To Teach My Daughters

I've been thinking about this since roughly 2007. About that time, my friend Laura introduced me to Victoria's Secret eyeshadow and I thought I had died and gone to makeup heaven. It was the perfect color, didn't clump in the crease in my eyelids and lasted forever. I'm not sure what inspired my 19-year-old self to think it, but I thought, "When I have a daughter, I'm buying this for her as soon as she starts wearing makeup."

That was a bit of springboard. Since then, I've kept a running list in my head of things to teach my daughter. And while Lyla won't be wearing eyeshadow for at least 12 years (ahem), there are a few things I can start teaching her now. Or at least as soon as she learns to speak English.

I want Lyla to know not only about Victoria's Secret eyeshadow, but about Loreal voluminous mascara. I will teach her that it's better to spend a little more money on something you love than a little less on something you don't. I will teach her how to budget her money so she can buy everything she needs and a little of what she wants.

I will teach Lyla how to throw a ball like her uncles taught me—no throwing "like a girl" in this house. I will teach her how to do laundry, to put gas in a car, to run the dishwasher. I will teach her how to crack an egg and make gravy from scratch. I will teach her to play the piano. To lead music. To read.

image source

I will introduce her to my dear friends Harry, Ron and Hermione (and Sirius, Tonks, Lupin, Fred, George and the rest). I can't wait for her to fall in love with Atticus Finch, to pity Lennie Small, to love Gene and Finny, to cheer for Katniss Everdeen, to tolerate Elizabeth Bennet, to go on adventures with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, to learn from Aibileen Clark. We will start with Cinderella and The Cat in the Hat and work our way through her already-populated bookshelf and on to mine. I hope she loves books as much as I do.

I hope to teach her how to find her way around an unfamiliar city, so one day when she travels by herself she can get on a plane, a train, a bus. I want to introduce her to my favorite cities—to New York City, to Chicago, to Washington, D.C.

I'm starting now to teach her about God, about how much He loves her. I teach her about who she is, our family's potential and the blessings of the temple in my favorite trio of Primary songs—"I Am a Child of God," "Families Can Be Together Forever" and "I Love to See the Temple." Those songs have a lot of doctrine, and they build on each other. Have you noticed? I hope she notices.

image source

I hope I can teach Lyla to love her family, her friends and herself. I hope she remembers how beautiful she is, even though she lives in a world that distorts beauty. I hope I can teach her how to be both strong and soft, a capable woman with the capacity to love others with her whole heart. I hope I can teach her something about serving others and how we usually come out with the greatest benefit. I hope she sees that the greatest happiness in life comes from raising a righteous family. I hope she wants that in her life.

But today, I will teach her that I love her. That her daddy loves her. That she is wonderful. Because, you know, she is. She really is.