I Want My Girls To Be Loved

My dream is that my daughter lives in a world where women are treated as equals not sequels, and that in her lifetime women in the developing world have access to education and contraception.
( Kathy Lette )

My dream for all the daughters of the world is that they know their self-worth and always expect the best for themselves personally and professionally.
I dream of a day when all daughters understand their true feminine power and what a positive force it can be for the betterment of humanity.
( June Sarpong )

I want my girls to love and be loved.
I’ll do my best to help them to grow up to be confident and pursue their ideas and dreams.
I hope that they have curiosity and explore the world around them with energy and openness, and are kind and generous to the people that they meet along the way.
I wish that they don’t feel any pressure to look or believe any differently, as they are beautiful just the way they are.
( Louise Nason )

Mother’s Cry.
Sixteen years ago, rubbing my tummy, looking forward to a healthy bouncy baby, my baby.
Every kick I felt I was sure he was a footballer as his father was a goalie.
All the agony went when I heard my baby come.
Images of being a good mother were always on rewind in my head.
All the things I never had he was to have, love and protection.
Sixteen years later I’m in court and as much as I wanna wake up from this dream no alarm seems to be coming to my rescue.
The judge’s hammer brings me back to reality as he bangs it down and utters 20 years in jail, no appeal.
I can only guess the lawyer said we did all we could, I’m sorry, as the world crumbles before me.
My baby was going to jail for murder.
My head is spinning with questions and the answers I haven’t got.
Where did I go wrong, is there a God up there, why me.
Why my baby, is it the television, video games, that caused my baby’s life to be taken away from me.
Who has the answers, no one it seems.
I realised mothers only help bring kids into the world.
Once they are here, they have their own minds, souls and choose their own friends and destiny.
What got into my baby.
What was I to do, the world associating me with this murderer.
A word I refuse to play in my head as he is my baby.
The news I read in papers, my reality now.
How I wish mother earth could swallow me, as nothing seems to make sense any more.
Am I a murderer too?
Oh I wish mother earth could swallow me.
People give me weird looks and friends disappear like sunshine in winter.
But for the sake of my baby I’m gonna be strong.
Because he is my baby.
( Gray Rwanga )

I dream that when my daughter looks in the mirror she will always love and value what she sees.
That she finds a sense of purpose that she is passionate about and that it propels her to make a positive difference.
That she will have balance in her life – to work hard but to remember to stop and find pleasure in the beauty of the world around her.
That she will continue to be the brave, kind person she is today, and that she remembers to be tolerant of people, as everyone is fighting a battle.
( Linda Papadopoulos )

My dream for my daughter is that she may contribute to the world’s cause for peace, health and equality, and that she has integrity and deals with life’s challenges with grace and effectiveness.
( Helen Lederer )

My Parents Didn’t Have Easy Lives.
My parents didn’t see their role as indulging us then getting on with their easy lives.
They didn’t have easy lives.
Instead, through their relative hardship, they taught us values.
We didn’t whinge in restaurants because we weren’t taken there.
We didn’t demand a player’s name on the back of the latest football shirt because we didn’t have the latest football shirt.
We didn’t negotiate how many hours we could spend in front of a screen, we were simply sent to bed.
Parents today let their kids believe it is possible to have it all.
And when they try to get it, they are too blind and selfish to take the blame.
The real horror story is that parents today are so wrapped up in their own pleasures they have stopped communicating with their kids.
Is it any wonder they turn to chatrooms for their human connections?

My dream for my daughters is that they will always be as charming, happy-go-lucky and funny as they have always been.
I hope that they will have the confidence to do what they want to do, and that they will discover jobs that they love and feel proud to do.
I hope they will be brave enough to stand up for themselves and for others, and that they will be lucky enough to have daughters to love as much as I love them.
( Louise Minchin )

I dream that my beautiful girls grow up in a world that cares – for people, the environment, and animals – and that they care for each other.
May they never face bigots, bullies or cruelty.
May they be in the best possible health and if they ever find they are not, may they be cared for by kind people.
May they live in a society that doesn’t judge them and may they follow their dreams.
I hope that they always know laughter, even through tears, and that they never forget that they are loved unconditionally.
( Gaby Roslin )

My dream for my daughters is that they will have the judgement to help them make the right decisions when I’m not there to guide them, that they will travel widely, speak freely, feel deeply and make many friends.
I know they will appreciate that safe motherhood is just a dream for many people.
I dream that I’m blessed with enough time to watch them grow into beautiful, strong women.
( Tina Hobley )

My Mum is a lovely woman, so strong but so kind and compassionate.
She brought us up to be proud, loving and forgiving.
( Rebecca Ferguson )

Our Society Has Destroyed Innocence.
You can’t change the weather by fiddling with the barometer, and you can’t fight the sexualisation of children with symbolic, futile gestures and bans.
Once we dumped lifelong marriage, and decided that sex was just a game played for fun, like tennis, we licensed every form of sexual activity that didn’t happen to disgust us at the time.
The problem with disgust is that there’s no absolute standard for it.
What people thought was disgusting 30 years ago is normal now, and what we think is disgusting now may easily be normal 30 years hence.
Our society has worked hard to destroy innocence, with explicit sex education, the abolition of taboos and the marketing of adult clothes and cosmetics to little girls.
Modesty is derided as repression.
When I attacked a range of sexually knowing dolls for little girls, Slutz, I think they were called, I received angry letters from mothers saying there was nothing wrong with them.
God help us.
Nobody else will.
( Peter Hitchens )

What I hated then – and hate now – is the way that people say to girls like me who get pregnant young that it ruins your life.
Having a child is a blessing.
( Rebecca Ferguson )

For years, I played the role of the perfect child – until the teenage years arrived.
Then it was very different.
Mum is one of the most respectful and diplomatic human beings one could dream of.
( Poppy Floyd )

Birth is a happy, dangerous, emotional mystery, and celebrating is an irresistible impulse.
( Libby Purves )