They’re Watching and Taking Notes. No Pressure!
One of infinity Mother's Day essays you'll read this week.
My friend Maura Brannigan just published an essay on her Substack, Clotheshorse, that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. It’s called “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and in it she writes about what she believes she was put on this planet to do: mother daughters.
I read it and felt, more than anything, recognized. When I learned my first baby was a girl, then my second, and my third (LOL), I just knew this was my calling. I wasn’t afraid — I was energized. I have a lot of inspiration to pull from to get this as close to right as possible.
I have my own mother, who showed me what it looked like to love fiercely and show up completely. I have friends — The Coven, Basket B’s, Exec, and sooooo many more — who are living out loud alongside me, figuring this out in real time, and cheering me on in the same breath. The older I get, the more I understand that we don’t raise our daughters alone. We raise them inside a web of women — the ones who came before us, the ones walking beside us — and every single one of those relationships is part of what gets passed down. When my girls watch me with my mother, they’re learning what devotion looks like across generations. When they see me laugh until I can’t breathe with my girlfriends, they’re learning that women are each other’s lifelines, not each other’s competition. That might be one of the most important things I can teach them.
The weight of being watched
My daughters watch me work. They see me take calls, manage my team, collaborate with my clients, push back in meetings. They see me take up space — literally and figuratively — in rooms where that isn’t always easy or comfortable. I used to wonder if I was doing too much, if I was somehow less present because of it. Now I think they need to see it. They need to see a woman who doesn’t apologize for her ambition, who holds pride in her accomplishments alongside genuine humility, who doesn’t make herself smaller so others feel bigger.
But they’ve also seen me cry.
I want to be honest about that, because I think we sometimes curate our vulnerability too carefully for our children. There was a moment — I was truly overwhelmed — and I didn’t hide it. I let them see that. And then, just as importantly, they saw me recover. Pick myself up. Move forward. Vulnerability isn’t weakness. What they learned is that you can feel the full weight of something and still carry it.
How I show up for me
Maura wrote something in her essay that I keep returning to: that showing up for yourself is one of the greatest gifts you can give your daughters, who are so often led to believe that womanhood demands self-sacrifice. She’s right. And I live that daily. While I value my time with my girls, they know I am a sum of parts. I need time to myself to unwind. I need dates with my husband. I need a trip with my mom and sister, just us. I need adventures with my girlfriends — maybe the most (LOL). And all of that is okay.
How I show up for them
My oldest had her first musical theatre performance recently. Second show. She missed her cue.
In that split second, every parental instinct in me wanted to rush in with comfort. It’s okay, you’ll get it next time. But I stopped myself, because that’s not the lesson I wanted her to carry. Missing the cue wasn’t the story. What she did next was the story.
She got out there. She jumped right into her lines. She nailed it. And she didn’t let one mistake hollow out her joy in the whole experience. In fact, she wants to go back and do more.
That’s what I want her to know: not that mistakes don’t happen, but that you don’t have to let them define the moment. You show up anyway. You deliver. The comeback is the point.
What’s changed — and what hasn’t
When I wrote about the Dream Gap a few years ago — the research showing that girls as young as six begin to doubt their own brilliance and shrink themselves to fit what the world seems to expect — I was fired up.
Five years later, I still believe everything I wrote. The pressures have shifted, the platforms have multiplied, the noise has gotten louder. But the core truth hasn’t moved: girls start absorbing messages about their own limitations earlier than we think, and they need consistent, intentional counterweights.
What I’ve come to understand more fully is that the most powerful counterweight isn’t a book, a talk, or a campaign. It’s me- that is not pressure to be perfect. It’s an invitation to be real — to work, to stumble, to recover, to laugh, to love them fiercely and let them watch me live fiercely.
Their father
I’d be telling an incomplete story if I didn’t say this: my husband, their dad, is shaping them too — in ways that are entirely his own. He shows them how a man shows up in a home. How a man shows up in a marriage. He creates safety. He creates laughter. He builds things with them, creates with them, teaches them the importance of compassion — and of basketball (go Knicks!). They are watching him too, learning what partnership and presence look like. That matters deeply when raising daughters.
Editor’s note: I speak to my own heteronormative experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only right one. The sentiment here is personal and offered with complete respect for all the family structures that exist.
In conclusion
I hold women in the highest esteem — if you know me, you know this. Women are superheroes. They are the main characters. They are, to me, perfect. And whether you’ve birthed a child or you’re influencing one, whether you are grieving one or wishing for one, you are seen. You are so valued. At least by this one.
Happy Mother’s Day.