It doesn’t hit you until you’re older. You go through the motions of life: you grow up and you move on and don’t put much thought into how you learned to be the woman that you are. When you’re raised by a strong, intelligent, and outspoken woman, you learn things about yourself that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise.
You grew up in the real world and were shocked to discover that, somehow, it’s the 21st century and men around the globe still think they can control women. You were never raised in this environment, so that idea is entirely foreign to you. Growing up in a house with your mother as ring-leader made you view women a certain way—an important way. Seeing a woman head a household, head a career, or head of her own life gets you used to the idea of seeing women in leadership; a position that much of the world has never seen. She’s strong and intelligent, and she knows what she wants. She taught you to be proud of who you are and what you have to offer the world around you. It teaches you that you have a vital role to play, and that your voice can be used. Without even realizing it, your mother gave you a platform on which to use your own talents, and taught you how to be a woman in charge of her own life.
One of the greatest things about being raised by a strong woman is the fact that her passion, work ethic, and devotion extends to more than just her leading roles. Her heart is just as strong as her independence, and you know that she would take a bullet for you every day of the week if you asked her to. You hope that one day you can learn to love with as much passion as she has in one bone of her body.
She taught you without even realizing it how to handle what life throws at you. Whether she was tough and rigid or tender and compassionate, she taught you to face things with adversity. Even on bad days, your mom knew from experience that even when all the evidence was in the contrary, that everything was going to be okay.
