Parenting

What a Daughter Needs Most from Her Mom

toddler daughter #whatadaughterneeds #momskills

Being a mother is not simply having children and taking care of their physical needs. Being a mother who raises strong, confident, faith-filled, and generous children requires us to understand that we have a profound relationship with each of our children – one in which they depend on us to be their guide in navigating the waters that beat against them day in and day out.

What a Daughter Needs Most from Her Mom

Our sons and daughters experience different societal challenges. Our son’s innocence is attacked (YOU CAN FIND THE POST ABOUT SONS HERE) while our daughter’s self-esteem is robbed. And while all children need respect, affection, and sacrificial love, our daughters need something specific from their mom. What a daughter needs most from her mom is a true friend, a confidant, a mentor.

You Need to Be Her Best Friend

What does it mean to be your daughter’s best friend? Here’s what it doesn’t mean:

You are not her peer.
You don’t let her disrespect you.
She is not the boss of you.
There are clear boundaries of parent/child and you own the parent side of the fence.
You don’t seek attention in your inappropriately youthful dress and behavior.

To be her true friend means that you have a relationship built on trust and honesty. You listen to her when she comes to talk – really listen (like, put down the phone and look her in the eyes listen).

You accept her as she is, while challenging her to higher virtue. We are not a good friend to our daughter if we allow her to disrespect us or others, or if we give way to temper tantrums or spoiling.

We embrace the role of mentor – a trusted guide or counselor – to our daughters.

A Trusted Guide or Counselor

I love this image of mentor in my motherhood. I want to help her, lead her by the hand down the path of life.

I want to be there when the snake comes up the path to bite her. When she’s young, I’ll kill the snake and teach her how to look out for them in the future. And as she grows, I’ll teach her how to take care of her own snakes.

I want to be there to comfort her when she thinks she’ll never have friends. I want to help her understand that finding friends can be hard, and sometimes the friends you thought you had change and do things that she knows is wrong. I want to help her move on while helping her to pray for her friends. I want her to know she always has a friend in Jesus and in me.

I want to be there to guide her through the constant assaults she’ll have upon her purity, her true femininity, and the judgments she’ll experience on her looks, abilities, and intelligence.

I want to teach her about the world while empowering her to not be worldly. I don’t want her to hide away from the world, but rather, give her the tools to look away, walk away, and be strong with what she knows are her values and morals.

I want her to know she can tell me anything – anything – and I will not judge her, condemn her nor stop loving her. I want her to know she can always come to me and find someone who will love her and help her, challenging her to more when appropriate.

I want to be there when some boy (who has not been brought up well) wants to use her to try to bolster his lacking self-esteem. I want her to hear my outrage so that she knows she, too, can be outraged even though the rest of society says it’s ok.

I want her to fall into my arms or call me on the phone whenever she’s lonely knowing she’ll find comfort and reassurance. And I will comfort her, dry her tears, pick her back up and give her a boost of confidence to get back into the game.

I want to be a good role model of faith, virtue, and morals so that in a world that constantly challenges the good and the beautiful, she will see what’s important by what her mother holds dear.

The Judgment of Others

As moms, we must help our daughters see from an early age what their gifts and talents are and give them the courage to not care about the judgments of others. That’s extremely hard to do, but it is essential in this comparison world.

That also requires us to let go of wanting ‘the perfect child’ – as if our children and their abilities reflect upon our own self-worth. Our daughters don’t need to be signed up for ballet, preschool, gymnastics, name-the-instrument, softball, basketball, soccer and any/every other activity on the planet. Extra-curriculars are good but should have a purpose other than proving our child is the smartest and best at everything.

Our girls are going to be judged by people the rest of their life. They need to have a firm core of who they are, whose they are (God’s) and what their purpose is in life. As her best friend, you can help her by nurturing her self-esteem and encourage the development of a growth-mindset (believing her abilities can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and outside input).

What does your daughter need most from you?

Be her best friend. Be a true and authentic friend. Be her mentor, guiding her through life with a firm hold on faith, confidence, and the knowledge that she can always depend on you to support, love, encourage, challenge, and accept her.

Have a great week!

Janet