The privilege of being female (an excerpt)

They were babies, my girls, chubby then slender then chubby again until their bodies filled out, their minds sorted options and their hearts found a place to rest. Two girls who became women, more beautiful than I, smarter, gentler and kinder than the woman I am. They are driven and patient, focused and free of the female hang ups tattooed to my raised-in-the-sixties soul. They are savvy, an old fashioned word, and awesome, a new one.

My daughters are women. Though they will never stop being ‘my girls’, they are more grown up then I ever was at their age. More accomplished and less afraid, I envy their youth.

Sometimes I wonder if they know how lucky they are to be young because I didn’t when I was. I wonder if they realize the advantages they have because they are female.  Being female when I was young meant marrying a man with a good job to take care of me. By the time I was told what a cheating fallacy that was, and that I should always be able to take care of myself, college was out. Education came in temporary spurts and working the patheticism of retail filled in the gaps between what was and what is.

I went into business, dreamed and worked damn hard. I met a man and failed at everything. At the opposite of pinnacle I met another man and settled into three and half decades of marriage, family and survival. He took care of me, I took care of him, and we raised two daughters who wear skills, intelligence and humor like a designer wardrobe. 

Our daughters will excel, they will fail, they will love their husbands and wonder at times why they ever thought such a partner suited them.

From my past I garner experience and give it to my girls as insight into the importance of being young and female.  Youth, I mourn the loss of mine every single day; female, we are a higher species than man I think. I am convinced of this because we gave birth; no man who has witnessed the push to life would disagree.