Girl Power!

I was walking through Harris Teeter yesterday, picking up a few things which Aldi's doesn't carry, such as fresh herbs, when a woman asked me how I could dye my young daughter's hair such an "absurd" color.

I must have given her the "WTF" look because she seemed a bit taken off guard when I answered her the following: "My daughter is 7. I allow her to have self expression as that gives her self confidence. She believes she looks beautiful in pink hair. I happen to agree with her. She is not looking for employment at 7, nor is she looking to be homogenized into a group where her spirit will not be accepted."

The woman stood there dumbfounded. Boo Bear and I walked off, hand in hand.

As a society, we claim we want our girls to have "power" and "confidence." We run races, raise money and have TV shows which do their best to capture "Girl Power"; yet I feel we are falling short. Very short.

Girl Power, or Boy Power for that matter, does NOT come from running races or raising money or TV shows which represent strong girls as bitches or strong boys as jerks. It comes from allowing them the right to feel internally empowered and unconditionally accepted. Sit with that for a moment. What does that mean to you? What does that mean to your CHILD?

Each of my children are different. Honey Bunny, my current Peacock, gains her empowerment through her art work. She was featured in an art gallery this past Friday for it's monthly Art Crawl. She is the youngest artist they have ever featured and they solicited her after hearing me ask her opinion on some flowers I was purchasing for her sister's bedroom project (converting a loft from a "tree house" to a "fairy house"). Honey Bunny uses her hair color to express her current level of self confidence. When it is low, she returns back to her natural black hair. That is when she wants to be accepted by the status quo and does not have the wherewithal to stand out from the crowd and be strong. When she feels confident, it will be any color from the rainbow. It takes me 6 hours to strip her hair with bleach and then color it. It is truly a labor of love, as I don't enjoy doing it. I think I should go to hairdressing school if I ever want another career! I certainly will have a lot of experience!

Boo Bear feels empowered by her athletic ability. She does aerial dance on Thursday's. This past week, I began talking with a couple of the mom's there. One is your typical career woman, who was working on her laptop while her daughter was in class. We all started talking about education. This particular woman's child is in a high end private school and achieving high marks, at age 7, because to the mother's the utmost importance: how can her daughter get into college without high marks beginning in kindergarten (her words, not mine)? The other mother's daughter goes to Montessori and they considered homeschooling, but her daughter loves her school and they felt it would do her more damage to be brought home. Then there was me. Boo Bear's hair wasn't pink then. When they asked where Boo Bear went to school, I told them that she is homeschooled. This always leads to more questions. As I went on, I explained to them both that we follow our children's passions in life and they learn from those.

The first mother shook her head, said: "Obviously she's NOT in second grade and your other daughter is NOT in high school. You are doing her a disservice by not putting her in traditional school. How could you do that to your daughter? Don't you want her to achieve status?!" I simply looked at her with both eyebrows raised.

The other mother said:"Oh! You Unschool! I've heard about that. We wanted to try that. How's it working," completely ignoring the first mother.

I used the moment to speak to both of them, although the first mother had by that point tuned me out as I wasn't in the same mindset as her's. Amazing how in just one sentence I could be rejected, and to be honest, it sort of hurt. Imagine if I was a child?! That rejection would hit much harder. I felt a pang of middle-school angst and then was able to simply feel sad for this woman that she would never, in my opinion, ever feel her self being honored as she thinks she has to achieve acceptance by society to be justified in her being. My, how quickly that can change and be taken away.

I explained that how we Unschool is different for each child. Honey Bunny enjoys structure and classes and agenda. Honey Bunny is studying Oceanography, Classic American Literature, Personal Finance, Women in History, and two nutritional courses through Brigham Young University, as well as creating her portfolio for Exception for Admission into one of the nation's top craft schools here in North Carolina. Boo Bear prefers a free flowing learning style. Right now, her passion is American Girl Dolls and Barbie's so we are using that to expand upon her reading skills, math skills and history knowledge. We are studying the 1800's (1812 specifically) right now for a group meeting on Tuesday at the library.

To me, empowering my children to be who they are in the moment is important. It changes and I get that. If they want teal hair or pink hair, what do I care? If the hair makes them feel confident, then go for it. As Boo Bear was falling asleep last night, she snuggled into me and said: "Mommy, I'm so glad Daddy agreed to let me have pink hair. I feel so empowered by it! I feel like I can do anything with pink hair!"

To me, THAT is Girl Power. Girl Power is the ability to know your self, the ability to feel confident in your choices, the ability to be strong and kind to others, the ability to love yourself.  It's not being a bitch. It's being the ideal you-whether that is artist or mathematician-the power comes from within.

I see our job as parent's to help foster that kind of confidence. It is our job to lift them up. It is our job to help them up when they fall, physically, mentally and emotionally. It's our job to encourage their growth, to hold our head's up high when they want to walk the line against the status quo and exclaim loud and clear for everyone to hear, with confidence in our voices: "YES, THAT IS MY CHILD AND I AM PROUD OF THEM."