connecting Across the Generations.
Raising a Feminist
By Sil Reynolds
In one week my daughter leaves home. My 18-year-old baby turned young woman, Eliza, is packing the car for college: Botticelli posters, red and pink pillows, a desk lamp, closet organizers, a hat stand - nesting things for a nest that I will not be sharing with her. This is our sacred rite, our last great initiation and our milestone together: shopping, packing, planning, and giddy giggling energy. SHE'S LEAVING? Can't I come too? I want to take her courses "Shakespeare's Present Tense" and "Social Psychology", I want to meet new people, I just want to stay at college with her and cuddle at night in one bed with my little girl and whisper about the world.
Yet, remarkably, I also find myself ready to release her because she is so ready for the world.
I intended to raise a daughter who lives authentically, passionately and on her own terms -a daughter who is open-minded and openhearted. In short, I intended to raise a feminist. My husband was a remarkably attuned father and I had extraordinary friends and family at my side. I have taken notes as I have mothered because I teach workshops for mothers and their teenage daughters. So as I pause at the dawn of this new era of empty nesting, I offer this list:
1. Find a village to raise your child. Take Hilary Clinton's advice to heart and find village women and men to help you raise your child in a loving and supportive community. You cannot do everything or be everywhere - create that circle for her and for you.
2. Love your body. Then your daughter will be inspired to cherish her own unique feminine body. Teach about what is wrong about those too skinny images that are coming at her every day.
3. While I am on the subject--keep no scales in the house. A number in the morning should not have the right to determine how one feels about oneself.
4. Celebrate the sacred, invite it in, and make room for it in your home. Celebrate your daughter's menarche even if she resists it. It may be just the two of you (red tulips and strawberries), or a circle of women that hold her.
5. Plant a garden with her if you can find a patch of earth. This will teach her the rhythms of the Earth, the cycles of life and the miracle of starting life from a seed.
6. Teach tolerance and celebrate differences: different bodies, different sexual orientations, different cultures and different points of view. Teach about injustice. Model compassion.
7. Keep talking. Always keep the lines of communication open. If you are having trouble with this, get help.
8. Bring your daughter to your workplace. If you don't work, bring your daughter to your volunteer place. Make sure she sees you in the world.
So how do I know if I--and her father and the village--succeeded? How do I know if this feminist birthed another feminist? By letting her speak.
Raised a Feminist
By Eliza Reynolds
I was raised to be a feminist, but I didn't know it. I would say to anyone who would listen: my mom, my math teacher, my middle-school crush, "Oh no, I'm not a bra burner, I'm not angry, I'm not that girl who doesn't shave her arm pits as a statement against the Man; I am no feminist, no thank you."
But deep down I was.
It was a secret at first. Something that I didn't want the middle school boys to know because then they might be scared of me--you never knew what those feminists might do. They demanded things; they liked the shock value of what they said, of how they dressed. They were rebels and I was no rebel. There was no part of that ugly label that I wanted.
But it turned out that I had it all wrong - middle school stereotypes should never be confused for the truth. I can shave my armpits and be a feminist. I can love my pink strawberry-patterned bra and be a feminist.
I was raised a feminist. I couldn't have avoided it. Oh boy, I was actively prepared, consciously guided and snugly dressed for the world by Momma and Daddy, six godmothers, three teachers and a summer camp. I learned by heart the meanings behind the 'badges' that came to adorn my chest.
I am a feminist because I love my hips and my belly (because they are the same hips and belly that my mom has and loves). I am a feminist because when I'm angry with you I'm going to challenge you--yes my face in yours--to sit down and really talk it out.
I am a feminist because the morning I got my period my dad gave me a big hug and kiss and a bowl of strawberries. I am a feminist because I changed my car tire in a white dress and green heels (and I liked it) and because sometimes I kiss a boy before he gets up the guts to kiss me. I am a feminist because sometimes I cry for "no reason" and it makes me feel whole.
Feminism had snuck up on me. One day I realized that I just love women. And that hey, I am angry when they are hurt and happy when they are healed, and that because I want to protect them and be their champion, I am a feminist. All of the little acts that make up my life, all of the little stories that I would tell as "essence of Eliza", mean feminism to me. I am a feminist because I, an 18-year-old, sarcastic, blog-reading, Starbucks-drinking college freshman, have this vision of the world embedded in me: a world where all people will have the right to be raised safe and free--just as I was.
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