Actually, it was a dinner party celebrating the start of school, but the conversation turned to, "how do you raise strong women?" Not the weight lifting kind of strong women but those girls who can say "have you lost your mind? I am not showing you my nipple and you are an ass" kind of strong women.
The conversation was all over the place, birth order, zodiac sign, age of the mother when the daughter is born, state they were conceived in (making that one up), seriously, it was all over the place.
How do you raise strong women?
If my husband was ALPHA parent, Addie would be prancing around in bloomers, playing dolls until she was 16, then she would be allowed to go to school and study cooking. She would never have a cut, an ailment and she would never meet anyone who didn't love her. She would never have any conflict. Her life would be like a game of CANDY LAND. Her days would be filled with pink and purple and taffy and GUMDROPS. How boring is that?
Instead, her ALPHA parent is me. One of my favorite people on this planet and my former roommate, T-Redneck said to me one night, "you know, I have never seen a man offer to buy you a beer. You are cold and unapproachable."' Damn Right.
It wasn't about the beer. I can buy my own. It was about the attitude. I didn't come there to have a man buy me a beer, then you have to talk to them. I came there to sit with my friends.
But the question loomed in my head, "how to you raise strong women?"
I have been consumed by this. I have researched it. I have a conclusion.
You bear them and then you raise them.
When I was a child, I was surrounded by my great grandmother, Emma. She was a character and she is a legend.
Then there was my Mamaw. My favorite person of all time.
My mom. Linda. Little Linda. My dad always could her Little Linda, small and mighty.
And my Aunt Judy. My mom's older sister.
I cannot imagine what this planet would have been like if they would have ruled it.
They didn't rule the planet, the world my world.
They still do.
I am 55 years old and if my mom tells me to send a card (even if I don't know the person) I send it.
One Sunday in church, I told my brother to go through the hymnal and add "under the covers" to the end of the hymn title. He starts giggling and Little Linda grabs my shoulder and squeezes with all her might. You read correctly, my shoulder. I gave her that teenage, "what did I do?" look and she glared. You know, the glare. She glared.
After an hour of praise and grace, we get into the church parking lot and she whips her shoe off and clobbers me because I told him this.
Even at 75 years old, if there was an Olympic Event for whipping your shoe off and clobbering your kid, my mom would be the most decorated Olympian of all time.
Bottom line, when Little Linda spoke, you listened and you moved.
One day, I had Little Linda and my Mamaw at a restaurant. It was time to order. Everytime one of us ordered, the poor waitress said, "we are out of that".
Seriously, it was breakfast. Eggs, toast, oj and bacon. Really?
Finally, when the waitress to my Mamaw, my grandma ordered and she said, "sorry, we are out of that too."
My Mamaw looked up at her and said, "Just what in the hell do you have?"
It is the question that is still repeated 45 years later.
I guess you just raise girls to be strong and then surround them with strong women.
My mom was one of those women in the 60's didn't wear a dress and run the sweeper with pearls. She seldom wore shoes and when she did they were flip flops (so she could use them as a weapon) and she was fiercely independent. She stayed at home with us and didn't work outside the home.
But it was what she did in the home that later mattered.
We got ourselves out of bed in the morning. We made our own breakfasts, we walked to the bus stops, that were six miles away in the freezing Pittsburgh winters (kidding, 1/4 mile) and we did chores. At ten years old, I cleaned up the dinner dishes, emptied the dishwasher, folded all the laundry (which has scarred my for life...the folds had to be what you saw when you opened the closet), babysat, cleaned my room, changed my sheets and scrubbed the garage door.
If you ever let it slip that you were bored, you immediately were scrubbing the garage door or cleaning out your drawers.
The point is, she taught us to survive.
Never would she have called someone for us. "You get on the phone and you ask. You sure have a mouth at home. Don't pull that shy thing now."
She made us go out and survive. When I started babysitting, she said "Handle it."
I goofed on my schedule one time and accidentally scheduled a babysitting job on a home football game Saturday. I asked her if I could go to the game, while she babysat, then I would take over for her after the game. She said no. I think this is what prompted me to write "I hate my mom, I hate my mom, I hate my mom" over 100 times in my diary.
Never made a scheduling mistake again.
I went away to college and was only allowed to call on Sundays. Her theory, "You will just need to figure it out". And I did.
I failed a few thousand times but I figured it out.
Shortly after college graduation, I was living at home with plans to move to California. Things changed abruptly and my heart was broken. Later that evening, my brother asked me if I wanted to go with him and few buddies to a party.
"Mom should I go?'
"Yes, your pity party ended here three hours ago. Nobody came. Life moves on. Go live it."
It is not about being strong, it is not about not crying and not caring, it is about falling off the bike, getting back on and being smart enough to know that what you did before did not work.
And taking risks.
Having a strong mind doesn't mean you are a mouthy, opinionated know it all, it means you can think and process and then act.
Being strong means that you have the courage to do things on your own. It also means that you are smart enough to ask stronger folks their opinions and then actually listen to their wisdom. Being strong means being comfortable in your own skin and liking it.
And being strong means caring with courage and guts and protection those you love.
One afternoon, I was about ten, my brother Todd was six, my mom and Mamaw took us to Three Rivers Stadium for a Pittsburgh Pirates double header. We were sitting on the first base line and the sun was blazing in our faces.
My brother Todd sat there in his army green Health-tex shorts with a short-sleeve yellow shirt with an army green stripe around his collar and his navy blue PF Fliers. He had two little match box bulldozers or tractors (who knows, he was never without those things) and he sat in his little stadium seat.
It was hot. In between games, with plenty of seats to spare, a little old lady sat down, directly in front of my brother. Right smack in front of him. Tons of open seats and she sat directly in front of y six year old brother who never really ever sat still.
And, she had a sleeve of Lorna Doones. It is Africa hot out and she is eating these dry Lorna Doones. At a baseball game.
Occassionally during the game, Todd would accidentally touch the back of her seat, put his hand on the back of her seat, maybe kick the back of her seat when he stood up to catch a foul ball but he was never intentional.
He was a six year old kid.
About the sixth inning, Todd jumped up to see a plane and when he did, his little navy blue PF Flier rubbed the back of her seat.
The little old lady jumps up, the stadium seat makes that funky noise and she turns around and puts her finger in Todd's face.
Okay, it is no secret in my family that Prince Todd is the chosen child. That is a whole different blog post. My mother adores her Prince and here is some old lady with her finger in his face.
The old lady, with her drapery arms flapping, finger pointing and shaking and says, "You need to sit down, behave and quit hitting my seat. If you mother isn't going to discipline, I will."
I was only ten but even I knew these were fighting words.
I looked over at my mom, who was the same height as Lorna Doone Lady and she jumps out of her seat like a rabid Jack-in-the-Box.
My mamaw is gripping her seat and my mom leans over and snaps that lady's finger and says, "He is six years old. There are 63,000 seats in here and you chose to sit in front of a six year old boy with two matchbox cars. If he accidentally hits your seat three or four times, so be it. You can move. So turn around, and take your Lorna Doones with you."
I will never forget it. Never. Wake me up at 3 am and ask me what sleeve of cookie the old lady had and I will say, without skipping a beat, Lorna Doone.
It was the first time I remember seeing me mom in action. She was awesome.
Being strong doesn't mean you cannot cry, it means that whining is not an option.
It means you are faced with a mess and you see it as an opportunity.
Being strong is an attitude.
When Adeline was born, I just kept looking at her saying, "I cannot believe I had a girl. And what am I going to do with her?" I hope that when she looks back at her childhood, she will see a woman that was an independent thinker and was not afraid to live her life. And that whining was not an option and I too would snap a finger from a geriatric.
Two weeks ago, I announced that we needed to clean the garage (wonder where I got that from). We started but I had to leave. Adeline had a vision. Walker did not see her vision. She said she had this and let her be. Darn, that girl nailed it.
You have no idea how proud she was of the work she accomplished. Still talking about it. If her dad would have been home, he wouldn't have made her help. When she said she was willing, I said go for it. Her inner strength grew that rainy Saturday.
I guess the recipe for raising strong women is this, let them try things they wouldn't normally try and don't hold their hand while doing it....Just them go. And learn.
And if they are hungry when they are done learning and doing, give them a Lorna Doone.
