1/14/2015
Dear Jennifer,
After the hubbub dies down, you are once again a mother. A dream come true. Every wish you’ve wished for the last four years, every sacrifice you’ve made, all to assume this mantle of responsibility.
It’s a big one, and it puts you in an uncomfortable position: one of power.
Power is a rocky concept. Nearly everyone who had it over you abused it. So you’re left with a thousand ways not to wield it, and few examples of how to.
And the more you analyze it, the more you see of the power you had all along and didn’t see. You have power to praise or insult. You have power to engage or ignore. You have the power to raise expectations or lower them.
You have power to stick to your boundaries, and power to respect others’. And the funniest thing of all is that you were given this power the day you were born.
And now, you have the power to model behavior. This mission you’ve been on, to grow upward, to live from love instead of fear, to increase in faith that everything actually does end up OK, because happiness is here and now and not dependent on achievements or goals—this mission is now more powerful than ever before. Because there’s an audience now.
So use your power for good, Jennifer. Use it for peace. Use it to show what personal power looks like, to teach your boys to keep their power and not hand it away to others. Teach them to make decisions that fulfil them, that empower them. Teach them to respect themselves and their schools, their government. Teach them to seek to change the world for the better, but to do so without violence or oppression.
Teach them by doing it yourself.
You have the power, Jennifer. The power inside of you to live from love. You have the power to be a good influence, and in doing so, to teach your children to be good influences, too. It’s every parent’s wish: to raise healthy children, kind children, children who will help the world be better for their children.
You have the power now. You always have.
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