My youngest is applying for jobs and my husband and I do our best to help her with cover letters, resumes, and potential interviews. It's my job as a mom to do this -- to help my children in whatever way I can so they can get a little traction under their feet as they launch their young adult lives.
But it's not just my daughters I want to help. As the years pile on I want to encourage and support younger women, as many young women as I can. My daughters, my daughters' friends, my friends' daughters, the young women I work with, the young woman I see struggling everywhere. I remember what it's like to be them and I don't envy them at all. Hands down, my 20s was the most difficult decade of my life and I wouldn't want to relive it. I think it's a difficult decade for many women. They're making huge life decisions that are really tough to make, their fledgling careers are difficult to navigate, their debt and responsibilities often outperform their earnings. And then there's the prying questions they feel compelled to answer when someone oversteps their boundaries.
I want them to know they are smart and able, that their ideas are good ones, that they should take control of their finances now as a form of self care, that they have talents and abilities they haven't discovered yet, that they are imperfect and that that's OK.
What use is all the wisdom and life experiences I've accumulated all these years if I'm not willing to share what I've learned with others, to maybe help them in whatever challenges they face? Of course, maybe they don't want to listen, and that's OK, too.
When it comes to mentoring I think as a generation we are better at this than the generation that preceded us. I certainly hope so. I never felt like I had a lot of support from older women, aside from my female family members. Maybe Gen X isn't as competitive as previous generations, or maybe we're just used to collaboration. Maybe we're worried about our legacies, worried about what we're leaving for the generations behind us. Feeling guilty that we didn't do more to speak out against the problems that have gotten away from us -- climate challenges, threats to our democracy, social and gender injustices. If we had been paying attention all these decades would we be here now?
I'm not sure. And it doesn't matter. What I really want young women to know is, I'm here, I'm listening, and if I can, I'm happy to help.
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