We Can Do It!

This link went around my Facebook feed last week, I believe originally from Stephanie, and I loved it for obvious reasons: it’s about a mom showing her daughter that, yes, women can (and do!) work on cars.

http://www.thescientificmom.com/2012/11/we-can-do-it.html

I could quote from the blog post, but really, go read it yourself.  It’s pretty short and we’ll wait for you.

I just absolutely love this article.  When the daughter said, “girls don’t work on cars!”, the mom didn’t get huffy.  She didn’t just tell her daughter that that’s not true and leave it at that.  She got her daughter involved and showed her how to work on the car; the daughter has now had a personal experience of a girl working on a car.

This is so important and so much better than just telling the daughter that, hey, somewhere, sure, women work on cars.

Obviously if Kira ever comes to me and says, “mom, girls can’t do brain surgery”, we probably won’t grab the nearest kitchen knife and go looking for a volunteer to cut open (though, hey, if anyone is interested in a discounted operation…), but in that situation there are other ways to provide the personal experience.  Visiting a female surgeon, for example, or sitting in on a college class.

During my years as an English nerd, we were told over and over to “show, don’t tell”.  I hope I remember to do that as a parent, too, and have a daughter who knows that girls can ride motorcycles and turn wrenches and play hockey.

(I know I’ve used this picture before but it seemed topical! 😉 )