Moms, if your daughter didn't think she could be President before Hillary Clinton won the Democrat nomination, you're doing it wrong. That's your fault.
It took me a few days to put my finger on why all of the "glass ceiling shattered" posts just rubbed me so wrong. And I woke up with the answer this morning: Parents, it's your job to raise strong, confident sons and daughters.
When I was a kid, a biracial child in Kansas in the early 1980s, I told people I was going to be President. I haven't wanted the job since about third grade, but as a woman and a minority, it never crossed my mind that I couldn't be anything I wanted to be, including President of the United States. I understood that becoming President meant working hard, getting good grades, and chasing my dreams. What other people thought I could do or couldn't do never entered the equation.
If you're telling your kids they have to wait until society or someone gives them permission, you're raising a child who probably isn't equipped to become President in the first place.
And all of these posts and the commentary about the glass ceiling being shattered are telling children that they somehow need everyone else's permission to follow their dreams.
We should be telling our children they can be anything they want to be if they put their minds to it and work hard. And when they are discouraged, we should tell them there will be set backs, but keep working at it.
It's lovely to have a mentor or to see your dreams in action in someone else. However, there might not be a mentor at the top of the ladder offering you a hand, and that's OK. You can make your way up the ladder yourself, especially when you know you've got friends and family and supporters cheering you on down below.
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