The Girl Effect
by rosedeniz
At 12 years old, I was writing stories and poetry, illustrating my notebooks with doodles. I was thinking about my first crush and spending hours alone daydreaming. I never had to think about birthing a baby once I hit menstruation, raising a child through my teen years, nor not being able to attend school. I had choices. My family encouraged my independence.
I’m a mother to a two-year-old girl. A lot of the time I think about how important it is that I just stay alive for her, that I don’t die before I am forty like my mother. I delight in her joy, her freedom, her exploratory curiosity.
Sometimes I don’t know when to speak up. Speaking up takes courage. Sometimes I don’t know when to wait and let something pass. Knowing when to stay quiet takes authenticity. This past February, I wrote about
Medine Memi, the young girl buried alive in Kahta, Turkey, and the female Turkish writers and journalists who combat honor killings through their words and questions.
Keeping girls and women in the center. Not looking away even when it is tough, and finding solutions.
Authenticity and courage, two words kari m. said applied to my blog yesterday. After all the voice lessons, worries over the language of mothering, and awkwardness of standing out as a foreigner abroad, authenticity and courage seem something I aspire to. The fact that I can aspire, though, is a result of the fostering of independence that I was raised to believe was my right.
I only want the same for every other girl in the world.
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