When I was a little girl, I spent hours watching my mother. Oftentimes while she was getting ready in the morning, I would sit on the edge of the bathtub and observe her as she was getting herself ready.
I would watch as she carefully applied her makeup, stretched on her pantyhose, and curled the top of her hair (it was the 90s so usually her hair was short in the back with some length on top). I remembered seeing the movie Home Alone for the first time and thinking that Mrs. McCallister looked just like my mom. In many ways, my life seemed a bit like that. Chaos in the house, two hard working parents, and kids that entertained themselves by picking on each other at every possible turn. Although those days were busy and loud, I loved those quiet moments when it was just me, sitting in the bathroom admiring how confident my mom looked as she walked out the door.
Now that my daughters are getting a bit older, I often wonder what they are thinking as they watch me in my daily routine. I find myself asking my oldest daughter’s opinion on what I should wear to work or how I should do my hair. I want her to know that I value her opinion of me.
I have been on quite the journey in my life towards deciding what it will take to feel like I am living as the best version of myself. We live in a world that tells us that that our value is defined by what society says we should look like, what the media says we should or should not say, what the workforce tells us we can achieve, or what our past tells us we are capable of. I had searched for a metric to determine my value and had found none. The better I got in one area, the more I felt like I was failing in others.
That was until recently, when my sister (who happens to also be my very best friend) told me she asked her daughter a very important question. “If suddenly I was no longer around, what would you say about me to others who ask what I was like?” and then it hit me.
My value is not determined by what society thinks. It is not determined by how much money I make, how expensive my clothes are, what car I drive or where I live. My value is in HER eyes.
If my daughters can grow up and be proud of who their mother is, then I will know that I was the best version of myself, for them. I will know that I have taught them all I could about what it means to be a woman, to be someone who loves others to the pit of her soul, to be a hard worker, a determined spirit and a loving wife. I will have showed them that they can deeply love their family and still chase their dreams. They will know that being their mother was the most important title that I have held.
They will know that they are loved and always will be. Most importantly, they will know that they can be all those things as well.
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