She is a child

When you raise fantastic daughters, people, including your spouse, your parents and their teachers get confused. They think your daughters are adults. And you have to remind them, "No, she is a child."

One day, my parents, who have a very close and intimate relationship with my girls, are at the dinner table and we are discussing Julia's thoughts about being a dentist. And my father says, "Do you know how expensive it is to set up a practice? And then what will you do if your husband gets tranferred and you have to leave that investment?"
So, in an effort to stop what I perceive to be an escalating situation, I try to intervene. My daughter, who is only 16, answers, her best child answer but to no avail. My father yells, "You are acting like a child!" And of course, she starts crying, because this is her grandfather who has always been patient and kind and loving and now has suddenly become belligerent and challenging. I look at her and say, "You are dismissed." She goes upstairs to her room, crying. And I look at my parents and say "What are you doing? She answers like achild because she  IS a child."

They stood up, walked out my front door and drove home. Probably the biggest slap in my face, as well as my daughter's, as we could ever imagine. I did not call them to ask for an explanation or an apology. Or to offer one. We were not wrong. It was a turning moment in which I stood my daughters' ground, not as a daughter to my parents but as a mother to the next generation of women.

Strong, ethnic families keep their daughters locked in times past.

My eye is to a better future in which we embrace our daughters' excellence.