If I should have a daughter

Inspired by Allison's blog post last week, I decided to do some scrounging of my own through my Google Drive. Unlike Allison, my Google Drive has been perfectly organized since middle school, and I was able to quickly find excerpts from poems submitted to writing competitions, as homework assignments, and others that were written in preparation for my hopeful aspirations of writing a novel in the far future. As I began reading through them, I was (and I"m saying this as non-narcissistically as possible) shocked. Surprisingly enough... the poems were actually good. So here it goes. With a few alterations with the life lessons I’ve learned over the past five years, here is my reminder of parenting skills when one day in the future, I am bestowed with a daughter of my own. 

If I had a daughter,

I would tell her

that in order to begin one thing, 

you must end another.

And to shine,

you must not aspire to

outshine others.

That she should not give in

to the pounding,

but rather rise even taller.

If I had a daughter,

I would paint on the ceilings,

the universe, 

our beautiful cosmos, and 

lift her up to touch them.

So that when people tell her

to reach for the stars, 

she can raise her hand proudly,

and say “I already have.”

If I had a daughter,

I would tell her 

that the glass is half full,

that the sun and the bright side

 is always there, and that even

when you can't see 

your firmly planted feet in front

of you, they're always there

to guide you through life. 

If I had a daughter,

she would know 

that her mother

will always have her back, 

but that she should always look forward,

for evil will always lurk.

That life will keep throwing rocks at you, 

but you should catch them and 

turn them into gold.