Last week, Adeline, my 20-month old baby girl, was resting against my chest. It was dark in her room and I was trying to rock her body and mind to sleep. As I watched her eyes slowly losing the fight to stay awake, I began whispering in her ear, “You are strong, sweet girl. You are brave. And you are smart. You are good. You are safe. You are loved. You are powerful…” For several minutes I just whispered in her ear what I believe is true. I do that from time to time: I look into her dark brown eyes and I tell who and what she is. The only word she likely understands is “you.” Right now, I honestly think I do it more for me than for her, to remind myself that my little baby girl needs to hear, from somebody who loves her deeply, who and what she is. And she needs to hear those words over and over again.
Because I know that some day, probably sooner than I can imagine, somebody somewhere will likely tell my little girl that “she can’t…” or that “she isn’t…” or that “she’s not…” When she hears those words and then asks why, she’ll be told… “Because you’re a girl.”
I tell Adeline she’s strong because one day somebody might tell her she’s weak.
I tell Adeline she’s smart because one day somebody might tell her she’s stupid.
I tell Adeline she’s good because one day somebody might tell her she’s not good enough.
And when those times comes, I want so badly for her to remember my words, to remember what I have told her.
Our world is still a very difficult place for millions and millions of women. Oh, I know that Adeline has it made compared to the hardships and challenges and abuses and crimes that other 20-month-old babies will one day face not because they made a mistake or a bad choice… but just because of their gender. In many countries around the world, just because a baby girl is born a baby girl, that fact alone subjects them to a multitude of greater challenges than if they had been born a boy. What a travesty that, in 2013, your gender still subjects you to conditions and circumstances and laws and other confrontations that you will have to overcome, survive, experience, or get used to. No baby girl should have question whether or not she’ll be allowed to learn, to become educated. No baby girl should have to fear that one day she’ll be subject to FGM (female genital mutilation). No baby girl should have to wonder whether or not they’ll one day get sold into sex slavery. And I could go on and on, listing travesties that baby girls all across the globe will face.
Yes, my baby Adeline has it made compared to many. Because she lives here, in the United States. Like many industrialized nations around the World, the US has made many great strides in the fight for gender equality.
But we are not done. Great strides should be celebrated. Great strides should be appreciated. But great strides should never become an excuse or a reason to stop fighting for women, no matter where they happen to be born.
Today is International Women’s Day. In honor of today, in honor of the millions of 20-month-old baby girls around the world who have no idea the challenges they might be forced to endure just because they’re girls, I’m making a one-time donation to World Visions’s “Education for Girls” fund. (Click here if you’d like to make a one-time donation to help baby girls around the world become educated.)
Because for many of the world’s baby girls, they don’t know that they are strong. Nobody ever tells them that they are smart. And often, they never hear the words, “You are good.” And if they do know or if they happen to hear those words spoken to them, it’s probably because they’re one of the girls who was lucky enough to survive or overcome their greatest challenge: being born a girl.
Help a baby girl get an education…
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