One of my biggest fears is that my daughter is going to grow up to be a little whiney bitch.  The thought of The Munch being a pussy girl makes my heart twist into roots of the deepest misery spawned from the darkest imaginative nightmares of Edgar Allen Poe.  Weak women who are scared to be strong, athletic, opinionated, angry, vulnerable, in love, in hate, or truly awake make me so deeply saddened, and I want more than anything for The Munch to be bad ass.

I know that I am hyper critical of myself, and I tend to extend that same gaze onto The Munch which isn’t really fair.  After all she is barely 18 months, and still has a lot of growing to do.  But I find myself often looking into every moment and wondering how it is going to shape her personality in the future.  Sometimes she is very independent, can self-entertain for hours, and will politely say “bye mommy” when I leave her in the arms of another.  Then there are other times when she can be clingy, want me to carry her constantly, cry the second I try and have someone watch her, or have a total meltdown because she fell and got some snow on her butt.  It is those times where I start to project into the future and feel immense amount of stress because I want her to be a strong, bold, and fearless.

Then I had a conversation about my mom about this and she told me “Yeah, you went through that stage.  You were very dependent, whiney, and afraid to go on the merry-go-round by yourself.  But eventually your father made you get on that dumb ride, and you were very proud of yourself.”

It was like this “A-ha” moment for me!  At times I was a little bitch myself!  I can’t just assume The Munch is going to be this same person for the rest of her life…  a larger version of someone who wants blueberries then claims that she doesn’t.  You can’t predict how your kid is going to turn out because there are so many other influences in life yet to come.  The best you can do is be an example of what you respect, and hope that it somewhat inspires them.