What I want from my daughter

My daughter is 14 months old and I am beaming with pride and happiness as she grows into a playful, happy, strong-willed baby. I was watching her play with her dad yesterday and suddenly I was gripped by a strange fear. I know that my husband and I will provide her with happiness and love of this entire world. I know that I will hold her hand and lead her when she needs guidance, I will support her when she is down, advice her when she is in trouble. But she will grow up soon. Sooner than I want. She will be going to school soon and soon become a teenager. She will get married one day. And after that she will be on her own. She will make her own decision. She has to decide what is right and what is wrong. She has to decide if she is choosing the right man for herself or not. I know that these fears are baseless, too far in the future. But I am scared. Because I want to lay a foundation for her so that she can make the right decision. I have to build a person, a woman who can choose the good from the bad. I am scared because I have a girl in my family, a 22 year old girl going out with a boy I don't approve of . She is head over heels for that boy and he knows that. She breaks up with him but he comes and shed two tears and patches up with her again. She hears nothing, sees nothing except for that person. Why do girls, educated girls become blind like this ? Why they fall for wrong guys even though they are ill-treated in their relationships? Why don't they have power to break a relationship even though they are miserable? Why? And she is so called "modern girl" who believes that wearing cleavage showing dress makes them liberated and forward. They are so wrong. So wrong that I feel angry at them. 

Your thoughts and actions make you liberated. Your belief in yourself makes you liberated. Your respect for yourself makes you liberated. Having a boyfriend and wearing short clothes doesn't make you modern. Don't think that I am against western clothes or boyfriend. I wear them myself and I married my boyfriend . But I believe that girls and women need to understand that strong women are born from their minds and not from their clothes.  Girls who wear salwar-kameez are considered ignorant. Hindi speaking women (in US) are considered hard core desi. Why? If you have seen "Fashion " movie you will realize that Kangana ranawat's character and life showed exactly what women in modern era are going through. They get beaten up, slapped, insulted, ignored by their boyfriends(leave alone husbands) but they still cannot muster the courage to leave these relationships. And I think I might know a little bit of answer for this. The absence of love and support from their family.  

When a girl doesn't have a good family or family support , she starts to search for this love outside her house and many times end up with the wrong man. She tries to make the relationship work for the fear of loosing her support and only love she has. She tries hard to chase the illusive love. She searches for that loving dad and a concerned mother in her boyfriend. She wants to be cuddled and hugged, cared for and embraced . And it is our responsibility as parents to make sure that we give them that foundation so that they can grow into strong women. So that they don't search for that lost love in wrong hearts. We as mothers and father have to fill that vacuum in their hearts. And we have to provide all the love so that they don't look for that outside among strangers. And especially all the mothers, take charge of your daughters. We need to starts from the day our daughters are born. We need to give them a safe environment so that they feel protected and supported. Fathers play a very important role in a girl's life. They will always look for that fatherly figure in their partner. 

I hope I can make a responsible and strong woman out of my little daughter. I hope I can give her all that she needs to make right decisions in her life. And not only me , but I hope my husband can be an example for my daughter so that she chooses the right man when she grows up