A woman's place
Editor's note: this post is from May, but totally relevant today as we celebrate International Women's Day!
In the last week I’ve been doing lots of reading on powerful women and watching the coverage of women’s marches around the world, and I’ve been feeling inspired by that action. It’s refreshing to see women coming together, because trust me, women are a force of a nature when we unite.
Unfortunately we’re not all able to march in these marches, because of a million reasons. And that’s ok, I like the renewed inspiration that comes from them and it reflects some thinking I’ve been doing about my own life and my role as a woman and mother in the world.
At the close of 2016 I lost one of the most important people in my life…ever…my amazing mother in law. That loss quickly catapulted my brain into constant reflection mode: who am I, why am I here, and who do I want to be? That’s what grief does, makes you question everything. I saw myself through that experience, fast-forwarding to being in my 60s, and hoping that I would be happy with everything I’ve done, and then continuing on (as she was not able to do, which breaks my heart). And I made some pretty big decisions about how I was going to conduct my life.
I won’t bore you with the details, but I will tell you that most of my “goals” come from a place of feminism in modern times: I want to be a motivational and worldly mother, I want to inspire my boys to respect women, life and love and craft their own lives to serve others and treat everyone they meet as equals. I want to be fulfilled in my own artistic endeavours, and leave something for my boys, and my grandkids, should I be so lucky to have them. And I want to be a better woman. Not just a better person—I think that ultimately I want to concentrate on how I can be a better female role model and show the next generation what women are capable of.
Ashley Judd’s Women’s March spoken word last year was good. But often times we speak louder than we act. While I know as a mom, as a wife, and as a woman I talk a big game about how I can kick ass—in the next few years I want to LIVE those words and walk the talk as a mom. I want my boys to think of me as the most supportive mom ever who helped them chase their dreams and accomplish their goals. I want to be a MIL to their partners like mine was for me, and I want to help my friends and other women understand their potential to leave a very significant mark on this world.
I have always believed that women have the power to uniquely shape the world and how it’s run. I’m not one to discuss in too much detail my feminist beliefs. But I don’t think I need to. The Bad Moms blog says it all:
Hey, look world, women are the foundation of society and responsible for the creation of the next generation. That responsibility gives us a lot of power and a lot of burden. So personally, I know that in order to be truly fulfilled in my life going forward, I intend to work hard at doing it all—all the things that will show my boys how much a woman is capable of, so that they can be in awe of women of every shape and in every form and in every role.
Because a woman’s place is wherever she wants it to be—wherever she leaves her mark. Because we are women, and because we can.
Xo Sara
