I signed my daughter up for a felt crafting class offered by our local public school. I was excited for her to do it not only because I know how much she loves that kind of creative crafting, but because the teacher was a woman I know, love and respect. She’s a woman I have a lot in common with when it comes to our basic values— we love Jesus, we love our husbands, we love kids (ours and other people’s), but our talents, temperament and passions are very different. Over the years I have come to see that my daughter needs women who are different from me to invest in her life and I have come to highly value those women.
My daughter and I are very different. She’s very in touch with her emotions. . . very. She loves to bake and create art, but she hates dancing. In some ways, she’s an old soul. She cares about people’s feelings, but doesn’t always care about making everybody happy. She loves the elderly and will seek them out wherever we go. She sees spiritual meaning in everything. She’s exactly what our family needed, but it’s become clear to me that she needs a wide variety of women in her world to help her see and value the way she was made.
There are ways I’m a lot like my mom. I think that made it easy for me to picture what kind of woman I would be as I got older. I would probably be a woman a lot like my mom. For my daughter, it’s different. She needs other women to validate for her that her feelings can be an asset and not just a liability. She needs women who can see the detail work in her drawings and will talk to her about what she can do with that love of beauty. I can do these things for her, but I speak as an outsider. I love being a curious learner about the way God made her, but it’s my responsibility and my joy to find those other women who can speak to her with a sense of familiarity, authority and understanding.
And these women are blessings to me too. When I’m struggling to know how to best parent this daughter of mine, I have women in my life who can help me know what it was like to be that girl— the one with the big feelings, the constantly messy room, and the wild dreams. They can coach me on how to guide her without squashing who she was made to be. They help me see the beauty of these gifts because I see the beauty of it in their lives and how it blesses me through their friendship. My feeler friends have made me a better woman as I’ve listened to their wisdom on how to encourage and connect with others. I love getting to practice those lessons with my girl.
I’m not outsourcing my motherhood responsibilities. I know that my daughter needs me, even in the ways we are different. I believe she came into this family because she needed a mother like me and I needed a daughter like her. She needs a mother who can help her learn that her emotions don’t have to control her (or control our family) and I need a daughter to remind me to stop and feel my feelings when they happen. Through it all I have learned to be humble enough to admit that I don’t always know what I’m doing with her and there are times I may have wounded her precious heart through my ignorance. Connecting her to different types of women has been a blessing for both of us as she sees examples of women who share her struggles and her gifts and she sees how I admire and respect them even if they’re different from me. . . and sometimes BECAUSE they’re different from me.
I think it’s important for all of us as parents to realize we may not be the only godly example of manhood or womanhood our child needs. When we can help find them mentors who exemplify other good gifts, we are giving them the joy of the diverse beauty of the family of God. Sometimes this will happen without any initiation on our part. Our kids will find that teacher or aunt or friend’s parent they gravitate towards and our job is to just support it. But sometimes it takes more intentionality. Sometimes it takes signing them up for that felt crafting class, or asking your best friend to take your daughter out for ice-cream occasionally, or being sure they have piano lessons with Grandma because she sees the beauty in their artistic desires, or asking for wisdom from your adult adoptee friend before speaking into your child’s pain, or surrounding yourself with friends who remind you of your girl in all her strengths and struggles.
I am not enough for my daughter. And that’s a good thing. It’s a much-needed reminder to connect her to a community of women who understand her, a family of men who respect and support her, a church body that needs her gifts, and ultimately to a Savior who knows her and loves her more than I ever could.