A Mother At Home...
A Lesson for Allison
By William R. Mattox, Jr.
I am not the kind of guy who normally takes part in feminist “consciousness-raising” efforts. But I am participating in Take Your Daughters to Work Day today because I have an eight-year-old daughter whose self-esteem matters a great deal to me.
For the uninitiated, Take Your Daughter to Work Day is an annual event dreamed up by the Ms. Foundation in response to research showing that girls’ self-esteem often plummets during the fragile pre-teen and early adolescent years. By exposing young girls to successful women in the workplace, organizers hope that girls will learn to think more highly of females in general and of themselves in particular.
I have a great day planned for my daughter, Allison. This morning, I plan to take her by the offices of two women whose job it is to meet regularly with members of Congress and other public officials. Then, I plan to have her talk with a young woman who just finished graduate school at Johns Hopkins University and is now serving as a health policy analyst. At lunch, she’ll chat with a woman who does some public speaking, and another who crunches numbers in our accounting department. Finally, in the late afternoon, Allison is scheduled to meet with a woman who used to practice law and now manages a bevy of staff writers.
I am sure all of this will be interesting to Allison. But the time I am most looking forward to is the ride home. For it is then that I plan to point out to my daughter that some of the exciting tasks carried out by my female colleagues in the workplace are tasks my wife performed in jobs she held prior to motherhood. She used to meet regularly with congressmen and senators. She used to do some writing and public speaking. And she has a Phi Beta Kappa key from her college days.
After I remind my daughter of these things, I plan to turn to her and look her in the eye and say, “Allison, you must be a very special young girl. Your mother could be using her talents and skills in all sorts of jobs in the workplace, but she has chosen instead to use them at home teaching you. She must love you very, very much and think you are very, very important.”
Somehow, I think that at that moment my daughter’s self-esteem will rise to a level heretofore unimagined by the organizers of Take Your Daughter to Work Day. And for that I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, whose esteem-building job as a mother at home rarely receives the public esteem it deserves.
For the uninitiated, Take Your Daughter to Work Day is an annual event dreamed up by the Ms. Foundation in response to research showing that girls’ self-esteem often plummets during the fragile pre-teen and early adolescent years. By exposing young girls to successful women in the workplace, organizers hope that girls will learn to think more highly of females in general and of themselves in particular.
I have a great day planned for my daughter, Allison. This morning, I plan to take her by the offices of two women whose job it is to meet regularly with members of Congress and other public officials. Then, I plan to have her talk with a young woman who just finished graduate school at Johns Hopkins University and is now serving as a health policy analyst. At lunch, she’ll chat with a woman who does some public speaking, and another who crunches numbers in our accounting department. Finally, in the late afternoon, Allison is scheduled to meet with a woman who used to practice law and now manages a bevy of staff writers.
I am sure all of this will be interesting to Allison. But the time I am most looking forward to is the ride home. For it is then that I plan to point out to my daughter that some of the exciting tasks carried out by my female colleagues in the workplace are tasks my wife performed in jobs she held prior to motherhood. She used to meet regularly with congressmen and senators. She used to do some writing and public speaking. And she has a Phi Beta Kappa key from her college days.
After I remind my daughter of these things, I plan to turn to her and look her in the eye and say, “Allison, you must be a very special young girl. Your mother could be using her talents and skills in all sorts of jobs in the workplace, but she has chosen instead to use them at home teaching you. She must love you very, very much and think you are very, very important.”
Somehow, I think that at that moment my daughter’s self-esteem will rise to a level heretofore unimagined by the organizers of Take Your Daughter to Work Day. And for that I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, whose esteem-building job as a mother at home rarely receives the public esteem it deserves.
Mr. Mattox is vice president for policy of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
Article originally printed in the Wall Street Journal April 28, 1994.
Article originally printed in the Wall Street Journal April 28, 1994.
Labels:
Family-Marriage-Parenting,
Homemaking
6 comments:
Wow! That was beautiful! I am going to have to print that out and save it. Thank you so much for sharing.
I was curious at first, but I figured it would have a wonderful meaning in the end:)
That was great and so true. Would be nice to know what that young woman is doing today.
Wow, Diane! That was not what I expected! Thank you!
I'm impressed! Thanks for sharing this.
Great article that is worth keeping and re-reading, even if I do have 3 boys. :-) Thank you.
Vanessa
I had seen this article somewhere -- maybe the magazine Focus on the Family used to put out -- and really loved the point he made. I am glad it is online now.
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