I was searching for books for my baby girl. I needed to add some to her wishlist in preparation for her birthday. We love books. We have more books in our house than balls in the ball pit. More books than we really have room for. It’s getting out of hand. In a good way. But we will always want more because books are so valuable to us.
I hopped online, but in my Amazon search for “books for girls,” the results were pretty much one-note. They were all about how girls can do anything, how girls are just as good as boys.
But I was just looking for books about mermaids, unicorns, and other silly things. My boy reads about trucks, animals, and other silly things.
Raising a girl is a distinct and high honor. I don’t take it lightly.
And neither did my parents.
My Parents
But here’s the thing: Never in my life did my parents ever say to me, “You can do anything a boy can do.” I distinctly remember my dad saying to all three of us girls, “You can do anything you want to do.” That was the end of it. No comparison to boys. Just an assertion that we could do anything we ever wanted. And he fully believed what he was saying. And he made me believe it, too. Thankfully.
I think that’s why I never remember comparing myself to the abilities of boys. It was probably easy because I didn’t have brothers to compete with. But at any rate, my raisins taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do. I have my own strengths. My own passions. And I have always tried to follow them.
Gosh, I want the exact same for my daughter.
So, the search results for baby girl books startled me. And irritated me. I have no desire to encourage my girl by saying that she “can do anything a boy can do” or, worse, that she’s “better than the boys!”
The Word
I recall Galatians 3.28, which says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In context, this verse is talking about how all of us are of equal value in Christ. Equal value! Neither is more valuable than the other.
And 1 Corinthians 12.4-6 says, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them… different kinds of service, but the same Lord… different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” While we’ll encourage our little girl to do whatever she wants, we’ll do it with her strengths, passions, and desires in mind–not by encouraging her to go out there and beat all the boys at their jobs, but by encouraging her to do her very best.
So, there will be no, “You can be anything a man can be.”
There will all of this: “You want to go for that job? Do it!” “Want to take that major in college? Absolutely!” “You want to raise a load full of kids? Sounds fun! How can I help?” “You want to be your own boss and start your own business? That sounds awesome!” “I’m so proud of you, sweet girl!”
And what’s more important is that we will say these exact same things to our son. Well, except we’ll call him our “sweet boy.”
Because, to me, ambition, ability, success– none of it is flavored by gender.