Her Choices Are Unlimited

Ally is my seven-year-old niece.  As she was opening presents at her birthday party (that included squirt guns, kites, and skateboards) it occurred to me that her life growing up will be quite different from when I was her age.  It will be still more drastically different from when her grandmother grew up.

Ally will never know what it is like to be considered a second-class citizen, without the right to vote, to own a business, or even be unaccompanied while shopping in town.  She won’t know that once the only option for women was to get married and have children.  In her world, there is no reason whatsoever not be an astronaut, computer technician, or politician. 

She will never understand why girls couldn’t play little league baseball or until recently, wrestling and football.  She will never know that it isn’t okay to wear pants to school or that black & brown aren’t “girl colors or that skateboards and squirt guns aren’t girl toys.

Ally won’t know that it was once unacceptable to love someone of the same gender and will think how funny we must have been to care about who someone loves.

Ally will know how to fix her own car.  She may also know how to sew on a button.  She can excel at science and know how to bake a birthday cake. These skills are not mutually exclusive in Ally’s world. 

Just thirty years ago women were expected to hold jobs like waitress or secretary, never CEO or airplane pilot.  Now Ally can be a racecar driver like her grandpa or run heavy equipment like her uncle. She can be a firefighter, biologist or detective.  There are no boundaries for her.

She probably won’t hear “You can’t do that because you’re a girl” or “Girls shouldn’t…” in her lifetime. Her choices are unlimited now.   What a wonderful world she is experiencing.