I admire the National Women’s Law Center for the good work they do—and I’m inspired by their persistence against many years of too-frequent resistance to fairness and equity for girls and women.
Today, NWLC sent our an email today that provided another kind of inspiration. They quoted from a speech given three years ago at NWLC’s annual awards dinner. The speaker (author of a book called “Dreams from My Father” who has since become President-Elect) shared his hopes for his two young daughters:
"That they'll be able to dream without limit, achieve without constraint, and be absolutely free to seek their own happiness and achievement. At its heart, this has always been the essence of the women's movement in America, the quest to ensure that our daughters will have the same opportunities as our sons."
I think that social changes triggered by the women’s movement have also opened up to our sons (including all of us fathers) some the “same opportunities” traditionally available primarily tom women. Chief among them is the opportunity to be fully-engaged parents, more actively involved in the day-today rearing of our children.
That’s a gift—even a dream come true--for me and many Dads I meet.
Reflect on your dreams for your daughter—and for yourself as a father. Then share some of those dreams with your daughter—and with us in a comment on this blog.
1 comments:
I must finally make a comment, not just to the Author of this, but the other Authors on this site of, and the communities within them. The overwhelming sense of comfort I was grabbing from literature on here was amazing, and I have to admit it really gave me some needed hope in staying determined enough to reunite with my own father. 38 years ago my mom left the state of Colorado and took me to Oregon, where we lived with an Aunt, and she placed me up for adoption. Life for me was never what it could of been, and i made alot of bad choices, ending up in prison myself several times. My information passed along to me @ my adoption was nill, and I have never known my parents, nor my given name...I dream of them every day, and i just wanted all of you to know that the depths you all reached to get inside your self, is not only honorable, but it has to be amazing for the children you never left behind. My father and Mother have their reasons, but at my age none of it makes sense. I had issues being an absentee parent to my own children as a result, and always ended up back in a institution. I have a hole inside, and it makes it hard to be able to invision the real me, when I am not aware of the souls who made me into the person I am today vicariously. Keep it up, you have done the unthinkable, and your children will live a better life that the torment of the unknow, or the unfufilled want of their Dad. Each and every one of you is a miracle!!!
Ashtynn Coryell, born Aug 15th, 1972
Boulder, Colorado at 2:15pm
adopted in Clatsop County, Astoria, Oregon Nov 30 1972
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