Dear Maya
By: Deliana Escobari
Tags: Parenting, Newborn, Motherhood

Welcome to the world! It’s going to be a wonderful ride.

I have to admit when I first found out you were a girl, I was scared. You are about to enter a world that is not designed exactly for you but confusingly, will have many opinions on how you should act.

You will experience subliminal messages. You probably won’t explicitly hear it, but the world you are being born into today is like this: When we say words like doctor, entrepreneur, scientist, or lawyer, our first reaction is to picture all those characters as males. When we talk about toys, building blocks, cars, and tools are for boys and little kitchens, strollers, and dolls are for girls. There are boy magazines and you can tell because the cover usually talks about space, mechanics, and geology. There are girl magazines and you can tell because they talk about sparkles, cute boys, and hair. You will feel pressure to look younger and more beautiful, regardless of age and regardless if you already are young and beautiful.

You will experience discrimination. As a woman today, you are likely to get paid less than a male with the same qualifications. Depending on your career path — but as a rule of thumb, if it pays well — it is almost assured that your gender will be underrepresented. This will only get worse as you start climbing up the ranks. Your work and opinions will have an additional level of scrutiny compared to your male peers. The reaction will likely be directly proportional to the magnitude of your insights. If you choose to have kids yourself, your career will likely suffer. And this will be a cakewalk compared to any entrepreneurial ambition you may have; women-owned businesses have historically received only 2% of venture capital funds.

You will experience dangers just by virtue of being a woman. Women are more likely to get sexually harassed, raped, or experience domestic violence. Women are overwhelmingly victims of gun violence as opposed to perpetrators of gun violence. It will be more dangerous for you to road trip alone, camp alone, walk alone, or even help someone pulled over by the side of the road.

These are risks that, unfortunately, I can’t protect you from, and while males have challenges of their own, I have personally seen or experienced most of the things I’m talking about and it makes it hard for me to let you live your life. To me, the most exciting part about motherhood is to see you grow and make choices. To see what kind of person you become and see all the things you are going to do. To watch someone go from not being able to lift her own head to riding her bike for the first time. I want to see you discover the world and hear how you interpret it. I want to see you make dumb choices and learn from them. But know that I’ll be struggling to appease the part of me that knows of the risks and shortcomings of today’s world and wants nothing else but to wrap you in bubble wrap and disconnect the internet.

I will also struggle not to push you to be a badass. These things I mentioned are clearly things that are not right. But I also refuse to see you, and myself, only as victims. I hope I won’t need to ask this of you, but I would want my kid to think of today’s problems as problems she needs to help solve. Your dad and I worked hard to give you a good base to start with and I want you to use it as a platform to make life better for those around you. Regardless of your gender, I would still have pushed you to think of ways to solve climate change, so I won’t hold back on that.

As your mom, I think of these things that are scary and infuriating, but know that the world you are being born into has a virtually unlimited supply of wonderful things to experience. There are beautiful places to see, delicious food to eat, and lovely people to meet. You have a dog-brother named Benji who loves you and will cuddle with you unconditionally. He is really soft. You have parents that could not be more excited to take you fun places and teach you cool things. We will probably go climbing and someone, maybe you, maybe me, will end up in tears going up a route and we’ll laugh about it after. We will make a meal out of random things in the kitchen and high five even if it turns out poorly. You will visit your family in Bolivia and they will express their love through food and have get-togethers with family friends you have never met. You will still refer to them as “tíos” or “tías.” In short, you are being born into a family that loves you and will cheer for you at every step. A family that will continue to work hard to equip you with as many tools as possible to face the world and its challenges. May you make the best of them.

Love you forever,

Mom