Daughter-Mother

When the parenting tables turn.

Dec 31, 2024

True to my word, this has been a quarterly newsletter this year! Admittedly it hasn’t been quarterly on the clock because I was working on my biggest creation yet and probably will ever produce. This post is about the way she schooled me even before she made her debut on the other side of the womb.

This piece was a huge practice on speed. Where this would’ve taken me 2-3 weeks of finessing, an infant doesn’t give you that luxury so it was done in a day and half. I’m not sure if the visuals are as evocative as I want them to be but I also don’t know if that’s a bad thing because at the end of the day I like my work to feel like a peek into my diary and friendly. Maybe this time next year, I’ll focus on speed to keep my visual processing sharp.

I can’t even begin to describe the extent to which my daughter has changed my world view on so many things. It’s not that I wasn’t sensitive to misogyny before, it was just easier to stop my mind into venturing where it got real dark.

But ever since I found out I was carrying my little goddess, I haven’t been able to stop aching/weeping for all the little girls and women who were/ARE subject to violence and humiliation simply because of their sex.

And then there are the women that wear out their bodies only to be made to feel like they “made a defective good” because it wasn’t a boy, mind boggling.

Knowing I was having a daughter forced some introspection into my maternal lineage. Again, I had some idea of “they had it hard” but with my daughter, the details of the stories became unthinkable to me. Not so much in a judgmental way since I don’t know if I would have done any better with the values and resources of their time. It was more of a deep sorrow that created a huge desire to patch up these wounds with tenderness.

In another life, I would be my mom’s mother, my grandmother’s (Popo) mother. I’d give Popo every chance to explore her youth and her intellect to it’s fullest. No pulling her out of school, no forced marriages, no violence. Above all, she would know that she was so valued, loved, and safe with me.

Mom would get all the nutritious food that she’d need, with all the sweets treats that she would like. And of course, she’d get all the attention she deserved and be so SO loved and protected.

Every child deserves the world but seeing the insane lengths that people throughout history (and even today) have gone through to nurture their boys and alienate their daughters, it’s hard to not want to give little girls extra batteries of tenderness and brilliance.

I’m so grateful that I had a daughter when I did. She’s changed everything all because she was a girl.