A Letter To My Two Year Old Daughter (+ My 34 Year Old Self)
To my Willa girl,
For nearly 8 years, I was a boy mom through and through. The house was filled with Legos and dinosaurs and little boy energy (let’s be honest— still is). I bought the sweatshirt and committed to the role, one I have grown to love and truly enjoy.
Then came you. The girl we prayed for. The daughter we hoped we’d one day have, but held on loosely, because God knows better than we do.
When I became a mom to a son, I had a lot of learning to do. I didn’t know the first thing about raising boys or how to protect them without squandering their wild hearts + imaginations. I had to deep dive into all the books and podcasts to wrap my head around the lofty responsibility I had just been handed.
But when I became a mom to a daughter, it was unlearning I had to do. I knew how to bandage scraped up knees and the best spot to dig for worms after a rainstorm and how to reattach the arms on a mini-figure (it’s harder than it looks), but I didn’t know how to teach self-love and body acceptance when I was failing to do those things myself.
I didn’t know how on earth I was going to raise a little girl who was confident and kind and humble and strong, who doesn’t stop first to ask if she’s worthy before walking into a room. Who has a healthy relationship with her mirror and who champions other women because she doesn’t feel threatened by their beauty or success.
At not even two years old, I have watched you watch me get ready in the mornings. I hand you the chapstick and chuckle at your attempts to mimic me, stamping the tube all across your cheeks. As I apply my mascara, I make sure to tell you that I am beautiful already. No makeup needed. But sometimes it’s just fun to wear it.
I read the scribbled note on my mirror I had written shortly after you were born, a note of encouragement over the body I had exchanged for motherhood. And I wonder if one day you will read the note too and believe it for yourself—that this body truly is a gift.
But it’s so much deeper than just a desire for you to feel beautiful. My hope is that your value never becomes tied to your achievements or your performance. I spent years believing I had to earn my place in the lives of others, and on rough days, sometimes I still do.
The other day, I was on a walk with a good friend, talking about our postpartum bodies and motherhood and insecurity, and I told her we needed to write our daughters an affirmation statement for when they are older…and we needed to read it over ourselves now.
So we took the homework and ran with it, and the next week on our walk, we poured out our hearts for our daughters and ourselves onto a Notes app in our phones.
My sweet little girl, it will be years before you read this, and even longer before it means something to you. But know, in the meantime, I’m reading it over myself too.
Because daughters don’t need mothers who have become experts in parenting, who have learned all there is to learn. They need moms who have done the hard work of unlearning the lies the world spent years telling them. Moms who know whose they are, so they can point the way for them, too.
Willa’s Worth Statement//
I am precious and wholly loved.
I don’t have to strive to belong.
There’s already a seat for me at the table.
My beauty flows from the inside out.
My scars don’t define my worth,
because His do.
I have nothing to prove.
