Real Women

One of the things that I love about my job is talking to the mothers of the children I work with and learning from their experiences.

One mother recently said, "I'm so glad that there are  young women working with the teens and middle schoolers here. I don't think young women and teenage girls realize that they have the power to set the tone in their relationships."

She went on to say that women, in the past few decades, have shaped themselves into empowered individuals who can live on their own but then they turn around and wonder why they "can't find any good men." She told me about a conversation she had with a a male friend of hers who had always been accustomed to holding doors open to women, but lately he's been standing at doors wondering "Should I open this door for her or will she think that I'm patronizing her because I think she can't open the door for herself?"

Have women emasculated men to the point where men don't know what their roles are in relationships? And with the surge of the "feminist movement," have women lost the sense of what femininity is?

I get lectures about how women didn't burn their bras so I could be complacent. But does it mean that I'm complacent if I let a man open a door for me or if I wouldn't want to have children without a man by my side? And does it mean that women who stay at home as a wives and mothers aren't feminists because they let their husbands be the primary breadwinners?

My opinions are summarized by scenes in Mona Lisa Smile, where Julia Roberts scolds her class at Wellesley as "the smartest women in the nation" who will use their physics degrees solely to make calculations on how to perfectly roast a chicken and Julia Stiles' retort later on that "being a wife and mother" is what she really wants.

It just brings up a lot of questions--what defines a modern woman and what role does a man play in a modern woman's life?

"Be a Leader."

As I grow older, I realize that there are going to be times when my personal conviction doesn't mesh with what everyone else expects from me. Pop culture tells us over and over again that we need to have a lot of money, look pretty and conform in order to be accepted. I want to be accepted, but I don't want to have to adopt criteria that someone else has drafted in order to gain a stamp of approval.


Yes, the refusal to do what everyone expects from me or what's popular makes life a lot more challenging to me, and it creates roadblocks towards what I want. And yes, I often contemplate whether or not I should give in, but then I'm inspired by the lives of people who chose to walk the path of resistance and somehow convince others to follow them.

I'm reminded of something that I say to the kids I work with. There are always those troublemakers who want to push buttons and test my limits. I used to use threats like "I'll call your mom" or "I know your father," and I realized that never worked. I looked more like a tattle-tale than an authority figure. It dawned on me that I wanted these kids to respect all authority figures, myself included, so rather than responding with "I'm telling,"  I started saying, "Be a leader." I was amazed at how they responded. They wanted to be responsible. They wanted an opportunity to show their peers how to act. They wanted an adult to place high expectations on them. They liked being at the front of the crowd--that's why they were asking for attention through acting up. Those troublemakers are the ones who CAN lead.

While the concept is different from expectations to conform, the mantra is just as powerful. When people expect one thing of you that you don't necessarily agree with, change the tide and "Be A Leader."