The Thing About Daughters

I originally wrote this to read aloud at a best friend's baby shower over the weekend. She's expecting her first daughter. {Squee!}  I wanted to share it with you too! 

I’ve heard it said that a baby is a mother’s own heart walking outside her body.                     

And there is something about a daughter that just makes this extra true. 

It doesn’t matter if you are the mom that made a special Pinterest-inspired pegboard to organize an almost shameful-to-admit number of bows or if you are the mom that secretly wonders if you can hack it as a girl-mom when you know how to accomplish exactly zero hairstyles…unless the ponytail counts.

When a little girl comes into your life and calls you mom, she will stretch you, change you, hold a mirror up to your own female self and challenge it.

When she’s little, you’ll watch your daughter full of her child-like wonder, and you’ll remember what it was like: the days of pink and longing for tutu’s and ballet slippers, the way you used to dance on the coffee table and ask for your papa’s attention. You’ll remember how you could make a mud pie, domesticate a jar for your lady-bug pet, and just how much it meant to you when your momma would buy you a twirly Sunday-best dress and then set you on the counter to curl your bangs.

Your daughter will tell you how pretty you are for years. She’ll likely have opinions about your clothes, and might even dig out the bridesmaid dress from the back of your closet and beg you to wear it for your trip to the grocery store.

She will probably sing about everything. You might even catch her singing her own song about how beautiful she is. It’ll melt your heart. You’ll both beam with pride at her self-confidence and cringe at the stark contrast in the way you view your own self through your flaws. You will make it your mission in life to protect her confidence and her beauty. You recognize the value of those things because at some point in your own journey someone or something tried to rob you of them.

There’s the moment you first encounter mean girls at the park. It will surprise you how young it happens, how sharp and diva-like one three-year-old girl can wield the words, “I don’t want to play with you.” And when your daughter looks to you, eyes big and wet, it will cut into your own heart—make you remember all the mean girls you ever encountered. You’ll do your best to reel in your inner momma bear, and you’ll do your very best to brush off the sharp marks those kind of words can leave.

There will come a time when she will confess that she doesn’t like something about herself: her hair, her freckles, her teeth, her birthmark. She’ll tell you how the kids made fun of her for it. It’ll catch you off-guard, because you look at her and you see beauty, you see someone marvelous and full of purpose, someone you love perfectly and wholly.

{A mother’s love is like that.}

She’ll imitate you, watch you, want to be you. She’ll mother her younger siblings, her stuffed animals, her dolls. While boys might want to make everything fight or blow up, she’ll want to band-aide and haircut and comfort.

She is your legacy. One day she will pick up the torch you have held in your own home and she will hold it in hers. She won’t fill her daddy’s shoes, for she’s meant to fill yours.

She’ll notice whether or not you swim in your swim suit, the comments you make about yourself in the fitting room, how you answer when she asks you how much you weigh. But the thing is, what she’s noticing isn’t how fluffy your stomach is or how dimply your thighs or how that mole sticks up right next to your nose… she’s noticing if any of that stuff bothers you.

You’ll relish in the moments where the parenting curtain is pulled back and you see in her a friend. She’ll say honest things spoken from a hopeful heart that will pierce the jaded places in your own heart. You’ll laugh together till your sides hurt, and you will share inside jokes. There will come a day when you would actually prefer to take her shopping with you than enjoy an afternoon shopping without kids.

It will probably shock you at some point, the way you mirror each other. She will battle the same insecurities you did. She is a piece of your own beauty and flaws, your gifts and talents, your sensitivity, the way you used to dream, the way you respond to conflict, the way you process life.

Maybe there will be that moment when she will come home from school with her first broken heart—be it from a boy crush, cruel words, or a failure in sports or academics. She might declare herself ugly, not smart, too short, too slow. And you, Momma, this is your shining chance to fight for her self-worth. You will tell her how beautiful she is, all the little pieces of individual-fabulousness of her that you adore.  When she tells you that you are only saying that because you are her mom and you have to, you will drag her in front of the mirror and declare that you will not leave until she can tell you all the best parts of herself.

Because maybe the world will try to break her down, tell her who she is and who she isn’t, tell her what’s she’s worth and wrap up far too much of that worth in ridiculous physical standards. But that’s why God made you, Girl-mom. You are her very own advocate, the one who knows that deep-down feminine place of longing to be beautiful, of longing to be enough. And you, Girl-mom, you are the one that can be her very own mirror and show her the value of a woman and her own self.

When we think about having a girl, we think of bows, dress up, and tea parties.  But the thing about a daughter is that she’s your very own feminine heart, walking outside your body.

Raising a girl is this glorious chance to fall in love with your own self the way the Father loves you.

And there’s so much grace in the fact that she didn’t come with your baggage, your life experiences, your pain. She is new and fresh and precious. She’s not your chance to go back and relive your own life better; she’s her own person created for His glory. She’s your chance to see yourself differently, and your high calling to advocate for, fight for, pray for and love perfectly.

And maybe this girl-mom thing is a bit terrifying, you’ll want to protect her from all the things you can’t control. And maybe it will be hard. But you can trust Jesus, walk with Him, lean on Him.

Because, yes, she will face pain and heartache, but you, full of the Spirit’s leading, will be there to guide her through it.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers

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