INSPIRATION GENERATION

My generation of women demonstrated against the Vietnam War, burned our bras, and founded the Women’s Lib movement. Along the way, some of us discovered drugs and free love. My friends and I wore bell bottoms, competed for corporate jobs, and had nannies.

Our daughters watched. They watched their Mommies pack lunches, wear pearls and pantyhose, write business plans, and worship Steven Covey. They also watched us cook meals, schlep them around to soccer games, and bake cookies. Our daughters were much more observant than we thought they were. They learned from us.

Our daughters learned how to multi task. Some of them became techno geniuses and helped invent the gadgets that have made multi tasking so manageable. Others used their burgeoning awareness of opportunities for women to become highly paid professionals in careers that were not yet open to their mothers’ generation.

This group of talented girls, now into their twenties and thirties, makes achievement look like a walk in the park. They have careers. They run marathons. They cook like Ina Garten. They look like Cameron Diaz, and they entertain like Martha Stewart.

I have observed my two daughters become women that I could never imaging being. One speaks Spanish fluently, teaches high school, and mentors inner city children, while keeping horses and showing them regularly all over the country. My other daughter is a talent agent, a wine consultant, and a professional hostess who schedules wine tastings and dinner parties several times a week

I have been in awe of both of my girls since they were teens. They do things right now that I still have on my bucket list. They are confident, bold, and a little sassy! They lead their lives instead of following life, a job, or a man around.

Now they are approaching parenthood. I know my girls won’t be the Mom I was. They will be efficient, involved, inspiring, and yet nurturing. They will tire themselves out and sell themselves short, just as we did raising them. But just as our generation learned from our Mothers, this group of enterprising young women has done the same. Unlike us, they won’t put off adventure in favor of parenthood. They won’t worry about starting families in their thirties or beyond. They won’t work for others—they will create their own enterprises. Our daughters will be their own bosses. Call the shots.

My girls don’t think I am watching them. But I do. And what I see them doing each day enthralls and amazes me. This generation of young women is ASTOUNDING.

Their Mothers and Grandmothers take all the credit.