What it means to be a girl...

Today I was watching Macy and was overcome with emotion. It was just an ordinary day, Avery and Carston were at school that morning, Kate was sleeping, and Macy was just going about her business. She had a little dance in her step as she went along, she wanted to go play out in the backyard with Sadie, she was just so cute. And it struck me how much things might change as she gets older and feels more of the world's pressures on her. Will there be a day when she omits the dance in her step? Will there be a day when she looks in the mirror, not to confirm how beautiful she looks, but to wonder if she's beautiful at all? Will there come a day when she starts moderating her behavior because she is worried about people's opinions? The thought of those things happening just breaks my heart. I love how confident Macy is about who she is. She doesn't have any desire to be different than her strong, beautiful, little 2 year old self. And yet I wonder if it is possible for her to keep that. I look at myself, how I went through all those things, the doubting, the longing to be someone different, the desire to have the approval of other people rather than the approval of ourselves. Just the other day I found myself looking in the mirror and realized my subconscious was using the time deciding all over again if I was pretty or not. What is up with that? Of course I'm pretty. We are all beautiful. Why does it seem impossible to find a girl who has escaped this path. Why do our girls especially lose their confidence and assurance in who they are, and their determination to be who they are and find joy in it? It breaks my heart. I don't ever want to see my sweet little Macy crying because she doesn't think she is pretty like so and so. I don't want her to lose the dance in her step and have it replaced with a self-conscious huddled-shouldered walk. I don't want to ever see her thinking she isn't talented or gifted. I don't ever want her to wish that she was someone else. But I wonder if that is even possible. I see all the pressures and influences that are out there right now, and I know they will only get more intense. I feel like I've got to be actively fighting back, preparing my sweet little girls who are so young, so that hopefully when the time comes that they are assaulted on all sides, they will be strong and prepared.