Teaching Our Daughters To Find Their Voice

How many times have we, as women, decided not to ask a question or share a comment for fear of what others would think? I know I’ve done this repeatedly myself, and I’ve become even more aware of it as I try to raise my daughter to be self-confident when she communicates. And yet, just last week, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I completely undermined those very lessons.

We were at our local zoo enjoying a reptile presentation by junior docents. My almost-five-year-old daughter was listening to the docents share facts about the animals before they would allow the children to touch the reptiles they had put on display. My daughter was completely engaged, so when they ended the presentation by stating they would take questions, my daughter’s hand immediately flew up.

I am fairly embarrassed to admit that I (quietly) told her to put her hand down, and then proceeded to inquire what she was going to ask. I’d like to say I wanted to help phrase her question, but the (awful) truth is that I was passing judgment on the content of her question. Was it relevant? What would the other parents think of her? Of me?

My daughter looked up at me with her wide, innocent brown eyes, and said in her little voice, “I just want to ask them if some snakes have stripes. Oh, and I want to tell them my brother has a hamster!”

She pouted a bit, then added, “Why can I not ask my questions?” I stared at her as so many misgivings swirled around my head: Are those questions necessary? Is it relevant to share about the hamster? Why do you care if the snakes have stripes? Why do you need to bring attention to us?

I sucked in my breath, knowing intuitively that I should be ashamed. Why would I inhibit her this way? Why would I suddenly make her care what other people think? Her face clearly indicated that she knew I was holding her back. Why would I do that to her?

Couldn’t I remember as a young girl when I became socially aware to the point that I would no longer want to speak in public for fear of bringing attention to my (less than confident) self?

I couldn’t do that to her, too, especially at such a young age. Time and adolescence would certainly take care of that, and I’d soon be fighting against many engrained gender cultural norms. So shouldn’t I start training her to find her voice nowrather than undermine her?

I quickly backpedaled, and told her of course she could ask her question, and that I was just curious about what she had to say. She was skeptical but relented. Her hand flew up again, and she very clearly – very loudly – asked her question about the snake stripes (and of course shared the bit about her brother’s hamster). I could feel the eyes of all the parents in the room boring into both of us.

There she was, this little person, barely out of toddler-hood, speaking unabashedly in such a confident voice. Because in my daughter’s heart, her questions mattered. And, at some visceral level, that meant she mattered.

My eyes started to tear up, even as I was dimly aware of the junior docent trying (admirably) to answer the question in a meaningful way. My daughter was rapt with attention, and I was transported back to the many times I didn’t use my voice when I should have; the times in the classroom or in an office meeting when I kept my questions and opinions to myself for fear of how others would judge me. Yes, with time we learn what’s relevant to a conversation, but so many times we don’t speak for all the wrong reasons.

So many times we allow our voices to be submerged by the ocean of other people’s unspoken thoughts.

I was really proud of my little girl, but I am not naïve; I know that there will be a time in the not-so-distant future that she will not speak when she wants to, when she should. How many girls suddenly go silent in the classroom, in the boardroom, or even in a relationship? How many of us lose our voice, only to have to work so hard to find it again?

So I am consistently trying to help my daughter appropriately speak her mind without fear or misgivings about what others will think of her or say about her behind her back. I know it seems like she is so young to start those lessons, but so much of our female passivity is engrained subtly (and sometimes overtly) in our culture, that I don’t think it’s too soon to start giving her the self-confidence to find her voice – and keep it. To make her understand that yes, she matters.

What is most moving, though, is that at not even five years old, my daughter taught me an unexpected lesson about myself that day at the zoo: As much as I hate to admit it, I still care about what other people think of me, especially when I speak . . . and that means I sometimes don’t communicate when I should. I thought I put all that behind me in high school; clearly not.

And if I’m going to help my little one continue to use her voice constructively and effectively, then I need to find and use mine, too. Because if she gets the message that I don’t think what I say matters, then – one day – she may think she doesn’t matter, either. And I’d certainly have something to say about that.

* This article originally appeared on The Mommy Vortex.