I have always felt you girls are born special. You can do what you want to do, inside your homes or outside and look beautiful doing that. You can fight and kill (remember Maa Durga?). You can love and cherish (our very own Saint (Mother) Teresa in Kolkata is a shining example). You are a blessed child of God who can carry life (assuming both man and woman are needed for creating it). But you need to remember a few things. There are 3 Things I Want to Tell The Girl Child.
Why do I want to tell you all this? I am hoping some of you while Instagramming, and shopping on Amazon will stumble upon this post and get an advantage over those who don't. Less heartache for you dear girl.
Being born a girl is wonderful. You are truly sugar and spice and everything nice. You are grace, beauty, kindness and love. But unfortunately, life is a balance of opposing forces. You will always face challenges from not so nice things in life. What I tell you today will help you smash those challenges and make your way. Break those glass ceilings which we are still struggling with. These are the 3 Things I Want to Tell The Girl Child.
Must know Lesson 1
You should read. Read to learn, read to know, read to experiment and read to know how beautiful, wonderful and magical this world is. Read Malory Towers and Famous Five, read the Faraway tree and your regional language books. Read children's magazines and the newspaper (check with your parents about what’s suitable for your age).
Once you have fun reading, studying is not difficult.
Study hard. Harder than your neighboring Sarla aunty's darling Dipu, who is very intelligent only if he would take time to study. He doesn't do well because he just doesn't have the time to go through all the nonsense teachers teach him. In an attempt to outdo him don't try the experiment of finding the least amount of study time, which will make you do well. Believe me that never helps. Read your course material and interesting related stuff. You have access to the internet for different resources in different formats. Not only written words, but also video, audio slides everything!
Remember someone somewhere, came before you and may have made the same mistakes you are about to make. Life is too short for making all mistakes by yourself and learning from them. Read books by great women and men, who have been there and done that. You will save yourself a headache and heartache.
Must know Lesson 2
Time waits for no one. Do things on time. Make being punctual and time conscious your good habit. Be on time, study on time .marry on time, have kids on time and plan things on time. I know it’s loads of fun, when the movie heroine seems to be a scatter brain and gets everything in the end. Real life darling gets loads tougher. Until you are at the right place at the right time, the universe will not be able to help you. Respect time. Make it your best friend. Time is the biggest equalizer .The most successful and the richest have as much time in a day as you have. What is different is what you do with it.
Must know Lesson 3
Pray and persist. Now even if you are not the praying kind and don't believe in organized religion (I rebelled too in my teens). You can still pray to the Universe, right? That's one easy way to keep the faith and attract positive energy.
Persistence is prayers best friend. In school one of the favorite quotes our teachers used to say:
“God helps those who help themselves.
You pray hard and row for the shore.”
If things don't happen even when you persist, that’s probably for the best. Always have plan B and C in place.
Do the boys need to know this? Oh yes they do. But few will read this and fewer will understand. Those who do, will be people you want to know.
But why do I have to tell the girl child all this? Its because you have battles to fight, which you don't know about yet. You have to fight to get a chance to be born.
Stay strong Girl, the world rests on your shoulders! Tell this to every other girl child you know!
This article is a part of #BlogChallenge #ConfusedParent
Dr. Amrita Basu from HealthWealth bridge is the author of this article. October is the international month of the girl child and 11th October is celebrated the world over as the #International day of the Girlchild. This is my open letter as a mommy and a female professional, to girls all over the world.Life is going to be beautiful but not easy. You need to be prepared.