“This man stepped up and took care of this amazing little boy when his daddy was taken from this world. Connor asked if he could ask Jonathan to adopt him. ‘Why do you want to do that?,’ I asked. ‘To make it official,’ he replied. ‘I want to surprise him.’”
‘I will always have my dad in Heaven. Will you be my father forever?’ My high school sweetheart was shot and killed at a party. I was left a single mom, lost without my best friend.’
‘As I looked in the mirror, I immediately started critiquing myself. Then I heard my daughter tell my husband, ‘She really IS Wonder Woman.’ My heart just stopped.’
“I go to bed and beat myself up for all the things I didn’t do perfectly that day. They go to bed with smiles, and I fall asleep with a panic attack. I see scars everywhere from the life I’ve survived.”
‘You left your husband with ALL of the kids?!’
“Seriously. What is this? Right along with, ‘Is Justin watching the kids tonight?’ For crying out loud.”
‘Up until this moment I refused to call them ‘mine.’ I referred to them as ‘ours.’ The social workers’, the state of California, the taxpayers. That day, they became MINE.’
“There was no logical reason, in our minds, to start a family. But, as soon as those girls locked eyes on mine I knew… I would kill or die for them.”
‘My daughter would question why I wasn’t wearing a two-piece bathing suit. I would tell her, ‘Mommy just doesn’t feel comfortable in it.”
“When she would push for me to explain what I meant, I would just deflect the conversation and bring up a new topic. I know that I am supposed to model a positive body image for my daughter.”
Moms, it’s up to us to raise daughters who don’t tear each other down
“Want to raise strong, confident and empowered little girls to lead the next generation? It’s time we all act as role models and empower the women around us, today.”
